ITS Arcademy Advisory Board

Carlo Bach was born in Cologne in 1967. He is an artist, with numerous exhibitions both in Italy and abroad.

Since 1999 he collaborates on the artistic projects of illycaffè - a company which has chosen creativity as a language through which it expresses its own values and philosophy - and became Art Director in 2005.

He develops collaborations with the most renowned contemporary artists as well as with emerging talents, working on experimental art projects to then translate such experiences into the realization of the illy Art Collection, the signature espresso cups that are now a cult.

He is also responsible for the projects that the company develops in the fields of communication and design, among which the Illy Gallery - the temporary space imagined to describe illy's world of passions to the public - and the Coffee Pavillion created for the Milan Expo in 2015.

Tony Chambers is a Creative Director, Design Consultant and Editor. 
He is the founder of creative agency TC & Friends and co-founder, with artist Ryan Gander, of OTOMOTO – the design, art and ideas platform.
Tony is the editor and creative director of the definitive monograph of designer Paul Smith published by Phaidon and the Co-Chair of Brainstorm Design, Fortune magazine’s design & business conference.


From 2003 to 2018 Tony served as Editor-in-Chief and Creative Director of Wallpaper* magazine, for which he still contributes. He also served as Art Director of British GQ and Art Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine.
He has twice been named the PPA Designer of Year and twice Editor of the Year by the BSME. He is a recipient of the Mark Boxer Award for outstanding services to the Publishing Industry – the most prestigious honour in British publishing.

Tony sits on the board of Trustees of the Barbican Arts Centre and the Whitechapel Galleries Ventures board. 

Angelo Flaccavento is an independent fashion critic, writer and curator. He started his career at Dutch magazine, building a network of Italian and international collaborations. He is currently a columnist for The Business of Fashion and Il Sole 24 Ore, an editor at large at Vogue Italia, and a contributor to System, Pop and Arena Homme +.

He contributed to WSJ, Purple Fashion, L’Officiel Italia, Fantastic Man, Studio, The Gentlewoman. He curated the exhibitions Due o tre cose che so di Ciro and Il signor Nino for Fondazione Pitti Discovery in Florence in 2017 and 2015 respectively. With the mentoring of Pitti Immagine he developed and curated the tv series Le Italie della Moda broadcasted on Sky Arte HD in the autumn of 2014. In 2015 he conceived and curated the book 150 for Lanificio Reda.

Carlo Giordanetti is member of the Product & Design Committee of Swatch Ltd. As CEO of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, he is in charge of developing the project as a strategic element of the overall brand program. He comes to Swatch from Montblanc (2007-2012), where he served as Creative Director for all product groups. Previously, as Co-Founder and Creative Director of Brand DNA (2000-2007), he specialized in the development of branding concepts and brand (re)positioning in the luxury goods market. 


Carlo also brings extensive experience at Swatch to his new role. For ten years (1987-1992 and 1995-2000) he served in a variety of positions, including Vice President, Marketing, contributing actively to numerous projects involving art, brand-building events, new product development and the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games. He was also a member of the team that founded both the Milan and New York design labs of Swatch. From 2012 to 2019 he has been Creative Director at Swatch, responsible for a unified brand message across product, communications and retail.

From 1992-1995 Mr. Giordanetti worked at Piaggio, makers of Vespa scooters, where he established a new retail concept and directed the company’s first international communications campaign. He is fluent in several European languages and has lived and worked in Milan, Florence, New York, Paris, Hamburg, Zurich and now Bern.

Daphne Guinness is a creative polymath with a mission to produce and foster enduring art. She has worked with some of this century's most esteemed designers and photographers and is widely considered an authority on fashion, notably couture. She holds a unique position in the industry: straddling acclaimed roles as model, collector, commentator, performer and muse. She is perhaps best known for her work with photographers David La Chapelle, Steven Klein and Nick Knight/SHOWstudio, as well as her creative partnership and personal friendship with Alexander McQueen.

Guinness has worked across mediums including photography, film, design and most recently, music. She has released three critically acclaimed albums in partnership with legendary producer Tony Visconti.
Guinness’ support of new and undiscovered talent has been widely documented. In 2010 she purchased and preserved Isabella Blow’s iconic clothing collection from dispersion and subsequently established a charity in her friend’s name. During it’s nine-year tenure, The Isabella Blow Foundation raised funds for mental health initiatives and provided annual scholarships for aspiring designers at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design. Since its closure, Guinness has started and financed two additional annual scholarships there in her own name.

Daphne has written for a host of magazine publications in the US and U.K, and contributed forewords to books such as 'Alexander McQueen: Fashion Visionary’ by Judith Watt (Harper Collins, 2012), Dressed To Kill: Jazz Age Fashion by Virginia Bates (Rizzoli, 2012), and 'Art / Fashion in the 21st century' by Mitchell Oakley Smith (Thames & Hudson, 2013). "Daphne Guinness is a creative polymath with a mission to produce and foster enduring art. She has worked with some of this century's most esteemed designers and photographers and is widely considered an authority on fashion, notably couture. She holds a unique position in the industry: straddling acclaimed roles as model, collector, commentator, performer and muse. She is perhaps best known for her work with photographers David La Chapelle, Steven Klein and Nick Knight/SHOWstudio, as well as her creative partnership and personal friendship with Alexander McQueen.

