Mido flight 2007 destination the future
The breath-taking sight of the Mido flight 2007 'destination the future', created with laser effects, lit up the rainy night all around the new Trade Fair Center of Rho-Pero, and sealed the opening evening of the 37th edition of the International Show of Optics, Optometry and Ophthalmology. Flight was also the main theme of an entire evening designed as a journey back in time with eyewear accompanying and pacing the progress of a period of forty years. This perfect flight, created in conjunction with Vogue Italia, was commanded by the actor Luca Barbareschi and the American star Andie McDowell, in front of over one thousand guests, including a group of journalists from the United States who were able to enjoy a show during their (real) flight, on an all-business 48 seater-plane, a sort of preview of what the future might hold. 
Barbareschi, wearing Elvis Presley's original glasses, led the show of ten splendid models wearing glasses belonging to a part of the history of the '70's, a period symbolized by a red spider. And then, wearing the Ray-Ban Wayfarers, an icon revived by the Blues Brothers, he presented another ten models from the '80's, the era of the first computers. Next came the turn of the '90's models - the age of Internet, the '@' and the Titan Minimal Art, a pure design jewel, worn by the actor - finally it was the turn of the models from our times, the age of globalization, the ones that Andie McDowell said she preferred, which were presented by the evening's host wearing glasses by the cult stylist, Yves Saint Laurent.
Forty, or rather 44 models, which have followed the course of time and unstoppable progress, re-proposed in the giant airplane cockpit set up in the Fair beneath Massimiliano Fuksas's Great Sail. Convinced applause, and also a little emotion among the less younger members of the audience, for what was, at times, a trip down memory lane. After the applause came the thanks from the International Trade Minister Emma Bonino, on the stage, next to the chairman of Anfao and Mido, Cirillo Marcolin, and the evening's two presenters. After Marcolin had thanked the president of the Milan Fair, Michele Perini, the general manager of Ice (Institute for Foreign Trade), Massimo Mamberti, and the director of Anfao, Astrid Galimberti and announced his decision to step down from the chairmanship of Mido after 9 years, and Anfao, after 4, the minister took the opportunity to recall how Italian eyewear is a "sector of excellence", which has had its difficult moments, but which 'has succeeded in knuckling down to work without too many complaints'. This sector, concluded Emma Bonino, 'represents the determination, perseverance and desire to win'.
