SPORTMAX @ Carte Blanche by Ambra Medda

SPORTMAX presents the fourth chapter of the “Carte Blanche” artist’s collection with Ambra Medda. “Carte Blanche”, the Sportmax capsule collection in which the artist is at the very heart of the decision-making process, is back again with chapter four. After the artist Lola Montes Schnabel, the iconic musician Kim Gordon from the band Sonic Youth and the art director Christophe Brunnquell, it’s now time to bring the creative Ambra Medda into the project.The 1000-piece, numbered limited edition “Carte Blanche” collection produced by Sportmax is the fruit of the collaboration between Medda and the young Chinese illustrator Ying Wu, chosen by Medda after she recently discovered her work at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. 

 Together, Ambra Medda and Ying Wu tackle social issues with the light touch of the illustrator, speak of the problems posed by progress and the risks to nature representing them through surreal graphics in which animals, urban scenarios and technology blend together into the perfect pattern for a scarf or a dress. 

An elegant, refined approach to focus attention on a new collective awareness through a clothes collection: an on-going dialogue between the team of creatives and Sportmax, designed to ensure the articles were effectively able to represent a material projection of the artistic partnership, a new manifestation of social responsibility that finally steps into the wardrobe.

Carte Blanche means complete freedom to act, unrestricted discretion and it is the first Sportmax collection project in which the artist is right at the heart of the decision-making process. Carte Blanche, term of French origin that literally means “blank paper”, originally spelled “Charte Blanche”. 

First used in the 15th century with the sense of “free enterprise”, it was subsequently used in military jargon to refer to an unconditional surrender agreement the losing side sent to the winning side, in the form of a blank sheet of paper, signed at the bottom, leaving it up to the victors to dictate the terms of the agreement. Carte Blanche first appeared in 1700 as an English term in this literal sense, but from the 18th century onwards it has been used in the modern sense of giving someone “unrestricted powers to act at their unconditional discretion”.