Italian pasta, in all shapes and sizes, is a perennial favorite in Italy and abroad. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that pasta also has a global influence on Italian fashion and design.
Italy is the world’s biggest exporter of pasta (estimated at $4.16 billion in 2022). It also tops the list in terms of per capita pasta consumption.
Uniquely blessed with regional recipes and food specialties that vary from place to place and even town to town, Italy boasts more than 400 different varieties of pasta,
Pasta as Fashion Influencer
Italy is so pasta-centric that it even influences fashion and design. A couple of recent examples:
At the 2023 Fashion Awards held in London in December, actor Anne Hathaway was draped in an elegant, ecru Valentino gown with a tasseled bodice inspired by strands of spaghetti.
Hathaway famously told Vogue, “I’ve always dreamed of being pasta!”
Vogue Italia named the Tortellino Bag the “it-bag” at Milan Fashion Week in February 2024.
Raised in the small village of Sarsina in the Forli-Cesena province of Emilia Romagna, designer Federico Cino credited his nonna (Italian grandmother) as the muse for the playful design. She was the one who taught him to cook tortellini in her kitchen.
The Echo100 Project
Now, Echo New York is celebrating 100 years as a storied maker of women’s scarves by launching a new, year-long charitable giving project. Called Echo100, the initiative commemorates this significant corporate milestone.
The company has chosen 100 international designers to create 100 bespoke scarves. Each scarf creator was able to select a non-profit group as the recipient of a $100 donation from the purchase of every scarf.
The wearable art is printed in a limited edition of 100 prints per design, which are numbered within the scarves themselves.
The “Pasta Scarf”
Among the Echo scarves released so far (approximately 50 to date) is one by Marianna Fierro, an Italian food and beverage illustrator based in the U.S.
Fierro was born and raised in a pizza shop in Udine, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy.
She has created a whimsical limited-edition print featuring illustrations of various pasta shapes. The 35×35” cobalt blue scarf with golden pasta shapes is made of a silk twill fabric and is printed in a limited edition of 100.
Fierro says her designs are inspired by the “flavors of her life,” including her Italian roots, farmers markets, breaking bread with friends, and, of course, pasta.
“I’m Italian, I’m made of pasta,” she says.
Check out the entire collection of Echo100 scarves, including designs, artists, charities, and pricing. Each scarf is packaged in a gift box with information about its designer.
The project may result in as much as $1 million in giving those in need.