Wilden.herbals meets / An interview with Laura Zura-Puntaroni

In the second week of December we were guests of Festa Foresta Jungle Market, an unusual Christmas market. A real jungle set up in the heart of Milan to take refuge from the cold and chaos of the city.

Part of the event was not only a selection of Festa Foresta fashion items, but also the perfumes of Masque Milano,  the new candles collection by 23bassi  and plants by le Georgiche. And how could our herbal teas be missing!

Festa Foresta is a brand born from the creative vision of Laura Zura-Puntaroni who is inspired by the key concepts of Nature and Enthusiasm. Each of her creations, designed and prototyped in Milan, is then made with the utmost attention to detail in small artisan laboratories. We immediately recognized it was a project with a philosophy very similar to ours, here’s how she tells it herself.

Tell us about your background and education

I trained as an architect, I studied at the Milan Polytechnic and graduated in 2017. After working for a few years at a large studio in Milan, I gave birth to my very own brand in the spring of 2020. It was a particular period of my life in which I understood that I had to direct my path towards something that I liked completely and that was totally mine. I threw myself into this project with the desire to do something that mirrored me, my world and my imagination. The project was born spontaneously without major strategies or marketing research, it was an evolution of my being. That’s where Festa Foresta comes from.

How would you describe Festa Foresta?

Simple – because simplicity these days is perhaps the hardest thing to achieve, but also sustainable, spontaneous and transparent.

What kind of work do you do on fabrics, how do you choose them and how do you design the model?

There is a part of the research that I take care of myself. First of all through the trade fairs for sustainable materials, in particular for stretch fabrics and swimwear materials. I like having the possibility to meet the suppliers and present my project.

Then we keep in touch online, up to the longest part of the test that precedes the final approval of the material. The timing depends on the collection but usually it lasts a whole year in which I try on the model and the fabric myself to understand the yield.

The design of the model does not always precede the choice of fabric, sometimes the opposite happens. In the case of our latest collection which was very small and made with a deadstock of silk and wool for example, I first found the fabric and then the models were born. In this case it is the model that has adapted to the characteristics of the fabric. Although this rarely happens for costumes, because it is generally the fabric that supports the model.

How did the collaboration with Wilden.herbals come about?

It all begins in the world of architecture, through mutual contacts or friends. We got closer because I’m a curious person by nature and because I found our values and ways of doing things are very compatible.

What I wanted to do was to promote a brand similar to mine, which spoke a common language and believed in the same things I believe in. And also that it was made by the same kind of people.

Healthy and wild is the motto of Wilden.herbals. What does it mean for you?

For me, being healthy is connected to the concept of feeling good about your body, which is central to my brand. And it also approaches the concept of making peace with your body.

And then what’s better than the word “wild”, since my brand is called “Festa Foresta”? In one of my latest collections, that of underwear in biodegradable fabrics, one of the concepts was precisely this idea of the primordial, free woman, wild, without restrictions. When I think of this word I think of the female sphere.