Trussardi

Milanese Sciura. Trussardi AW23

| Design & Culture by Ed

One year in at Trussardi, and it seems it’s clear what Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik are up to with the Italian brand. The latest collection is an ode to the Milanese style that made Trussardi prominent between the 1970s and ’90s. It all started with the puffer jacket, taken to the extreme to become XXL, like a bathrobe, padded and super soft. The leather on men’s and women’s skirts was distressed, softened, while the duchesse silk and nylon imitated the leather on classic cut blouses and less classic skirts with diagonal zippers. Everything read “sciura,” a Milanese term for the typical city lady, who only wears black, hazel, ecru and bordeaux, as in this collection, allowing herself to wear a jacquard motive that is reminiscent of the tapestries in the palaces she frequents. Isik and Huseby played with these clichés without mockery, rather using them as a key to a brand story that would otherwise be left untold. The final look was a mermaid skirt paired with a jewel belt and a sober turtleneck, completely black. It was like a contemporary version of the Trussardi look for the Teatro alla Scala premiere, an unmissable event for the typical Milanese. However, is this (quite convincing) storytelling enough to turn new clients on to buying Trussardi?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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NET-A-PORTER Limited

Excavation. Trussardi SS23

| Design & Culture by Ed

Serhat Isik and Benjamin Huseby‘s vision of Trussardi takes shape with the designers’ second season for the Italian heritage brand. Presented in the gilded salons of Palazzo Clerici, the spring-summer 2023 offering gave hints of how they’re easing into their role, after a strong first outing which was a break with the past, clean to the point of subversion. “This time it was more about trying to develop a wardrobe that makes sense for Trussardi,” they said backstage. “It may sound boring, but we’re bringing our own vision, mixing modernity with history.” Digging into the brand’s archive was “excavation work,” they explained. “There’s lots of richness there – the exceptional leather work, the ’80s and ’90s sexy and cinched silhouettes, the sensuality, the femininity, but also a masculine glamour.” Some of these elements were brought back for spring. Sensuality was played out in fluid dresses in liquid jersey with twisted necklines and cascading hemlines; floor-length satin gowns were wrapped around the neck, draped and ruched; slits and cut-outs opened to reveal bare skin. The best representation of leather work was a faux embossed crocodile bomber, round-shouldered and cinched, paired with a ruched miniskirt. The designers also tried their hand at denim, one of the house’s signatures, offering sculpted pieces glamorized with crystal appliqués. “It’s a learning process,” they offered. “Absorbing and adapting to the Milanese culture is a sort of anthropological exploration. We’re learning to work with things that we don’t always like, or which make us slightly uncomfortable. Our view of history isn’t linear, rather it’s often chaotic“.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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NET-A-PORTER Limited

Back To Black. Trussardi AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

This Milan Fashion Week, it’s renaissance time for a number of Italian brands that in recent years fell into oblivion. First was Diesel, where Glenn Martens has his triumphant runway debut. Then, all eyes were on Trussardi – a brand that until Serhat Isik and Benjamin Huseby‘s take-over had pretty much no identity. Isik and Huseby have made their own Berlin-based brand GmbH a platform for commenting on the moral, philosophical, and ethical quandaries of our era, from race to religion, through fashion. Of course, the designers tried to bring some of that to the sleepy Italian label. The designers began by taking Trussardi’s signatures and making them their own. Rugged, embroidered piumino jackets opened the show, a nod to the anonymous but ubiquitous outerwear of European city life. Then the pair cast their eyes back further, to the complexities of Medieval and Renaissance dress, building armor-like shearlings and stuffing bustles under foxy black minidresses. Each garment in their 40-look lineup had either a curiously compelling texture – especially the holey knits that appeared mid-show – or a grand-scale elegance, like the coat-gown hybrids for models of all genders. The emphasis on a mostly black palette, Isik said post-show, was to reinforce the strength of their silhouettes. The sober ambience of the show (co-incidentally) felt humble and respectful towards the protests in support of Ukraine in the piazza just outside. Models did walk outside the show space within a barricade to give the crowd a glimpse of what was happening within fashion’s elite walls. It was the only direct clash of fashion and reality; the only acknowledgement of what is happening in Eastern Europe officially on the Milan calendar, along with Giorgio Armani’s silent show and social media posts published by an outrageously small number of Italian designers.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.