For the Spring/Summer 2026 season, Maria Calderara presents Via lactea, a poetic and visionary collection inspired by the universe of Japanese artist Satoshi Hirose. An intimate, imaginative journey exploring the concept of lightness – of air, sky, and gesture – translated into garments and jewelry that invite freedom: to move, to feel, to smile, to shine.

The new collection will be unveiled on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, at 6:30 pm, at Spazio maria calderara in Milan (via Lazzaretto, 15). For the occasion, Satoshi Hirose will create a site-specific installation, accompanied by a selection of archival works, open to the public until September 30, 2025.

Visual arts lie at the core of Maria Calderara’s practice. Since 2022, the designer and collector has collaborated with both established figures (Gianni Pettena, Luca Maria Patella, Antonio Scaccabarozzi, Piero Manzoni) and contemporary artists (Eugenio Tibaldi), creating capsule collections where art and design merge through constant research and attention to materials and textures.

“Play is fundamental; it is what we all need”, says Maria Calderara. “The woman who wears Via lactea should feel free, in balance with her own being.”

The collection originates from a symbolic image: the cocoon, a recurring motif in Satoshi Hirose’s work, reimagined here as a metaphor for rebirth and transformation. A cocoon that opens, giving life to a new, ethereal creature ready to explore the world with wonder.

Colors and materials range from white, lime white, sand, azure, blue, khaki, and black, with a touch of red – an unmistakable Calderara hallmark. Natural fabrics, crafted through artisanal techniques, accompany the body and amplify its movement.

Each garment is part of a narrative. A shirt with ruched sleeves recalls clouds or butterfly wings. The model emerges from the cocoon, moving lightly like a butterfly. Shirts with ascending shades tint white fabric as if it were an abstract sky. An irregularly woven white fabric, with threads pulled in warp and weft, creates a sky of soft, imperfect clouds. Teabags stitched between two layers of fabric leave delicate traces of time on long shirts and tops. An oversized white dress, essential in form, is enriched by hand-stitched blue dots and organic elements. Veiled by transparent muslin panels, like a memory that surfaces and fades, the visible intertwines with intuition. Flowing, airy skirts feature skies printed from Hirose’s Sky project. A fabric printed with collages of small works by the artist gives shape to an urban, contemporary look: wearable art to be observed closely. The iconic puppet dress, embroidered with pearls and beads, reinterprets Hirose’s Tama series. In Japanese, tama means “precious sphere”: pearl, soul, spirit of language.

Sculptural accessories, such as necklaces made of metal wire and different pearls, are like small wearable universes. Rings crafted with collages of handmade paper skies from Venice – a meeting point between East and West – sit alongside stone rings adorned with gold leaf, enhancing their uniqueness. Skies from the sky project – Your sky is my sky are pinned onto fluid shirts like thoughts, emotional maps, intimate geographies to carry on one’s chest. On the back of the lookbook, a round dress appears: a symbol of totality and cyclicality dear to both authors. Its surface, punctuated with tiny holes and white paint splashes, evokes distant stars in a silent sky. A delicate gesture connecting us to the Milky Way and the sense of mystery and connection that permeates the entire collection, suspended between visible and invisible. A tribute to beauty revealed in details, in lightness, and in the poetry of everyday life.

As Roland Barthes wrote: “If one wanted to philosophize, one could say that the being of things is not in their weight, but in their lightness. That which is good is light”.

The presentation of the collection at Spazio maria calderara (via Lazzaretto 15, Milan) will be open to the public. The venue will remain accessible until September 30, 2025, from Tuesday to Friday, 2:00–6:00 pm. Free admission.