About
Denise Bonapace
Designer/Creative consultant
Denise Bonapace is a designer, educator, and consultant whose creative practice ranges from fashion collections to installations and artworks exhibited in renowned venues including the Triennale di Milano, Stazione Leopolda in Florence, Palazzo Reale in Milan, and GAM in Genoa.
Since 2006, she has been teaching in fashion design programs at institutions such as Politecnico di Milano, the Fashion Institute of Technology, NABA, and Domus Academy.
Denise Bonapace is a designer who explores the relationship between the body and clothing. For her, fashion is a language of design applied to the body and to the individual. The foundation of her work views garments as relational prostheses — mediators between the wearer and the world. A powerful form of communication emerges from the union of person and garment, together telling a story of what they can express and achieve.
Her research and experimentation evolve over time, with each project contextualized within its specific social, cultural, environmental, historical, and economic moment. A pioneer in the field of sustainable design, she presented her project “Da Morto a Orto” at the 2011 Milan Design Week, “Rivestirmi” at Pitti Uomo in Florence in 2012, “Label” — a garment installation exhibited at Palazzo Reale in Milan during Fashion Week in 2017, and the short film “Vestimenta” in 2019, which won the documentary section at the Sarajevo Fashion Film Festival.
In 2020, she founded ABITARIO, a collective of women from different generations dedicated to sustainable production and upcycling, developing experimental prototypes for fashion brands, and creating workshops focused on garment care.
In 2025, with the project Dote Femminile, she co-designed an installation as a political manifesto celebrating feminine values through art and craftsmanship.