Etro (Q1828)
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Italian fashion house founded in 1968
- Etro S.p.A.
- Etro SpA
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Etro |
Italian fashion house founded in 1968 |
|
Statements
1968
creative director
2022
creative director
men's collection designer
Pre-fall collections often require designers to act as agile tightrope walkers, torn between market demands to dilute their edge for broader consumer appeal and the desire to uphold their artistic high standards. This tension more often than not sparks conflicts between brand management and creative teams, contributing to the turnover of designers leading fashion houses we’re seeing today. The uncertain state of the luxury market has made this struggle even more pronounced.No designer is immune from the pressure. At Etro, Marco De Vincenzo is striving to balance the brand’s heritage with his forward-thinking vision. “It’s both thrilling and challenging,” he remarked, acknowledging that this friction has expanded his perspective and flexed his adaptability muscles, allowing him to preserve integrity while navigating limitations.As a designer drawn more to graphic, kinetic maximalism than to the languid appeal of flowing frocks, negotiating the brand’s boho legacy has proven challenging. However, it seems he has found his stride, with pre-fall serving as a springboard to refine his own approach to the style. Etro’s signature billowy silhouettes took on a new slender form in stretchy silk jersey, hugging the body with younger, sexier lines and printed with sparse floral prints that felt lighter and more restrained compared to past designs. The same hourglass shape appeared in quotidian staples like coats, blazers, and minidresses, where the waistline was emphasized and shaped by a hand-made leather lace-up motif, as in a slender cashmere coat in subdued tone-on-tone caramel paisley.A handsome example of De Vincenzo’s artistic yet realistic vibe was a camel straight-cut masculine coat whose chunky sides and sleeves were knitted in a vivid abstract pattern. He called it a “cut-and-paste specimen, a crossbreed between a jumper and a city coat,” where a reductionist attitude (“I’m trying to simplify and find a sort of minimalist spirit in Etro,” he said) coexisted with a crafty wanderlust.A few men’s looks were presented alongside the women’s, reflecting a style more aligned with the preferences of the traditional clientele of the label. De Vincenzo’s tenure at Etro isn’t about radical transformation—not all revolutions unfold abruptly.
2 December 2024
At Etro’s show, towering cast-iron and concrete agaves in full bloom lined the center of the stage—a nod to a plant that flowers just once before producing seeds and dying. This botanical marvel, which freely grows along the Mediterranean coasts, holds deep significance for Marco De Vincenzo. “I’m from the south, and that’s where my heart belongs. Sicily is my birthplace, but I feel connected to places like Andalusia, Seville, and Greece,” he said during a preview. Though he left Sicily at a young age, he’s finding himself continuously drawn back. Agaves were a constant presence in his childhood; they’re also symbols of rebirth. When they die, they leave space for something new. It’s a metaphor for the never-ending cycle of fashion, said De Vincenzo.The spirit of the collection leaned decisively toward the south without anchoring itself to any specific geographical reference. De Vincenzo layered these influences instinctively, indulging a maximalist métissage with sexy boho undertones. He went bold—almost explosive—with bursts of saturated color, while prints were blown up into abstract floral patterns evoking a sort of psychedelic pagan symbolism. The silhouettes skimmed and sculpted the body with tight-fitting, sensual shapes—flared and sinuous, reminiscent of flamenco dancers—encrusted with lace, laminated, richly embroidered, or veiled in dark, sheer fabrics.Visually impactful, opulent, and unexpectedly sensuous and seductive by Etro’s standards, the collection felt as though it was enveloped in the powerful, almost overwhelming soundtrack performed live by Sardinian musician and singer-songwriter Daniela Pes, who mixed electronic textures with popular female vocalists and arcane lyrics drawn from ancient Gallurese phonemes.
