At the Fondazione Sozzani in Milan, fashion and art are rethinking and reflecting on their future. Until October 26, you can visit CirculART 4.0, a project by the Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte that redefines the relationship between creativity, innovation, and sustainability. It’s a collective laboratory where six young talents—three artists and three fashion designers—collaborate with some of the most important Italian textile companies to imagine a new, circular, and transparent production model.

Now in its fourth edition and created in partnership with the Material Innovation Lab of the Kering group, the initiative is not just an exhibition but a real co-creation experiment. Each work is born from a dialogue between art and manufacturing, between poetic vision and industrial concreteness. The authors are Camilla Alberti, Giulia Filippi, and Mako Ishizuka together with designers Made for a Woman (whom we already discussed here), Piero D’Angelo, and Martina Boero (Cavia), guided by a clear idea: beauty can also be ethical, traceable, and sustainable.

One of the most innovative elements of CirculART 4.0 is the Digital Product Passport, developed with Temera (Beontag Group). Each creation is accompanied by a digital passport that tells the entire supply chain, from raw materials to potential recycling. This technology makes visible what usually remains hidden, turning the object into a living narrative of sustainability and craftsmanship.

The project, also supported by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, involves 16 leading textile companies—from Albini Group to Zegna Baruffa Lane Borgosesia—who take center stage in a virtuous model of responsible production. A docufilm recounts the entire journey, from visits to the companies through to the opening, revealing the creative process that connects the works.

Inspired by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Third Paradise, CirculART invites us to reflect on a new balance between nature and artifice, between industry and artistic sensitivity. As Paolo Naldini, the Foundation’s general director, explains: “CirculART is the manifesto of our mission: to place art at the heart of fashion’s sustainable transformation.”

At a time when luxury and sustainability still seem to be searching for a common language, CirculART 4.0 shows that the answer lies not only in materials or technology, but in the way we choose to narrate and share what we wear.