“As a kid, there is the adventure of the everyday – there’s a feeling that anything could happen, no matter how fantastical and we are not so bound by regular expectations and conventions.
The door is open to the possibility of strange realities and wonder, impossible scenarios that banish disillusion. This is about the power of sincerity over strategy.” Matthieu Blazy
A golden light suffuses a remembered room where there is a refusal to put away childish things.
Animal shapes abound, playful, easeful yet also purposeful. The journey this time comes in the form of a reverie, of past and present. It is a coming-of-age story where the redemptive power of fashion is combined with the intrepid imaginings of Creative Director Matthieu Blazy.
In the collection, a new kind of power dressing is evoked; the power of sincerity, playfulness, and chic awkwardness, of characters discovering who they are through clothing and accessories by remembering who they once were – a coming-of-age and becoming something else.
In flux and motion, silhouettes express an adventure of the everyday. Misproportioned, the kid plays grown-up, while conventional grown-up allure and sophistication are undone: destroyed, creased, messed, and remade. In this radical insouciance is the carefree energy of discovery and experimentation where Italian sophistication is infused with the joyful, fearless energy of youth.
The recurring cast of characters are once more spontaneous heroes of their own lives: the Italian industrialist creates his own playground; the businessman drops his daughter at school, her pink rucksack on his back; the teenager roves aimlessly; a chic Milanese is in the supermarket; a girl and a boy wear their parents’ suits, imagining what they will be one day. There are all the joys and adventures of playing dress-up.
Material experimentation flourishes. The transformation of leather, in pieces such as the fluid, all-leather paillette evening dress, is joined by the subversion of classical sartorial fabrics and motifs. Tropical weight merino wool is woven into jacquards, imitating stonewashed denim yet impeccably tailored. The recurring motif of the grunge flannel shirt appears as a heavy cotton weave, sculpted and absorbing the language of the classic couture tailleur. While striped shirting is slubbed and disrupted, with big business herringbone made micro and pinstripes reimagined oversized and revivified.
Accessories are approached once more, with feeling. The disposable is made precious in the style of grocery bags, belying their intense craftsmanship; the pink of toy dream houses becomes a covetable bag to clutch; the new bricolage bags are in the same process of transformation as the characters carrying them, each individual and unique yet still traditionally crafted; the Andiamo can now feature a top handle, its smooth conservative outside hiding a bright and bold tramezza inside, like a smile.
Animals colonise the collection, from branding to audacious placement prints, lapin lapels to fish stoles. Yet it is the frog as a symbol of transformation and the rabbit of rebirth and good luck that proliferate. The frog freely roams as articulated jewellery, pouncing and pinned throughout; from being placed unconventionally as a brooch, to clinging to the heel of a shoe or wrapped around a finger. The bunny boldly colours the collection, in white, pink, and black, its branding hops from one category to the next, from fluffy mules to Si-Si leather tees, all in a joyous meandering.
“Can we find power in sweetness? Can the charm of the intrepid collide with rigorous precision? Would it make a new movement? What would the kid in you want? I wanted to feel the primal pull of fashion once more, a coming-of-age fascination that encompasses the joy of looking, discovering and dressing: the power of wow!” Matthieu Blazy
