In the streets of Milan, to find out a different kind of beauty

 

Photo by Thomas Ghilardotti

Words by Gianmarco Gronchi

Concept by Domenico Costantini and Gianmarco Gronchi

 

Walking at night isn’t easy. The surface of the city is endless. Eyes hover in the dark, looking for lights. And when they find it, shadows rise up, above the walls, through the windows. The one shape is still missing. We hear a sound. They may be voices or just the call-back of an urban sheltering sky telling you’re coming home. The concrete roads keep growing, bricks climb over the roof tiles, until they touch the pitiless clouds. And then faces. As many lips as voice tones. One o’clock in the morning. Porta Venezia is waking up. Maybe we should quit, but there is something that suggests we stay. This is us. Softer, harder, gentler: there is no single definition. Nobody has concessions from Milan. But it is the mistake we bring inside that makes us unique. Beauty? No need to look for it. It surrounds us, it is in every mouth, in every nose. It is in the blink of an eye. Two o’clock in the morning. Make-up is not a mask, but a way of being. In the streets, where all the bodies show their values. At night, when the outlook changes. The urgency of reality, of finding out real faces, real lives. Real bodies, living on that side of life where there is still time. Melancholy, love, tears, joy: all in all, a feeling of calm makes us sigh.

Three o’clock in the morning. The sky starts crumbling but the camera is still shooting: night goes on, and you feel like it never ends.