Some projects begin with a feeling. For Studio Fotografico Bacci, this one began with Wong Kar Wai.
Barbara and the team have always been deeply passionate about cinema, and at the time of this shoot, they were fully immersed in what they call their “Wong Kar Wai phase.” Wong Kar Wai, the Hong Kong filmmaker behind some of the most visually arresting films in contemporary cinema, was the driving force behind the concept, with In the Mood for Love at the center of it all. A secondary spark came from the visual world of David Lynch. “A purely aesthetic spark at first,” they say, “and then, little by little, it became something else entirely.”
What grew from that spark was a desire to show Florence differently. Not the Florence of museums and open-air monuments, the postcard version sold to tourists, but a nocturnal, urban Florence. A city of nightclubs, underground spots, and fusion restaurants. A Florence that, as they put it, “feels more authentic and genuine than the romanticized version.” A city that is no longer just Florentine, but a crossroads of people from all over the world.
To tell that story, they chose two “Fallen Angels”: Luna, who is Chinese, and Ken, who is Filipino but grew up in Florence.
Behind Closed Doors
For the Studio Fotografico Bacci team, the most compelling part of the project was the conceptual phase itself. “Starting from an attraction to a certain style, a certain aesthetic, and slowly making it your own,” they say, “bringing it into your world and enriching it with elements that belong to your personal background.” Seeing it come to life, after days of planning and building, was, in their words, “incredibly fulfilling, in every possible way.”
The City After Hours
As night settled over the city, the shoot moved outside. Luna changed into a white qipao, the traditional Manchu female dress, also known as the Cheongsam, and the two moved through the streets of Florence. The contrast was deliberate: a garment rooted in cultural history, worn after dark in a city that has quietly become something far more layered than its Renaissance identity suggests.
The streets of Florence at night have a quality that is hard to explain in daylight. The light falls differently, the city empties out, and what’s left feels cinematic in a way that no amount of planning could manufacture. With Luna in white and Ken at her side, moving through those streets, the whole thing stopped feeling like a shoot and started feeling like a scene from a film nobody had made yet.
PHOTOGRAPHY Studio Fotografico Bacci | MODELS Ken & Luna | LUNA’S COAT Maison Pop Couture | KEN’S SUIT & LUNA’S BLACK MINI DRESS Noell Maggini | LUNA’S SHOES 555 De La Vie | RESTAURANT Pine & Apple Florence | ASSISTANT Francesca Nardoni
