CHIMAERISM

Many Origins. One Living Form.

CHIMAERISM - a multidisciplinary creative philosophy rooted in transformation; the belief that different histories, disciplines, identities, and forms do not need to exist separately. They can collide, evolve, and become something new entirely.

A rustic green door with iron handles and a semi-circular arch, set in an old white wall with peeling paint and a crest above the arch. Tall potted plants and terracotta planters are nearby, with shadows cast on a concrete ground.

THE ORIGINS

Built by many hands…

CHIMAERA did not begin with a brand. It began with family, memory, tradition, and the hands of the people who came before me.

I come from an immigrant family - from people who built lives with what they had, who worked with their hands, adapted, created, and kept going despite the obstacles they faced. Long before I understood myself as a designer, I understood the language of MAKING. I saw it in my family: the things they built, repaired, cooked, grew, stitched, and passed down.

Three generations of a family celebrating outdoors, with a woman holding a young child on her lap, and an older man sitting in front. The background shows a fenced yard with plants and a small shed.
Three generations of a family celebrating outdoors, with a woman holding a young child on her lap, and an older man sitting in front. The background shows a fenced yard with plants and a small shed.
An elderly woman sitting at a kitchen table, filling peeled potatoes into a bowl. A pan of yellow mashed potatoes and a bowl of mashed potatoes are on the table, which has a blue checkered tablecloth.
An elderly woman sitting at a kitchen table, filling peeled potatoes into a bowl. A pan of yellow mashed potatoes and a bowl of mashed potatoes are on the table, which has a blue checkered tablecloth.

Some of my earliest memories of creativity belong to my grandmother, my nini Albina. As a child, I would sit beside her and watch her hands while she worked. She never formally taught me how to sew, but she left me with something larger: the understanding of the power that making could carry memory (and of course all of her baking recipes - she was THE kitchen witch). Today, I still create in my studio with many of the tools that belonged to her. In that way, her hands continue through mine.

My nonno Benito taught me something different. He was a farmer - a maker within his own right - and in his infamous garden on Nugent Drive, there stood a tree in his backyard. On this tree, I watched him graft the branches of the many fruits it began to bear over the years of which we would pick and eat together: peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, you name it! Different species of fruits living, growing, and thriving off of one tree nourishing them all. Years later, I would recognize in the that tree the idea centre of my brand CHIMAERA: a chimera does not have to choose between it parts, its unique differences is what makes it whole and unique.

An elderly man wearing a checkered shirt is handling a potted plant with dark soil around a table, with gardening tools and a green garden hose in the background.
An elderly man wearing a checkered shirt is handling a potted plant with dark soil around a table, with gardening tools and a green garden hose in the background.
A family gathers around a decorated Christmas tree in a living room, working on a holiday craft or decoration at a table. The room features festive decorations, including curtains and a holiday arrangement with red and gold accents.

My grandparents were the strongest heroes I have ever had the honour and privilege of meeting, growing up with, and getting to live with, in my life. With my nonno’s broken english, he gave me a phrase that he has written in every birthday, Christmas, or graduation card that stuck with me through every difficult time:

“No stop, Keepa go.”

And so I did.

My path into fashion was anything but traditional. Another strong, immigrant woman, named Gina (my Filipina bestfriend Kim’s mother, who lived 4 doors down from my nini & nonno), taught me how to thread and use a sewing machine at her living room table. A year later, the art of drag gave me the reason to return to it. My drag family challenged me to make bigger, stranger, and more ambitious things, while other artists around me shared techniques, knowledge, and encouragement along the way. What I didn’t know, I learned through experimentation - pattern by pattern, garment by garment, failure by failure.

A young man with a fade hairstyle sewing a piece of fabric or clothing on a sewing machine at a wooden table.

My education, through my Bachelor’s degree of Arts & Science through the University of Guelph, taught me to think in a much similar way; through a multidisciplinary approach. So, I choose to study and graduate with 3 different specializations: Biology, Psychology, and Business (& a Certificate in Organizational Leadership but who’s counting).

