Francesca Zangrillo

Francesca Zangrillo is an Italian interdisciplinary designer, curator, and founder of the independent studio Dreizehn. An alumna of Polimoda and Istituto Marangoni, she spent six years shaping her practice within the cultural landscape of Berlin before returning to Florence. Working across fashion, contemporary art, spatial practice, and performance, she investigates the garment and the built environment as sites of cultural memory, collective experience, and transformation. Her work brings into dialogue the precision and heritage of Italian bespoke tailoring with the communal ethos, experimental methodologies, and ritualistic energy of underground subcultures.

Her professional formation encompasses experimental garment architecture and anatomical prototyping, refined through her experience at the fashion label Leon Emanuel Blanck in Berlin. She subsequently joined Atelier Ralf Schmerberg as Creative Producer, where she contributed to the development and coordination of contemporary art exhibitions, multimedia installations, and interdisciplinary cultural projects.

A formative chapter of her practice unfolded at MaHalla, a cultural centre in Berlin housed within a former industrial power plant. There, she was instrumental in the technical and spatial realisation of sensory environments, contributing to the transformation of industrial architecture into a site for collective experience, performance, and cultural encounter. This experience proved fundamental to the development of her spatial and curatorial thinking, establishing an enduring interest in the relationship between architecture, atmosphere, the body, and ritual. Rather than treating space as a passive container, she approaches it as an active medium capable of shaping perception, behaviour, and collective meaning.

Her interdisciplinary trajectory subsequently expanded through her role as Fashion Designer and Performance Strategist for Thelonious Stokes. In this capacity, she developed immersive performative environments and choreographed visual narratives culminating in a conceptual debut at Paris Fashion Week.

Now based in Florence, she continues to operate between creative direction, curatorial practice, and cultural production. Her current work includes the management of artistic residency programmes and the development of international cultural initiatives designed to facilitate exchanges between artists, designers, institutions, and emerging practitioners.

The genesis of Dreizehn represents the culmination of her multidisciplinary praxis, materialising as a delicate yet powerful collision between the exacting standards of Italian sartorial craftsmanship and the raw, ritualistic energy of the Berlin underground. Beyond a fashion label, Dreizehn operates as an experimental research studio committed to circular methodologies, zero waste pattern cutting, and the profound metamorphosis of upcycled textiles. Elevating traditional craft into contemporary spatial practice, Dreizehn conceptualises the garment as a living archive of collective experience, where rigorous aesthetics meet a deep dedication to memory and transformation.

Residency Projekt: DREIZEHN

Francesca Zangrillo is participating in a one-month artist residency at the MuseumsQuartier Wien, dedicating this period to the concentrated expansion of her independent fashion label, Dreizehn. Operating as a solitary creative force, she will transform her residency space into an active atelier. Within this environment, the physical and meditative act of sewing becomes a conceptual bridge, seamlessly connecting the rigorous disciplines of contemporary art and avant garde fashion design.

Throughout the residency, she will explore textile metamorphosis, navigating the profound tension between the precision of Italian bespoke tailoring and the raw energy of the underground rave culture in Berlin. A central focus of her daily practice will be the intricate execution of hand embroidery, conceived as a deep and personal homage to traditional craftsmanship. This immersive period of solitary creation will be further developed and presented through a runway showcase during Vienna Fashion Week on September 16. By treating the studio as a site for intense material research into upcycling, memory, and morphology, she ensures that garments marked by the signature red stitch of Dreizehn are elevated into living, evolving archives of shared human experience.