That cool old foreign flick, with Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren, Marriage Italian Style, can only be topped by the entrepreneurial spirit of this clever photographer's idea to offer something new and different to his clientele suffering from divorce, Italian style. Meet Gianni Fasolini and his novel idea for new age divorce photo albums!
Divorce in Italy is fast catching up to the phenomenon it is in other parts of the world, and now, according to news sources, couples can, via Gianni Fasolini, get a wedding-style divroce photo album album celebrating their split! (This may or may not include pictures of judges, attorneys, private detectives, child custody arrangements, broken leases, bills, subpoenas and other assorted ephemera often accompanied by messy divorces.)
Fasolini, aged 45, who hails from Valeggio sul Mincio, got this brilliant idea while sipping on a cappuccino at a local cafe and reading a newspaper article that discussed the alarming rising divorce rate in Italy. It suddenly occurred to him to get on the "divorce bandwagon." He said of his brainstorm:
"People celebrate a marriage as a milestone in their lives, but a divorce is an important event too. I have been doing photos of weddings for yearsI got to thinking that maybe there would be some demand for people marking their divorces and so I started to offer photo sessions for freshly divorced couples - them smiling or shaking hands or in some cases even kissing. As soon as I advertised the offer, people were queuing up at my shop for sessions."
Well, Mr. Fasolini, you are indeed a clever marketing soul. Perhaps you should think of something to throw at the newly divorced couple instead of the conventional shoes and rice? How aboutbroken nuts and bolts symbolizing a division or half a pie?
No, well, you will think of something. Of that I am certain.
This may not be your particular cup of tea, but just think about all the possibilities it evokes in terms of that word we all know and love, closure. Divorce is a process, and it can include a whole new set of memories that annihilate the ones that came before. New photos help create newer and probably easily forgettable memories that evoke not pain but ambivalence. Perhaps they should even come with an eraser? A new theme song for this different slant on things might be: "There Goes The Bride."
Has a certain appeal, don't you think?
Go figure.