Prêt-à-porter Uomo
Spring/Summer
“The relaxed ease of all black, even in summer. The comfort of the line and of new structures. The intelligence of formulas that make quality the right measure of investment. While designing this collection, I realised that a vague sense of narcissism was circulating. The pleasure of being free from all complexes and rigidities, with the awareness of showing what one is – or what one wishes others to see”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1999
This logical and, at the same time, aesthetic path is translated into the concept of reversibility. Thus voile jackets which, when turned inside out, reveal an interior identical to the exterior. Double or double-faced fabrics in linen and wool, lined with voile, for an ultra-thin, fluid effect on the body. Interiors unusually worn on the outside; fabrics originally used for tailoring reinforcements transformed into hemp or silk – silk, therefore. Silk gabardine resembling denim; impeccable suits in taffeta and in faille.
If every fabric is transformed through inventions and alchemies, leather appears crumpled, as if it had been slipped into a pocket. Shirts seem as solid as jackets. Unlined jackets are as light as shirts. Triple-twisted denim appears light and malleable: to be cut, shaped and lined, creating extremely precise, almost sartorial jackets, ribbing the pleats to lend authority to the most traditional denim, yet with a luxurious appearance.
With a spirit of perfect innocence and a taste for scholastic transgression, trousers are narrow and compact in taffeta; sportswear is elegantly relaxed in faille or cotton satin, adding touches of light without yielding to colour. Thus sand soils black and turn it into beige, while collars have never been so white.
EXCERPT FROM THE COLLECTION PRESS RELEASE
Prêt-à-porter Uomo
Fall/Winter
“In men’s dressing, which is constantly changing, nothing changes more than men’s wear itself, with its unforeseen combinations of freedom and attitude. A mix with a high degree of variability, which also obliges the designer to express a sense of concreteness, a reason for being of each individual piece and element, which everyone then adapts and interprets according to his own spirit and his very personal will to fly. Thus, I worked according to this elementary and spontaneous spirit, but certainly not minimal. On the contrary, I would call it luxurious, because I applied the most advanced technologies to pure materials such as wool, cashmere and cashmere felt”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1999
Lightness and dynamism define the formal character of jackets and coats: certain points of the structure are reinforced, quilted, padded, and the overcoat is lined with a light layer of goose down and thermal insulating film. Jeans, protected with a treatment similar to that used for motorcyclists’ suits, acquire solidity and thickness. To suggest a sense of maximum ease that refers back to the nature of the garment, its volumes and its elements, linings range from genuine mink to artificial mink, and loose jackets from nylon to seal. While felt overcoats are prepared with traditional precision, coats in perfectly ordinary wool are, by contrast, laser-cut.
The comfort of an enveloping, almost rounded, egg-shaped form is underlined by a soft choice of colours: misty brown mixed with purple and grey, green combined with steel, ivory and classic camel with absolute black. Alongside this, there is also a drier, more tailored line, with small lapels and constructed shoulders accentuated by haircloth paddings. Without complacency or indulgence.
Certain forms of narcissism have been overtaken by the freedom of gesture. More than narcissistic, today’s man is free: free to choose, to mix day and evening, to wear a T-shirt under a coat not as a sign of refinement, but of a raw and instinctive joy.
EXCERPT FROM THE COLLECTION PRESS RELEASE