18 September 2024
“Men who appreciate Etro are collectors at heart; they enjoy amassing [the label’s] prints over the years, almost obsessively, and aren’t concerned with fleeting trends,” said Marco De Vincenzo. And so this season he decided to forgo the catwalk and present an edited lineup of just 15 looks that highlights the brand’s archival patterns, all crafted from a single material, a fluid silk-viscose twill.The choice aligns with current concerns about overconsumption and the growing belief that a less-is-more approach is both healthier and more profitable in the long term. De Vincenzo focused on a relaxed, pajama-inspired aesthetic and the idea of comfort, with loose yet meticulously crafted silhouettes. The collection read as a concise uniform wardrobe, including an unstructured blazer, trousers, Bermuda shorts, two different shirt styles, and a duster. It’s designed for easy packing, with patterns that can be mixed and matched freely.The look book was shot in a flat where an abundance of patterns synced with Etro’s heritage motifs, refreshed in new colors and infused with De Vincenzo’s signature kinetic spin. “It’s patterns against patterns, almost Baroque,” said the designer. “It’s about fostering an Etro lifestyle, where you live in the same environment you wear. Print lovers are like a gang—we want to indulge them and help expand their Etro collection.”
5 September 2024
Etro’s show venue was bathed in dark light, from which emerged a series of huge, slightly disquieting effigies of masks inspired by Greek tragedies. The collection was called Act. Was Marco De Vincenzo perhaps considering a career U-turn into the performing arts? “Not yet,” he joked. “It’s that in my role as Etro’s creative director, I feel torn between authorship and interpretation. It’s a constant struggle that sometimes takes an emotional toll, yet it’s deeply generative. The masks are a symbolic manifestation of this inner turmoil.”The coed collection had an almost somber undertone, as if De Vincenzo had tried to unearth a darker side of Etro, bringing the brand along on an unmapped journey of self-discovery. Colors were muted, progressing from sensuous earthy tones to the intriguing depths of pitch-black—a first for Etro as black has always been regarded almost as anathema, alien to the label’s devotion to chromatic exuberance. But De Vincenzo is keen to experiment, and he feels confident and mature enough to chart new paths. He’s unafraid of courting the occasionally odd, and his penchant for quirk can be both disconcerting and surprisingly fresh.Textural and elaborate in its plays of layered motifs and rich in intricate treatments of surfaces, superimposed patterns, embellishments, and embroideries, the collection was quintessentially Etro yet miles away from its romantic boho narrative. De Vincenzo’s take is much more radical and unapologetic. Silhouettes were kept fluid and unstructured, yet draping and plays on asymmetries read as a bold statement, counterpointed by oversized tailoring that had presence and nerve. “I’ve felt the need to raise the bar,” said De Vincenzo. “I sense around me the desire for more intensity in fashion, for a creativity that doesn’t have to justify itself but can just be, that doesn’t seek perfection but rather emotional expression.”
21 February 2024
Marco De Vincenzo is making his mark on Etro, adding his own perspective to the label’s signature elements. At a pre-fall showroom appointment, he sounded confident; after the spring show, “the direction seems clearer,” he said. The potion he’s concocting to bring Etro forward is part heritage, part personal idiosyncrasies—a calibrated alchemy.“If a brand’s patrimony has strong foundations,” he reasoned, “as a creative you move within a perimeter that protects its survival, while at the same time protecting the integrity of your interpretation.” De Vincenzo delights in deep-dives into the archives; this season, he worked on the masculine templates of Etro’s beginnings as well as on its romantic bohemian legacy—two apparently antithetical ingredients laced by the flair for immersive decoration intrinsic to its character.Etro’s idea of masculinity has always been unconventional, tinged with a debonair, dandy attitude. De Vincenzo picked upon the same vibe in the feminine translation of the classic masculine suit, offered here in oversized renditions, either in tie-like heraldic jacquards or pinstriped, worn over sporty sweats with silk hoods printed in paisley motifs. Being one of the label’s signifiers, thebotehwas given an immersive treatment in stretchy knitted tube dresses, paired with long matching stoles; mixed with florals, it prettified the fluid, unfussy silhouettes that are De Vincenzo’s take on the boho look. They looked less elaborate and flouncy than past iterations. “I’m not going radically minimalistic,” De Vincenzo said. “Yet what I’m trying to do is to keep the approach a bit more rigorous, to reduce rather than amplify. I want to challenge myself in staying authentic, both to the brand and to myself.”
