Prêt-à-porter Donna
Spring/Summer
“Instinctively – and at the same time by conscious choice – I simplified the system of dressing even further, giving meaning and substance to the concept of luxury ready-to-wear and underlining the qualities that this luxury truly possesses. For this reason, more than ever before, I deliberately withdrew from a certain artificiality, reinforcing my decision to design clothes: in the best possible way, by achieving new proportions and elaborating an unusual freedom of expression. I also set myself the task of eliminating everything that encumbers, overlaps, or may be uncomfortable – leaving space for imagination, for the dreams of those who wish to dress in these clothes, in luxury”.
Gianfranco Ferré
1996
Alchemy of materials and intelligence of colour: to emphasise form, stretch fabrics were employed, able to adapt easily to the body, alongside textiles with an inherent substance that allows them to remain unlined while still vigorously supporting the line.
Like in a magical laboratory, threads and substances are mixed, new tonalities emerge… the most classic of menswear fabrics, executed in coarse rayon, comes to resemble black-and-white African scarves. Plastic scales generate an imitation python. Fragments reminiscent of children’s coral beads cover T-shirts and skirts, to be worn with a blue sweater. Strips of black-and-white organza design the most transparent of plaid skirts. Coloured tinfoil applied to fabrics produces an unprecedented brilliance.
The constant use of black – black combined with white, grey, blue, Ferré red – goes beyond a purely metropolitan attitude and responds instead to the intention of constructing a harmonious, enduring wardrobe. Upon a personal and profound base palette, touches of ultramarine blue and jade green suggest unexpected and surprising combinations.
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Prêt-à-porter Donna
Fall/Winter
“For women today, dressing means responding to different needs and pleasures, derived from changing behaviours that are only apparently contradictory. On the one hand, a strong awareness of femininity defines these attitudes, together with the certainty that the body can be enhanced and transformed through the forms and structures of clothing. At the same time, however, there is also a deliberate intention towards comfort, speed, simplification, an openness to more private rather than public indulgences… by blending essentiality and grace, I sought to reconcile and translate these demands, thus avoiding any technicality that would render the principle of simplicity arid.”
Gianfranco Ferré
1996
By combining rigour and freedom, a silhouette of maximum comfort is drawn, thanks to stretch fabrics that emphasise shoulders and hips, balanced with a figure sculpted and modelled by a new concept of lingerie – which assumes the role of a true garment and makes further layering unnecessary. Respect for canons and genres is intentional: with the same freedom of choice, whether to cover or reveal the legs depends on the mood of the moment, sometimes favouring trousers, at other times short skirts. With a few exceptions.
Magical combinations of substantial wools (for trousers) and impalpable silks (for T-shirts), which appear to share the same consistency thanks to photographic print effects. The refinement of sportswear, rendered in duchesse doubled with cashmere. Harmonies of cut define evening skirts: pure, almost magical rectangles encrust stretch wool and jersey bodysuits.
Calm and serenity prevail in the use of colour: blue, grey, camel, pearly shades of peach, gold and ice. Uniform red appears in small jackets that combine different materials.
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