Eventually, through my studies post the University of Guelph and into my Master’s degree, the things I had once treated as separate - Art & Science, Masculinity & Femininity, Ancestry & Reinvention, Spirituality & Psychology, Matteo & CHIMAERA - began to reveal themselves as parts of the same practice.

Even my name became part of that becoming: Matteo Lino DelleMonache. It represents not the invention of someone new, but a RETURN to and RECLAMATION of the histories, people, and possibilities that shaped me, whilst honouring my lineage from every aspect of my family.

A young man with dark hair and light skin, wearing a black, red, yellow, and white striped rugby shirt with a crest on the chest, and his left hand on his chest, standing in front of a textured concrete wall.

CHIMAERA was built, born, and shaped by many hands: the hands of immigrants, farmers, makers, performers, artists, teachers, biological family, and most importantly chosen family. My hands are simply the ones carrying it forward now.

And perhaps that is what CHIMAERISM has always been:

Nothing comes from one place alone.

Nothing meaningful is made alone.

Many origins. One living form.

THE PHILOSOPHY

Where the Structure meets the Flow

CHIMAERISM comes from many origins, existing in one living form. It also exists in the space between the opposites. Matteo’s approach to design is crafted through the delicate balance of structure and fluidity - corsetry against draping, architecture against movement, strength against softness, masculinity against femininity, and the ancient against the contemporary.

Person dressed in a shiny pink and black outfit with gold accents, standing against a dark background with gold and pink decorative elements and the word 'Chimera' at the top.
Person dressed in a shiny pink and black outfit with gold accents, standing against a dark background with gold and pink decorative elements and the word 'Chimera' at the top.

This duality is deeply personal. As a Libra Sun with a Pisces Moon and Rising, Matteo is drawn to both balance and intuition: the deliberate and the instinctive, form and fantasy. His Italian upbringing coupled with his wider Aegean and Middle Eastern roots further inform a mixed Mediterranean perspective shaped by cultures that intersected, exchanged, and transformed across generations.

A painting with a turquoise background and abstract white fish with black eyes, featuring two gold-colored lines that resemble an 'X' in the center.
A painting with a turquoise background and abstract white fish with black eyes, featuring two gold-colored lines that resemble an 'X' in the center.

In fashion, this become sculpted silhouettes interrupted by flowing fabric, exposed bodies framed by structure, asymmetry balanced through proportion, and historical/mythological references reconstructed rather than reproduced. Across every medium, the principle remains the same: contrasting forces that do not need to cancel one another out. They can make each other more POWERFUL.

A woman wearing a glamorous, metallic bronze and gold evening gown with a fitted bodice and a long, flowing train. She has curly hair, bold makeup, and is posing in a dimly lit venue with warm lighting and decorative lights in the background.
A woman wearing a glamorous, metallic bronze and gold evening gown with a fitted bodice and a long, flowing train. She has curly hair, bold makeup, and is posing in a dimly lit venue with warm lighting and decorative lights in the background.

THE AESTHETIC

The Mediterranean Mythic

The Mediterranean Mythic is Matteo’s signature expression of CHIMAERISM - a world where mythology, ancestry, and the natural beauty and power of the Mediterranean meet contemporary design. Sculptural silhouettes, fluid draping, exposed form, ancient architecture, water, organic textures, and relic-like gold create a visual world that feels both timeless and otherworldly.

Two women dressed in elaborate orange and gold costumes pose in front of an ornate stone archway featuring a carved face. The women wear dramatic makeup, gold accessories, and high heels, standing on a concrete surface with trees visible in the background.
Person dressed as a sea goddess or mermaid holding a glowing blue orb and a golden trident, standing by a waterway at night with a bridge, city lights, a moon, and a tower in the background.
A woman dressed as a fairy with large pink wings, surrounded by pink flowers, standing outdoors in a forested area.

It is not about recreating the past, but being inspired by it in the present day, through fashion, art, performance, space, and everything else that CHIMAERA touches.

Myth meets Magic in the Modern World