29 November 2023
Marco De Vincenzo is an eager traveler; this year he visited Africa and recently spent his holidays in Cambodia. But he also navigates frequently around Etro’s vast archive, a treasure trove of rare fabrics and prints, where he gets lost in a sort of suspended journey. “It’s weird how the imagination brings you to places that somehow you can’t describe,” he said. “The magic of the temples of Angkor Wat, a scrap of beautiful brocade from the 18th century…. The mind travels through memories and suggestions, mixing them together with no logic or rational hierarchy, and lands instinctively in fabulous places with no name.” He called his spring collection Nowhere.De Vincenzo is no philosopher, but Nowhere is a concept that can get the mind spinning in multiple directions. For one, fashion is a nowhere land where the art of infinite combinations can thrive. “This collection is a nowhere in that it’s a mix of my vision, illusions, and obsessions blended with Etro’s exceptional artistry in sourcing the rarest patterns and fabrics across the world,” he said backstage.De Vincenzo’s audacity and quirk were the glue that kept the collection cohesive, despite its visual jumble of graphics and handsome textures. “But there are no citations, no recognizable attributions, everything comes to life in a magical no-place,” he said. Not afraid to confront challenging shapes (swirling trailing hems sneaking awkwardly around the ankles), unexpected juxtapositions of volumes (XXXL leather blazers worn over equally humongous tentlike strapless circle dresses) and redundant intricacies of construction (an abundance of twisting, knotting, braiding and slicing), De Vincenzo is carving a distinctive niche of cool for Etro, bending its codes into a spirited, vital, visually compelling rendition. The diverse, refined casting, sophisticated grooming and imaginative styling only added to a convincing performance. De Vincenzo is bringing Etro to a pretty good no-place.
20 September 2023
It’s not a time for bold gestures in fashion, as the general mood is more about simplifying than amplifying, more about lowering the volume than sending out loud statements. How can a brand like Etro, whose visually compelling energy is fueled by the vibration of colors and imaginative patterns, adjust to a cooled-down climate? At today’s menswear show, Marco de Vincenzo offered his own answer.Visiting an old bookstore in his Sicilian hometown of Messina, he came upon an antique tome filled with allegorical images of esoteric arcanas from the 17th century, depicting vices and virtues. “They were using figurations to express concepts or hidden meanings,” said De Vincenzo. “I know it may sound weird, but those images made me think about TikTok, memes, GIFs, which are our non-verbal way of communicating through visuals.” It was a telling indicator of the designer’s intuitive approach to what he’s doing at Etro, channeling the instinctive more than the rational.All that enigmatic imagery found its way into today’s collection; Temperance, Tenacity, Eternity, Lust were jacquarded into panels at the back or at the front of the roomy, boxy, short-sleeved bowling shirts that here, as in many of this week’s shows, were one of the collection’s recurring staples. Printed in soft-toned hues and worn over trailing loose pants also in subdued, not-so-summery solid colors, they made the case for the fluidity and balanced intensity De Vincenzo infused in this season’s garments.Rigidity of construction was also banned not only from tailoring but also from the general feel of the collection. “I wanted shapes barely touching the body,” said De Vincenzo. Oversize-cut blazers had soft-jutting shoulders and were worn with equally wide, comfortable pajama trousers or shorts; long robe-dusters referenced Etro’s bohemian and eccentric nature, yet their tapestry-inspired printed patterns were toned down in scale and color to a sort of cool domesticity. In one of the collection’s decorative standouts, the same geometric motifs were finely beaded in shades of green on the generous volumes of a shirt/shorts combo.Some vibrancy was provided by a series of multicolor fuzzy jumpers that brought to mind textured Anatolian Filiki rugs. The finale was also invigorated by a jolt of vitality and a bit of flash. A series of conspicuous fringed capes and coats made from thick vintage blankets woven in abstract florals hit the right note between the artisanal and the extravagant.
