Ferrari Fashion School is proud to share its collaboration with Fondazione Le Costantine, a historic institution that for over a century has promoted craftsmanship, sustainability, and social inclusion in the heart of Salento. This unique academic project involved second-year students from the three-year Fashion Design program and represented an important opportunity to engage with one of the excellences of Made in Italy.
Le Costantine: a heritage of weaving and female empowerment
Fondazione Le Costantine, based in a beautiful masseria in the province of Lecce, has been active since 1900 and is dedicated to preserving artisanal textile traditions through a sustainable and socially responsible model. The foundation’s manufacturing excellence has attracted the interest of major names in international fashion, including Maria Grazia Chiuri, former Creative Director of Dior, who has collaborated for years with Le Costantine in the production of unique and precious fabrics, handwoven by local artisans on traditional looms.
The project: a resort capsule collection between craftsmanship and innovation
The collaboration with Ferrari Fashion School took shape as an academic project dedicated to the development of women’s resort capsule collections, coordinated by designer and faculty member Lika Kubaneishvili. Students were tasked with integrating reclaimed materials and textile offcuts from Le Costantine’s artisanal production, combining them with natural fabrics to create modern and sustainable collections.
The design process emphasized the ability to merge cultural research with aesthetic vision, resulting in outfits aligned with a sophisticated lifestyle concept and capable of expressing each student’s personal identity—always with respect for the materials and their cultural value.
Education, territory, and social value
The project concluded with a final presentation of the capsule collections in the presence of Attorney Cristina Rizzo, President of Fondazione Le Costantine. In her speech, she highlighted the contemporaneity, freshness, and coherence of the students’ proposals, praising their ability to reinterpret traditional craftsmanship in a modern and conscious way.
This collaboration stands as a concrete example of Ferrari Fashion School’s experiential teaching approach, where dialogue with cultural and production-driven institutions of excellence becomes an integral part of the educational journey. At the same time, the project with Le Costantine conveys an important message: fashion can—and must—serve as a tool for enhancing local heritage, social inclusion, and sustainability.
