This luxury Italian brand doesn’t do things by half. For their knockout SS20 show on Friday night, the fashion and manufacturing behemoth ferried the global menswear fashion corps to the outskirts of Milan. The setting, an abandoned former industrial space, complete with black sand catwalk, served as the backdrop to 92-looks, which mashed suiting with a more relaxed weekend look. The brand’s Artistic Director, Alessandro Sartori, split tradition in two, successfully breaking down and then rebuilding the idea of a modern suit. Yes, there were beautifully tailored SB3’s – it’s bread and butter to a tailoring brand – but Satori dressed weekend (blousons, shirts or polo-shirts worn with matching trousers) with week (suiting) to create new shopping propositions.
An eco-conscious thread ran through the collection: one suit, Satori named the ‘Achill’, was made entirely from “wool remnants” – cuts and bits, and formerly waste. These were remixed and woven to create a new cloth, which in turn, was cut into a new-style suit. Follow #UseTheExisting hashtag says the brand for more. Digital print details on cloths and silks; tech-y fabrics, too, took with this eco-narrative further: prints looked like photocopies of fabric cuts. Permanent creases in one suit, spoke of making something beautiful from an “imperfect” cloth. And denim separates looked darker with a mineral dye technique – they looked “lived in”.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans.
