Massimo Giorgetti went underground for MSGM AW24, commandeering the Porta Venezia station of the Milanese subway just in time for its 60th anniversary. To celebrate, he tapped into the sartorial flair of Italian tailoring at the time the transport infrastructure was built.
The ‘60s were a time of freedom, flower power and, for design-fanatics, Italian Neo-Rationalist architect and designer Franco Albini. In 1964, Albini created the poppy tubular handrails that run throughout the station. The first look out, a baggy black boiler suit plastered with a reprised leitmotif that mimicked the curvature of Albini’s railings (this was made possible through a partnership with the Franco Albini Foundation) came closely followed by a parade of chiselled young men stomping through the subway in slouchy suits with sequins and furry ruffs around their necks.
Tessellated sequin hot pants secured with sporty drawstrings were worn with skinny cardigans and scrunched up white socks tucked into strappy black ballet flats – it was very varsity-cum-librarian-cum-coquette core, as if reimagining the frazzled English woman trope for the boys. There were a few Americanana football jersey silhouettes too, which came covered in sequins and with distinct double stripes across the chest and knitwear that tapped into the motorcycle helmet artworks of Portuguese artist Tiago Alexandre. Looks were paired with fluffy bedroom slippers or menswear Mary Janes while bold Back to The Future style optic goggles brought the offering into, well, the future.
Trippy technicolour prints exemplified the sleeplessness of the city, depicting blurred subway trains whizzing through a station and a backrooms-esc office space. Both graphics were generated with the assistance of Google (a first for the tech giant) which used a special feature of the Pixel 8 phone and its AI-based camera to toggle the images.
A black hoodie read “Every smile you fake” in bright red embroidery, chromatically linking back to the red of Albini’s handrails. The model held in his hand a red pipe as if it were the latest It-bag; it was, in fact, the original handrail prototype Albini created in ‘64.
Photography courtesy of MSGM.
