You may or may not have heard of @MODELCARDS. They caught our eye a while back, so we thought it was worth dropping the person behind the account a quick message to see if they could explain a bit more behind it all. Damiano kindly obliged.
Damiano, (AKA @modelcards) is an illustrator based in Milan, Italy. He has a deep love for street culture, football tees, fashion dramas and David Attenborough’s documentaries. His words, not ours.
Damiano also claims to have some questionable paintings hanging in house that represent his constant varied sources of inspiration. But we digress.
What we really wanted to know was, how did this project come about and where does he intend on taking it?
Anyway, enough form us – more from him.
CK: We’re going to to assume you’re a football shirt collector, is that right?
Dam: We Italians we are all born with a shirt, a football one. I haven’t been collecting them for long, although the very first one dates back to my childhood, a "Del Piero" shirt was my very first one.
CK: Based on that response would we be right to assume you’re a Juventus fan then?! So how did the project ‘Model Cards’ start?
Dam: The idea just popped into my mind one night during Christmas time, one of those feisty nights where you drink a lot and start mixing stuff together. Eventuality the situation got out of hand and I ended up mixing models with football cards. Quite a productive bender!
CK: Blimey – sounds it. Is there an old goal to the project or is purely experimental.
Dam: The purpose is to combine what I like most in life: illustrations, football and fashion.
CK: How has the work been received by the social/platform community and the models featured themselves?
Dam: It’s been nice so far, so nice that people in the industry have started to call me "models-cards" even in real life when meeting down the street. I wonder if they knew my real name in the first place...
CK: So far the account only features female models – do you think that will always be the case?
Dam: Not at all, I’m planning to cover boys too in the near future, I want the account to be as diverse as possible. I started with girls because football has been perceived for too long as a men’s game, but women too like football, and they play it!
CK: How do you see the project/account evolving?
Dam: I’m planning to draw and realise my own football shirt to begin with, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I want to bring fashion people close to the football world, I think they can do great things together if they join forces.
CK: You illustrate models strictly in international shirts – models in their native countries shirt?
Dam: Yes, for the time being it’s just models in their native country shirt, it’s the main essence of the page and project itself.
Dam: Indeed! I want to discover what the models’ favourites clubs are and illustrate them in clubs tees. It’d be a great opportunity to make other girls discover teams they probably don’t know about and develop a genuine interest in them.
CK: What do you like about the work you’re doing the most?
Dam: There are 2 aspects of the work I like the most: the research behind the choice of the model, which nationality she is, which designers and casting directors she’s been working with and the study of the football tee itself, story, colours and design.
CK: What other projects outside of @modelscards can you tell us about?
Dam: I’ve got a couple more projects, all involving graphic design and illustration, but they’re not ready to be published yet.
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