They’ll be surefire showstoppers.
18 June 2023
Marco De Vincenzo was appointed Etro’s creative director a year ago, but he says he’s not done with the learning curve yet. Finding the formula to appeal to a new set of customers doesn’t happen overnight—that youth elixir all brands are searching for is rather elusive.Now that the wind has changed and bohemian shapes and billowy florals have been pushed aside in favor of pared-down minimalism, De Vincenzo has to come to terms with Etro’s raison d’être. For resort he tried to find a pragmatic middle ground between the label’s character—romantic, exotic, decorative—and his own design principles, which lean structured, kinetic, and graphic.Keeping a focus on archival prints, he toned down their vibrancy—a pair of baggy denims in an over-dyed tapestry print was a case in point—while maintaining a certain visual boldness. The multicolor floral patterns on a white cotton trapeze dress, for instance, were given a Pop vibe and encrusted with cut-out appliqués for a 3D effect. Plain saturated colors and pastels were also introduced, lending the collection a laid-back rhythm.De Vincenzo is partial to a clearly defined silhouette; fluidity isn’t really his thing—considering that he’s a talented leather goods designer, this isn’t surprising. But here he tried to somehow relax. “I let go a little,” he conceded. “It’s only in the synthesis between my approach and Etro’s that I feel authentic. Etro has so many codes from which you can draw inspiration; it makes you feel somehow protected; but on the other hand my duty is to find new ways.”Giving everyday staples a younger feel was the modus operandi; slouchy pants, roomy jumpsuits, padded shirts worn as light outerwear, and oxford poplin blouses with ample poet sleeves were offered in plain colors; they looked inventive yet realistic enough to spice up an everyday wardrobe. Prints were used for subtle pipings or as reversible linings, downplaying their impact, while openwork handknitted ensembles in psychedelic gradients hinted at the designer’s proclivity for kinetic art.De Vincenzo’s idea of garden party or cocktail dressing veers more cool than dressed-up glam. For him, a bias-cut long skirt printed with trellises worn with an unfussy T-shirt and boots would do for festive occasions. Yet evening wear requires a bit more dash, so he offered some fluid dresses with scarves that wrapped the bodice or acted as asymmetrical foulard capelets.
A standout was a high-waisted slip dress with a huge swirling skirt printed with eye-popping trellises. Even the coolest girls love to make a big entrance.
7 June 2023
That Fashionland is swept by the winds of the ’90s is of no concern for Marco De Vincenzo. “I have alway done things my way,” he said at a preview. At Etro, he’s studying, mining the archives, and “trying,” he said, “to get to the roots of my research.” That means coming to terms with the label’s heritage of pattern-mixing and boho-dressing, an aesthetic that looks to 1970s bohemia rather than the structured, geometrical precision and the rhythmic repetition of quirky kinetic patterns he favors.De Vincenzo is fascinated by the richness of the label’s textile archive; “going at the roots” for him means being radical in his embrace of the label’s spirit, without reverting to subversion—he’s not a provocateur. He called the collection Radical Etro: “I feel like an archeologist who has to confront the past, while bringing its finds to the light of today.”What he never confronted in his now discontinued line is the lightness of the flou, the breezy construction of flounced, ruffled dresses, the imaginative clashing of patterns so inherent to Etro’s raison d’être. He’s exploring the range of possible assonances with the label’s bohemian flair with the curiosity and gusto of the neophyte. “I’ve never done flou before, for me it is a completely new territory. But that lightness! All those yards and yards of airy georgette are mesmerizing, I’m hypnotized by the potential of all that nothingness.”There were plenty of beautiful romantic dresses paying homage to the house archives in the collection, but they had a distinctive quirky flavor à la De Vincenzo. Ruffled frocks in see-through chiffon printed with delicate florals or paisleys were tightly wrapped with cozy tartan blankets in bright colors, or worn under droopy open-work cardis. Lightness, as well as a soft domestic feel, was also hinted at in ample padded coats with contrast print linings, quilted as bed covers yet with billowy foulard panels floating freely at the back.For De Vincenzo, enhancing the cultivated textile expertise of Etro “is a duty.” To that end, he interspersed airy chiffon numbers with slim-fitted pantsuits featuring elongated tailcoats, cut in rich 18th century brocades, or with slightly oversized boxy jackets or coatdresses made in malleable multicolored knitted textures and featuring lapel-less round-shaped, double-breasted fronts—proof that there’s respect but no reverence in his approach to Etro’s heritage. “I haven’t changed,” he said.
