Prêt-à-porter Uomo
Spring/Summer
“A devotion to detail, an education in materials, and the canonical construction of the men’s wardrobe that I have developed in my menswear collections have prepared the vitality of today, which places the emphasis on movement and on the flexibility of garments. Sporting themes re-emerge throughout the collection as realities of line and form, as chromatic games that today’s freedom allows one to approach and mix with complete autonomy. The elongated silhouette, with reduced shoulders, has precisely the degree of elasticity required for comfort, and the softness that wraps like a glove, while respecting the athletic structure of the body”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1993
The play of affinities leads to a black-and-white that recalls certain elements of baseball and defines a uniform made up of black trousers and a white shirt. Trousers that expand and come alive in pleats and in the marks left by movement, in Prince of Wales, checkerboard, houndstooth, fil-à-fil and grain de poudre.
Neutral tones adopt fabrics traditionally used for garment interiors: washed and treated canvases and haircloths, for anatomical jackets almost without shoulder padding and for high-waisted trousers. White takes on the purity and worn hand of linen, the lightness of voile and double gauzes, paired with seed-stitch knitwear finished with natural leather.
The suit acquires the rigour of a uniform: total black, total navy and total khaki.
Flashes of fantasy appear in the stars-and-stripes series, cut up and reassembled in patchwork, and in pullovers with checks, zigzags and stripes. An expression of strength and dynamism is found in natural leather, one of the key signs of the season: washed, perforated suede lined with stretch tulle; the trophy bomber in crocodile stripes; the Wips hunting gilet in precious lizard; jeans that look like anaconda yet are printed drill.
Raw, full-bodied silk, or twisted silk for Prince of Wales checks and pinstripes. Jackets entirely in colour – purple, pink, red, framboise, pumpkin and green – in an explosion of vitality, like Cajun music.
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Prêt-à-porter Uomo
Fall/Winter
“Times have changed – times that are, in a sense, more real and more severe – leading me to a conscious rejection of escapism and exoticism, to the negation of revivals. Whether baronets or flower children, they strike me as pointless allusions, memories of phenomena that could never return in the same form. What emerges forcefully instead is the need for tradition, one in which comfort and reality can coexist through consolidated, defined forms. Even the idea of escape feeds on the city and on the urban environment of certain sports, which one may practice or simply admire for their manners and atmospheres. Boxing, for instance, with its strong classical echoes”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1993
Proceeding by instincts and sensations, constructing the lexicon of a style that confirms and enriches itself naturally, season after season, taste takes shape subtly, through logical steps. Thus the jacket becomes longer and the four-button double-breasted turns into an eight-button one. Bright colours are immersed in a dense patina, with the depth of a shadow. Fabrics acquire body and volume, softening their tones: the white and black of spongy wools, of swollen textiles inspired by technical T-shirts; blue wool crêpe worked into micro-braids; pullovers in blended chenilles. Pinstripes multiply: carbon-copy blue on black, very dark brown with brick, green combined with blue, blue with red or pumpkin stripes.
By changing the order of the elements, the result changes. In the arithmetic of taste, it is the way of combining, assembling and wearing that creates a new image. The camel coat – soft as a dressing gown, like a blanket – is worn over a T-shirt and pinstriped jeans as well as over flannel. Blazers in cashmere, smooth velvet or chenille in sombre tones – wine, navy, pine green – are paired with black trousers and pullovers, or with chenille knitwear.
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