Ritual is a project that includes an Editorial and a Fashion Film, born from the collaboration between Milan-based stylist Chiara Trimigliozzi (@chiara_tri) and designer Aurora Dolce (@aurora_dolce), is inspired by the theme of ritual as a process of identity transition.

The association between the “feminine”, which here lies beyond its semantic and somatic boundaries concerning womanhood, with the eerie and the disturbing suspension that accompanies the incomprehensibility of the paranormal and mysticism delves into the roots of some little-known film genre that mixes elements retrieved from horror and mystery with complex narratives on female characters - films such as Joël Séria's Mais Ne Nous Delivrez Pas Du Mal (1971) or Peter Weir's more famous Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), but also the most recent Midsommar (2019) by Ari Aster, which is the inspiring sparkle of Ritual.

The unpredictability of Rituals’s theme is also revealing in its methods, since it is shot in both analogue and digital. The narrative revolves around the whispered ties between mysterious characters and a leading protagonist going trough a ritualistic process of transformation and rebirth; each garment, all made by emerging designers, contributes to sustain the recount and its symbolic values.

In the words of Chiara Trimigliozzi and Aurora Dolce: Ritual is about transition and rebirth, a hypnotic and inevitable dance that happens, swallows and then returns a new form. The metamorphosis of identity as a constant drive and necessary force to achieve a new balance that will also prove to be transitory - it is this concept that gave birth to the project. Inspired by Ari Aster's Midsommar, Ritual reflects on themes of rupture and rebirth through a collective medium such as ritual, which through the body, sacrifice, memory and repetition it is able to lead to a new individual and social belonging. Ritual documents this transition in its various stages: from the will to change, to the immersion in one's own interiority, to the adaptation to a new form, using different symbolic characters.

The choice of garments contributes to create ad represent the different characters in the different phases of the ritual: the protagonist initially wears a white pleated dress by Emilia Genova and her face is covered by a mask made by Dara Silva to conceal her identity in transition. At the completion of the ritual the protagonist undresses and reappears in the form of a “rebirth”: Devocka's dress is presented as an evolution of the body, a second skin symbolic of the achievement of a new balance.

A couple of matriarchal figures, mothers and stepmothers at the same time, lead and guide the protagonist through the ritual, aware of the inevitable; they wear structured sculptural garments realised by Aurora Dolce and masks by Dara Silva, reinforcing their imperturbability and the veil of mystery surrounding them. A perfect match to the two motherly figures as the concept of eternal love and the relationship between presence and absences is central in the designer’s own research. Other female figures - metaphors for innocence, pureness and benevolent forces - take part in the ritual: all wrapped in white clothes, they stand on the borderline between the real and the oneiric, envisioned by the designers Lucia Carmagnola, Claudia Valente and Andrea Rispoli.

The viewer is guided into an introspective visual journey, both real and surreal: Ritual invites you to observe, to rediscover yourself and to cross your own inner boundaries in a collective dimension.