“I’m still the one who takes risks and doesn’t compromise.” Nothing is more radical than that, really.
22 February 2023
Etro’s massive textile warehouse in Como, Italy, was transported and installed in its entirety into a vast industrial space to become the immersive show’s set today, with samples hanging from wooden racks and rolls of vintage fabrics scattered around. It was the homage Marco de Vincenzo wanted to pay to the house’s patrimony of textile culture, which is the groundwork on which he’s building his interpretation of the label’s codes.Connecting with Etro’s history is pivotal for De Vincenzo, and his way of dealing with its legacy is respectful; yet he isn’t intimidated by its scale. At a preview, he said that he wanted to throw a little of his own past into the picture. Cue a little fetish: a small wool blanket from his childhood, “which I brought with me, a lucky charm of sorts that gave me not only the inspiration for graphics and colors but also the sentimental impulse to put my story alongside that of the Etro family.”In his first menswear outing for the house, what De Vincenzo was keen to express was a sense of coziness and eccentricity. “Comfort of lines but eccentricity in the image” is how he summarized his take on the collection. The idea of masculinity he suggested came with an aura of artsy domesticity, and the look was balanced between a flair for romantic extravagance and supple refinement. Malleable high-end fabrics were cut into soft, gentle shapes: Kimonos, shirt coats, and duffles were fluid, unstructured, and unlined, with rounded shoulders, often nonchalantly belted and wrapped as robes de chambre; fuzzy teddy-bear pajamas embroidered with florals had an ironic childlike charm.Knitwear was outstanding, with big, chunky sweaters hand-knit in imaginative kinetic patterns rendered in an acidic-rainbow palette. On the playful side, tight-fitting jumpers crocheted in open-weave cashmere were appliquéd with 3D bunches of mulberries or kumquats and worn with roomy high-waist flares in bright-colored windowpane checks or with low-slung washed denim. At the opposite end of the spectrum, said De Vincenzo, “I wanted tailoring to look sexy.” Inflected with a ‘70s groove, pantsuits were cut in eye-popping tartans, with double-breasted fitted blazers worn over fluid roomy flares or with long pleated kilts open at the front. If not sexy per se, they certainly looked confident.
15 January 2023
Marco De Vincenzo is finding his footing at Etro. “Our souls are merging, it’s a sort of magic moment,” he joked at a pre-fall appointment. After his first catwalk outing in September, which came just three months after his appointment as creative director, he’s taking the time to enjoy a deep-dive into the archives, which has brought about a more rounded understanding of the label’s fundamentals. What’s expected of him is to refresh the look of a brand that has not only a solid heritage, but an equally solid growth potential.De Vincenzo’s mantra is “not destruction, but celebration.” He doesn’t go for any unnecessarytabula rasa, quite the contrary. Fascinated as he is by the label’s history, he’s focusing on what he believes is its most valuable asset: “What I want to celebrate is the patrimony of unparalleled knowledge of textiles that founder Gimmo Etro has provided the house,” he said. “It’s a wonderful legacy that I want to preserve and bring forward.”The collection took shape when De Vincenzo found a scrap of a Gobelin furnishing fabric in an antique book of textile samples in an old wooden library, a place where he spends time researching and where he had the lookbook lensed. The jacquard patterns of the velvet-woven textile were blown up into almost kinetic macro renditions, or reduced into lilliputian micro motifs, and then translated into the neat shapes De Vincenzo favors: a ’70s-flavored three-piece slim pantsuit, a sharp-cut short little coat, a high-collared, capped-sleeved, cute A-line minidress. A standout of the allover-patterned proposition was a classic trench coat, worn over matching bell bottoms and paired with a humongous shopping bag that’s part of the accessories line the designer is keen on expanding (he’s also keeping his longstanding position as Fendi’s Head of Accessories).De Vincenzo has never played on overtly complex, elaborated shapes or volumes, rather leaning into the precision of a minimalistic silhouette to enhance decorative boldness. The introduction of black gave the collection some pause from the quite intense visual impact of the allover jacquard textures. Decoration was toned down to finely embroidered floral trimmings, placed at the halter neckline of a belted minidress in thick black crêpe, or on the edges of a cropped, midriff-baring black bolero, worn with low-slung bell bottoms.De Vincenzo is also exploring less traveled Etro routes, one being the masculine-inspired offer.
