Prêt-à-porter Donna
Spring/Summer
“Spring – and especially summer – invite ease and relaxation, yet elegance and refinement are seasonless components of women’s dress. And therefore essentiality, research in construction, new dimensions, and a love for the most accurate detail are the matrix from which this new collection too originates”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1982
And so, to achieve elegance and refinement, Gianfranco Ferré blends classic colours with a new spirit, using blue and white without restraint, accompanied by touches of yellow, red and green – the primary colours – rendered brilliant through the use of different fabrics.
He cuts garments to emphasise the lines of the body, creates new dimensional effects through specific sleeve structures or new fullness in trousers, elongates the figure by letting the waistline slip downward, renews the importance of the neckline through shapes that explore either absolute rigidity or soft nonchalance.
He contrasts different materials: taffeta and suede, raw silk and nylon, laminated leather and silk crêpe, organza and cotton piqué, without forgetting the “classics”: ottoman and wool gabardine, cotton poplin and linen.
We spoke of elegance and refinement – let us also add glamour: it is the “parade effect” accompanying every proposal in the collection, emphasised by particular details and suggested by the accessories, amongst which the high coloured grosgrain bands and the belts finished with silver plaques stand out.
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Prêt-à-porter Donna
Fall/Winter
“I have gone ahead in my research, thinking of sweeter and softer things – in forms, in materials, in colours. Things that would transform themselves around the body, that would be docile and lend themselves to personal arrangements, without padding, linings or stiffness. I wanted to give women the possibility of daring and challenging. A strong-willed, independent woman. A firm step, a direct gaze. Dark hair, perhaps, and a face drawn in pen and ink. A deep-down irony, a precise desire to play the game – whatever it may be – in the first person. Faites vos jeux, take back the subtle intelligence of choice. Because glamour is nothing other than the other side of intelligence”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1982
The line: a geometric scheme, yet relative. Transformable around the body. A triangular cut running across the back and becoming a scarf. A rectangle placed on the bias and crossed over. Asymmetry, asymmetry. The sum gives balance. The spiral trousers echo a roulé collar, the dress flares in a full circle. Capes spin round – but one side becomes a scarf, or a hood.
The contrasts: one single colour interpreted in four different materials – velvet, flannel, taffeta, leather – for the same garment. The back soft, brought to life by capes and folds; the front bare. Transformist sleeves: they open, they wave. Even patches – the classic elbow pads – are detached to suggest plasticity. Collars, huge, soft, often in fur. Cut at the back so they can be raised to wrap the face.
The fabrics: double mouflon, finer brushed mouflon, canvas, traditional drapery, flannel, cover-coat, diagonal crêpe, ultrasoft leather mixed with suede and pony skin, velvet, silk crêpon, and satin.
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