Thursday night in Milan, between the delayed runway shows of Milan Fashion Week, the pouring rain, and the masses of black platform stilettos (OC was instead in bamboo-printed Gucci wedges & a Chloe jacket), Armani's sleek exhibition space on Via Bergognone became a shrine to 1980s NYC-based street artist Richard Hambleton, his SoHo style gorgeously displayed between concrete columns and soft grey floors. And Opera Chic, if she had been born earlier, would have loved Hambleton's downtown NYC from-the-streets style, his life size oil on canvases full of Marlboro men and testosterone-black Shadowman, his pop expressionist canvases echoing the heroes of graffiti street artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Warhol who worked alongside him.
Curators Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Andy Valmorbida (in collaboration with Giorgio Armani, all three seen in the photo above) hosted the event, where OC spotted Clive Owen, Mario Testino, Pierre & Andrea Casiraghi, Eugenie & Stavros Niarchos, Lapo Elkann, Carine Roitfeld, Francesca Versace, and Rachel Zoe (photos after the cut) as she was sipping champagne and nibbling on canapes. This was Hambleton's first European solo exhibition since 1985, and Armani's gigantic concrete modern warehouse was the perfect venue to host over 45 original paintings, including 15 never-before-seen works. The exhibit “Richard Hambleton – New York” opens to the public on March first and only runs for two weeks. We're going back to check out the exhibition in calm, and this time we'll be wearing our shell-toe Adidas. No laces, all tongue.
~Go inside for the VIP treatment~
Clive Owen
Lapo Elkan
(Above: MarioTestino and Carine Roitfeld)