MANIFESTO OF ARCADIA
 
“Arcadia was born during a Stendhal attack. I was literally mesmerized by a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, La Veronica Veronese. Same red hair, same deep melancholy and same feverish acceptance.
Arkadia is the name of a shopping center in Warsaw, one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. I say “beautiful” but it is an understatement. In that city you can breathe the history of Europe, of the vigorous people and the scent of sernik.
In Ala Mirowska, one of the old communist markets, you can buy any type of cake, for a couple of euros per serving. It is not true that in Italy people eat better than in the rest of the world. For example, in Italy, there is no pastry shop when compared with the boundless choice that can be found in the Polish capital.
 
I am morbidly obsessed with food and Arcadia is the representation of my eating disorders.
When I think of Warsaw, I dwell on unnecessary hyperbolas. Talking back to that mall.
As soon as I entered it, I had an epiphany: all those worlds that I had in mind all came together in a space-time corner, which is called Arkadia. The exceeding splendour, the windows with the cakes, the Soviet aesthetic, the beauty of alien women, the outfit that Lotta Volkova dreams of at night.
I chose to remove the K letter because Arcadia is, unfortunately, Italian.
How much I wish she was born in Greece or in a Yorkshire estate.
 
Then I chose this name because, for me, everything must come from poetry.
I tell you why: the Arcadia Academy is a literary academy founded in 1690. It developed and spread in Italy throughout the Eighteenth century in response to what was considered the bad taste of the Baroque age. Each participant had to take, as a pseudonym, a name inspired by the Greek pastoral tradition. And I assumed precisely the name of Arcadia.
Arcadia’s style is not yet so defined. I only know that she is an elegant lady and generally she does not wear clothes above the ankle and below the shoulder blades. She’s a Pre-Raphaelite muse,
she’s a little Galliano for Dior 2007, and she’s also a bit Handmaid’s Tale handmaid.
 
However, Arcadia knows precisely, what and how to communicate through Music.
Speaking in the third person: Arcadia was born, actually, to facilitate my communication on stage.
By wearing a mask you feel less naked, you feel less of the weight of your own vulnerability.
It’s like having armor on your body and, at the same time, you can still be yourself one hundred percent.
I did not choose to create Arcadia for the need to wear women’s clothes, but to create an imaginary world directly connected to my freedom and my fantasy, in which to take refuge when I need it.
On stage as Arcadia.
Off the stage as Stefano.
Arcadia is a soul that cries black teardrops.
And she sings, as long as she has a voice”.