Women's Ready-to-wear
Spring/Summer
“Challenge with a new spirit… which means using simplicity as a subtle instrument of adornment, not being intimidated by certain canonical forms, and renewing oneself – or transforming into vivacity all that is, by nature, formal, cleverly setting the feminine against the masculine. This is the secret of a free collection, built by working on what I like most and what I see as the beginning, the opening of a future path. Where the desire – typical of ready-to-wear – to impress, seduce, captivate becomes ever stronger, yet expressed through a language that is not really its own and derives from haute couture: the discipline of proportions”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1987
Reflecting on the collection: feeling at ease in the sleeveless suit, with a mannish jacket decorated with showy prints and strong graphic motifs, over grey lightweight wool trousers. Appreciating the comfort of a suit that contradicts the formality of a masculine fabric – lightweight wool – by turning the jacket into a well-structured double waistcoat: one in white piqué, the other in fabric. Softening the virile jacket, loose and flaring towards the hem, with precious silks, the black of satin and the purity of piqué. Wearing a necklace of giant wooden beads as a man wears a tie.
Speaking of familiar elements of dress: taking possession of a man’s shirt collar, enlarging it until it becomes a sleeveless blouse. Or replacing it with a gilet – short or long – defined by a jacket that flies away at the back, emphasised by the collar with exaggerated lapels. Softening the barracuda sports jacket with natural silk poplin.
Excerpts from the collection press release
Women's Ready-to-wear
Fall/Winter
“Normality read in an eccentric key, achieved through contrasts of shape and material, shape and colour. A stylised dandyism: the more purified the line, the more the language relies on decoration. An eccentricity that becomes electricity, making the silhouette flare – at times through colour, at times through a sudden, deliberate outburst of pleats”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1987
The collection is built on eccentric relationships between shape and colour, between material and shape, between line and decoration, between classic and opulent.
The English-knit overcoat (like a cashmere pullover) worn over the most formal of navy suits.
The coat resembling an sumptuous dressing gown: in real merino wool terry, with embroidered borders and monogram. Jackets of differing shapes, enriched with five jewelled buttons – each one different – or decorated with Victorian brooches. Jackets traversed by raised gold braid motifs, almost an indistinct memory of troops and uniforms. The sweater-dress for austere evenings: long, black, entirely buttoned down the back, to open at the hem or at the neck, up to one’s personal limits of modesty. The flat slipper-shoe, exaggerated by a bow or a buckle. The French court heel.
Particularly highlighted is the eccentricity of volumes: a full, dome-like form achieved partly through buoyant materials, partly through a natural construction of pleats.
The materials: English rib knit, cady, tricot and brushed mohair jersey, saffiano leather, long-haired fabrics by Agnona, hand-printed silk velvet, Gallenga velvet, grosgrain, coloured python, natural and black fox fur.
Excerpts from the collection press release
