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For Holiday 2026, Italian artist Agostino Iacurci transforms the codes of Acqua di Parma into a luminous, theatrical universe of colour, character and wonder, where objects become protagonists, and Grand Hotel Sprezzatura takes shape between dream and reality.
Iacurci has always worked beyond a single medium. Painting, sculpture, drawing and large-scale installation form part of a practice defined by bold colour, clear composition and a visual language that moves naturally between figuration and abstraction. At the heart of his work is an interest in how simple forms can carry character, memory and emotion. An image may appear immediate, yet continue to reveal itself over time. Colour plays an equally essential role, giving each composition its emotional temperature through warmth, humanity and unexpected contrast. For Iacurci, this balance between apparent simplicity and expressive depth is what allows an image to remain light without ever feeling empty.
From this sensibility came his collaboration with Acqua di Parma. Iacurci approached the project as creating a small visual world around the Maison’s objects, imagining candles, diffusers, and refillable fragrance bottles as presences. What began as a playful exploration of geometry and translucent watercolour effects gradually developed into a modular language of forms and signs, able to shift, recombine and adapt from one object to another while retaining a recognisable identity.
This movement becomes a defining idea of the Holiday collection. Like an alphabet, recurring elements return in ever-changing arrangements: architectural forms, mountain profiles and human presences travel from object to packaging, from hatbox to label, each time creating a new composition. Every surface becomes another scene in the same theatrical landscape, distinct yet connected to what came before. As Iacurci explains, the system remains recognisable while each composition develops its own personality.
From this visual language, an entire setting emerged. Iacurci imagined a luminous palazzo among the mountains, inhabited by figures suspended somewhere between dream and reality. The characters draw partly on the tradition of the Commedia dell’Arte, their essential geometries giving rise to the collection’s Masterpieces: Alfredo, Clementina and Tobia, ceramic objects conceived almost as small sculptures. Simple forms combine to become figures, and those same forms then expand outward to shape the architecture and landscape around them.
The Advent Calendar carries this idea into miniature architecture. Iacurci imagined it as a slightly unreal winter palazzo, where every window becomes a threshold and every opening a small narrative moment. What might normally be a daily gesture becomes part of the story, extending the atmosphere of Grand Hotel Sprezzatura one surprise at a time.
Underlying the entire project is Sprezzatura, a principle that forms part of Acqua di Parma’s identity: the art of making complexity appear effortless. For Iacurci, the process resembles distillation: beginning with something rich and layered, then refining it through successive steps until only what is essential remains. The result should feel natural and immediate, while still carrying within it traces of everything that came before.
