Introduction
Lida Castelli is an Italian artistic and creative director whose career has moved between fashion, exhibitions and large-scale live ceremonies. She was publicly identified as Franco Moschino’s assistant by 1989 and worked across the studio’s clothing, image and display activity. In 1993 she co-curated the tenth-anniversary exhibition X Anni di Kaos! at Milan’s Museo della Permanente and co-edited its catalogue with Moschino.
Castelli subsequently developed a long career in public spectacle, working with Marco Balich and international production teams on sporting and civic events. Her credits include art direction for the Torino 2006 Olympic opening ceremony, artistic direction of the America’s Cup World Series opening in Naples, direction of the Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade opening and curatorial work for Noor Riyadh. As artistic and show director of the Sochi 2014 Paralympic closing ceremony, she became one of the few women to lead the artistic direction of a Games ceremony.
For the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Castelli served as protocol creative director of the multi-centred opening ceremony and collaborated with Balich and Paolo Fantin on the two synchronised cauldrons in Milan and Cortina. That work extends a career concerned with how institutions, symbols and mass participation can be translated into a coherent live image.
Design ethos
Castelli works through narrative assembly rather than a single object or garment. Her early fashion experience connected studio production to windows, catalogues and exhibitions; later ceremonies expanded the same concern to architecture, choreography, music, protocol and broadcast. Each element must retain its function while contributing to an image understood at stadium and screen scale.
The Sochi 2014 Paralympic closing ceremony demonstrates this method. Modular scenery evoked Tetris, geometric formations shifted into choreography and the phrase “impossible” was transformed into “I’m possible”, joining a legible visual device to the values of the event. The work required creative direction to operate through hundreds of performers and technical departments rather than through individual execution.
Her Olympic practice also treats protocol as designed experience. Milano Cortina 2026 distributed formal moments across several host locations and used two synchronised cauldrons to represent a Games shared between territories. Castelli’s role lies in making ceremony, symbolism and logistics read as one public composition.
Disclaimer
Career history
1993
Moschino marked its tenth anniversary with X Anni di Kaos! at the Museo della Permanente in Milan in October 1993. Franco Moschino and Lida Castelli co-curated the retrospective and co-edited its catalogue, separating the archival exhibition from the season’s runway collection.
1989
Lida Castelli was publicly identified as Franco Moschino’s assistant by January 1989 and worked across studio, show, window and exhibition activity. Her verified Moschino relationship extends through the founder period, with no supported post-1994 appointment.
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