Guinness has worked across mediums including photography, film, design and most recently, music. She has released three critically acclaimed albums in partnership with legendary producer Tony Visconti.
Guinness’ support of new and undiscovered talent has been widely documented. In 2010 she purchased and preserved Isabella Blow’s iconic clothing collection from dispersion and subsequently established a charity in her friend’s name. During it’s nine-year tenure, The Isabella Blow Foundation raised funds for mental health initiatives and provided annual scholarships for aspiring designers at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design. Since its closure, Guinness has started and financed two additional annual scholarships there in her own name.

Daphne has written for a host of magazine publications in the US and U.K, and contributed forewords to books such as 'Alexander McQueen: Fashion Visionary’ by Judith Watt (Harper Collins, 2012), Dressed To Kill: Jazz Age Fashion by Virginia Bates (Rizzoli, 2012), and 'Art / Fashion in the 21st century' by Mitchell Oakley Smith (Thames & Hudson, 2013). "

Luca Josi, born in Albenga, Italy, in 1966. Former professional journalist, he was secretary of the Socialist Youth Movement from 1991 to 1994 and was the Directorate and Executive of the PSI (Italian Socialist Party) in those same years. He founded the Einstein Multimedia group as President from 1994 to 2013.

He founded the Generational Pact in 2007. From 2016 to 2021 he headed the Brand Strategy, Media and Multimedia division of TIM (he was director of communication, commercial sponsorship and sports, events, media and commercial and multimedia content for TIMVISION, TIMMUSIC and TIMGAMES).

Currently he is still a director of the TIM Foundation for which he oversaw the greatest act of Italian patronage: the recovery of the Mausoleum of Augustus.

She graduated in Literature with a specialisation in Art History from the University of Florence; in 1984 she began to work with the Galleria del Costume of Palazzo Pitti and with Pitti Immagine, curating the realisation of some exhibitions and catalogues such as La Sala Bianca: nascita della moda italiana (Electa) in 1992 and, in 1996, on the occasion of the Biennale d’Arte e Moda in Florence, the catalogue of the Emilio Pucci exhibition (Skira). In 1985, she curated the first retrospective exhibition on Salvatore Ferragamo at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and its various venues at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1987), at the Los Angeles County Museum (1992), at the Sogetsu Kai Foundation in Tokyo (1998) and at the Museo Palacio des Bellas Artes in Mexico City (2006), starting with the organization of the company’s archive. Since 1995 she has been the director of the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo and she has also been responsible for cultural events around the world; since then, she has curated all the exhibitions organised by the museum and the related catalogues, including Audrey Hepburn. Una donna, lo stile (Audrey Hepburn.

A woman, the style) (Leonardo Arte) in 1999, Evolving Legend Salvatore Ferragamo 1928-2008 (Skira, 2009), Greta Garbo. Il mistero dello stile (The mystery of style) (Skira, 2010), Marilyn (Skira, 2012), Il calzolaio prodigioso (The Amazing Shoemaker) (Skira, 2013), Equilibrium (Skira, 2014), Un Palazzo e la Città (A Palace and the City) (Skira, 2015), Tra Arte e Moda (Across Art and Fashion) (Mandragora, 2016), 1927. Il Ritorno in Italia (The Return to Italy) (Skira, 2017), L’Italia a Hollywood (Italy in Hollywood) (Skira, 2018), Sustainable Thinking (Electa, 2019), Silk (Electa 2021), Women in balance ( Electa, 2022)In 2019, she was appointed as a member of the Study Commission for the identification of public policies for the protection, conservation, enhancement and use of Italian fashion as cultural heritage. She has been director of the Ferragamo Foundation since 2013.

Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she has organized more than two dozen exhibitions since 1997, including The Corset: Fashioning the Body; Gothic: Dark Glamour; A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk; Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color; and Paris, Capital of Fashion.

She is also the author or editor of more than 25 books, including Paris Fashion, Women of Fashion, Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power, The Corset, The Berg Companion to Fashion, and Fashion Designers A-Z: The Collection of The Museum at FIT. Her books have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. In addition, she is founder and editor in chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, the first scholarly journal in Fashion Studies.

Steele combines serious scholarship (and a Yale PhD) with the rare ability to communicate with general audiences. As author, curator, editor, and public intellectual, Valerie Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies and in raising awareness of the cultural significance of fashion. She has appeared on many television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and Undressed: The Story of Fashion. Described in The Washington Post as one of “fashion’s brainiest women” and by Suzy Menkes as “The Freud of Fashion,” she was listed as one of “The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry” in the Business of Fashion 500: (2014 to the present).