What’s Hot (8.1.23)

January 8, 2023January 7, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

What’s Hot (6.1.23)

January 6, 2023December 25, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Reality Through Play. Marni Resort 2023

December 5, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Please pardon my blog absence – first had a very busy schedule, and then, just like that, Miss ‘Rona hit me. Slowly, but steadily, after a couple of days living in another dimension, I’m returning to reality. The Marni resort 2023 collection feels like a sweet thing to look at first. In keeping with his increasingly radical practice, with its implicit critique of today’s fashion system, Francesco Risso is taking the concept of collaboration to the next level at the Italian brand. He’s doing so not just by testing the perimeter between fashion and art, but also by questioning the boundaries of authorship. Risk-taking is obviously included in such a journey, but Risso seems to enjoy meeting the challenges head-on. And what’s more fearless than luring into Marni’s inner sanctum not a fellow designer, as other brands are doing, but a true artist – and a painter, no less? This see-now, buy-now resort collection marked the inception of this new direction, with Flaminia Veronesi taking up a long term role at the label. Risso introduced Veronesi, a longtime friend whose imaginative allegorical drawings have true affinity with the sensibility he has introduced at Marni. “We are connected by a similar way of dealing creatively with reality through play,” she explained, “a play which happens through tactility, is activated by the touch of the hand, and which is expressive of a feminine, no-gender ingenuity bringing us back to our instinctual, creatural side.” Risso chimed in: “In the path towards the definition of Marni, the backbone for me has always been the concept of play, so it seemed natural that Flaminia’s vision opened doors onto landscapes where we share the same delight in exploring the simple, childlike playfulness I believe is crucial to shaping Marni’s aesthetic.” Risso and Veronesi’s interaction feels as smooth as one of her swirling, fluid drawings of aquatic creatures, which have been transposed for resort onto bias-cut dresses, oversized cargos, low-slung trousers, and jumpers. But beyond the obvious visual appeal of their ‘creatures,’ what Risso wanted to highlight is how the new integrated practice serves to add integrity to the items they’re creating. “I did not invite Flaminia to just make a couple of drawings to print on a series of disposable hoodies,” he explained. “There’s too much fake creativity around, plastered surreptitiously onto zillions of products. What I want to achieve is an authentic, generative artistic partnership which makes us both grow, and which adds intrinsic value even to the less visually conspicuous items of a collection. All the hyper-branded, status-driven logoed products out there reveal such poverty of thought, it’s an appalling way of depleting our work as creatives of any meaning.” The collaboration with Veronesi has triggered a counterintuitive stripping-down approach to the hybridized flamboyance of previous Marni collections. For resort, silhouettes had a clarity and purity that only enhanced by contrast the poetic intensity of the prints based on Veronesi’s drawings. Even the clashing-striped knitwear looks had a more streamlined energy to them. For now, Risso is keen on keeping shapes, volumes, and decorations from overwhelming the personality of the wearer. Maximizing self-expressive potential through reworked classics is what he’s after. That said, “I’m not a minimalist in the least,” he concluded. “Quite the contrary.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Sunlight. Marni SS23

September 12, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

The appearance of Italian brands on the New York Fashion Week schedule brought major action to the city. First Fendi kicked off the fashion marathon. Then, Marni‘s Francesco Risso delivered one of his finest collections for the brand to date. Making Marni’s NYC debut on a Brooklyn street nestled under a bridge, the trains audibly rumbling overhead, was a natural step for Risso, who has appreciated the city’s creative spirit for years. Everyone from Paloma Elsesser to Tyler Mitchell to Lara Stone appeared on the runway; a cast of models and friends walked to a live soundtrack written by Dev Hynes and performed by the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. Gorgeous, hallucinogenic, searingly bright colors; distressed mohair; papery leathers; mystical cobwebs of beads; and psychedelic panne velvets, the pieces punctuated every now and then by enormous and the chicest-ever squashy courier bags, their no-nonsense utilitarian shape turned off-kilter by their puffy aeration. The collection was a signature Marni line-up, but also felt very new-gen New York. “I’ve been wanting to explore for a while,” Risso said. “It means understanding things from a different perspective, connecting with different people. It feels refreshing. There’s a lot of learning as well, and I’m up for that every fucking second. Ever since America opened its borders last December I’ve been here, I don’t know, maybe 20 times. Still,” he went on, “it’s not really news, because everyone is out in some other realm in some way or other.”

Risso’s arrival stateside feels like it comes from a place of curiosity, of challenge, of risk: how can we get out of the moribund, straight-back-to-business way of doing things? The answer: maybe destabilize and decentralize it all, stop putting the designer on a pedestal, start to rethink all the relationships between brand, creator, audience, and those actually buying the stuff. Come together, join forces. “It’s not the ’90s anymore,” he said, “when brands spoke in very defined ways. Now you have to talk universally.” In regard to that last assertion, with his spring 2023 collection, Risso put his clothes where his mouth is. With a color palette inspired by the changing light over the course of a day in the Italian countryside (something he observed while holidaying in his homeland), he offered up a strong lineup that felt more streamlined and minimalistic than those he has done lately, despite the intense colorations and textures going on. Filmy rib knits contoured close to the body, some with “sleeves” trailing from the waistband or extra neckholes, which created circular décolleté cutouts, regardless of the gender wearing them. “The body is completely the protagonist in this collection,” Risso said. “Everything is built in jerseys, knitwear, things that, actually, go with the body rather than against it. Even the leather is the softest leather that exists.” The collection had other conceits based on the circle, be it the swooping looped trains on the dresses or the groovy abstract sunrises rendered on satin tees and minidresses. As for Risso, he is already thinking about where on earth the sun might rise on his next Marni collection. He’s in no rush to go back to Milan, not until the brand’s 30th anniversary in 2024 at least. Travel does more than just broaden the mind, in his view. “I can’t wait to be on the other side of the planet,” he said, “but, also, to see how it can burst the bubbles that we like to create in fashion.”