Alla Carta #25

Alla Carta is a bi-annual international publication that approaches high-end fashion, art and design in a unique Italian way. We truly believe in paper, carta in Italian. At a time when the web may appear to be the only valid avenue of communication, Alla Carta is an ode to the most precious of mediums and to the most precious moment of the day: our interviews always take place around a table, to celebrate one of the oldest Italian habits, conviviality.

This issue of Alla Carta is a collection of impossible interviews inspired by the renowned radio program "Le Interviste Impossibili". In 1974, the Italian Rai radio network invited several writers to imagine encounters with illustrious figures from the past, crafting not only the questions but also the answers.

As much as possible, the program’s interviews aim to avoid the far-fetched; the various authors sift through documents and collective memory to tell the stories of their interviewees through words that were actually spoken, could have been spoken, or perhaps should have been spoken. Yet in each interview, the strong sense remains that, in the futile effort of embodying the thoughts and attitudes of others, the authors are simply narrating themselves—their own interests, fascinations, and obsessions. Whether expressed in words or images, each interview, each portrait, ultimately becomes a self-portrait.

The authors in this issue reveal pieces of themselves through the faces, words, or objects of Achille Castiglioni, Ada Lovelace, Giulietta Masina, Giuseppina Morlacchi, Kiki De Montparnasse, Lea Vergine, Mary Magdalene, Monica Vitti, Natalia Ginzburg, Virginia Woolf and many others.