Ilenia Durazzi introduced her assortment by appointment this season, shelving the artwork performances she normally favors. Theatrics had been relocated to the lookbook, staged in a stark white void punctuated by mounds of black earth, simply sufficient grit to tether the pictures to actuality. The scene was populated by a crowd of artists, musicians, and gallerists, plus a scene-stealing horse, a touch to Durazzi’s equestrian leanings. She dubbed the setting “a up to date Arcadia,” although it felt extra austere than idyllic.
Durazzi operates with the arrogance of a model that is aware of what it’s doing and what it refuses to do. The designer’s refined, mature aesthetic got here by means of in a tightly edited assortment constructed round what are quick turning into the home’s signatures: traditional, on a regular basis silhouettes recalibrated with a splash of cool. Items had been rendered in high quality materials and fantastic leathers, completed with “obsessive precision” and reduce in gently outsized proportions that recommended ease fairly than extra. Bombers, peacoats and carcoats had been made for a fast-paced city life, rendered in a intentionally disciplined palette of blacks, grays, moss greens—a examine in restraint that learn extra as conviction than warning.
This season Durazzi launched eveningwear, however don’t anticipate glamour and pink carpet seems to be. Relatively there was a tuxedo with ponyskin lapels worn over a black chiffon kilt with ponyskin particulars, or a black halter neck quantity draped simply across the hips. That is the no-logo college of thought. Durazzi’s language resonates with the inventive milieu: unfussy but distinctive, important but carrying presence. It’s clothes that doesn’t beg to be observed, however tends to be remembered anyway.
There was additionally a budding menswear edit within the making. Artist Maurizio Cattelan was photographed in a roomy black automotive coat in richly textured wool, providing a refined however pointed teaser of the road Durazzi is now introducing. If that is the opening notice, the model’s growth into menswear seems to be much less like a aspect venture and extra like a fairly assured subsequent act.
Because it occurs, that is the Chinese language 12 months of the Hearth Horse, historically related to independence and daring strikes. Durazzi is an equestrian, and a sure self-discipline along with instinctive, impulsive streaks is what makes her line interesting. With timing like that, one imagines she is completely glad to journey the omen.