He translated classic men’s shirting fabric into a quite eccentric flounced, frilly minidress, while his take on the tailored pantsuit was offered in a series of fluid three-pieces with a hint of the ’70s in languid silk velvet and embroidered buttons giving a touch of handcrafted preciousness. Rendered in jewel-tone colorways, they made for covetable propositions. So far, De Vincenzo and Etro seem to be enjoying their honeymoon phase; hopefully it will develop into a long lasting happy marriage.
28 November 2022
Marco de Vincenzo went for a clean break with the past in his first outing as Etro’s creative director: “For me this season was about expressing Etro’s potential, showing that there’s a wider range of possibilities that hasn’t been explored yet,” he said before the show, held in a vast industrial space whose floor was painted in a colorful abstract pattern.De Vincenzo was appointed at the end of May; he had just one month to design spring in order to have it produced and ready on time—a nerve-racking prospect even for the most seasoned designer. Yet he took it in his stride: Moments before the show, he looked preternaturally serene.“I relied on my imagination rather than study, as I didn’t have the luxury of deep diving into the wonderful Etro archives,” he said. “It’s a collection I’ve made within myself, believing in my intuition and trusting my perception.”His subversion was played out with gentle determination. Etro’s most recognizable repertoire—the paisley pattern, the fringed gypsy look, the romantic sweeping gowns—was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t really like fluid fabrications; I like structure and compact materials,” de Vincenzo explained. “I’m not really familiar with the boho world; it doesn’t mean that in the future I cannot interpret it my way, but for now I’ve been given this position to express my point of view. That’s why I’m here.”What de Vincenzo went for was a sort of radical romanticism, bold visuals, and a quirky gesture of discontinuity. He wanted to “celebrate Etro’s unique textile richness,” and played with new jacquard textures and a variety of decorative motifs, whimsical and eccentric. He kept shapes simple “to be quickly read and easily understood, as young people today like to dress mix-and-matching pieces, so you have to leave space for imaginative interpretations.” To that end he offered shorts, masculine shirts, miniskirts, denim cargos, and brassieres in luxurious fabrications and sumptuous jacquards. All was exquisitely crafted. Embroideries, intarsia, and appliqués had a bold, at times theatrical appeal.“I know that my sense of beauty is peculiar, my aesthetic has a sort of abstract, quirky quality, yet here I wanted to offer richness and variety but also a respect for reality,” de Vincenzo concluded. Fashion needs gutsy visionaries more than ever, as well as engaging points of view expressed with conviction and imagination; a reality where a sense of wonder has no space is just shallow and meaningless.
De Vincenzo seems to know that well.
23 September 2022
Kean Etro delights in layering multiple references with the ease that comes not only from experience but from true cultural curiosity. His love of literature and poetry are just some of his many interests, and this season, instead of invitations, he had actors phone each of the show’s hundreds of guests to recite a dedicated poem to each one.It was a gesture of exquisite sensitivity, marking his last solo collection for Etro and his elegant way of passing the baton to Marco De Vincenzo, who will take the lead as creative director from September. De Vincenzo was in the audience today, applauding a collection that was quintessentially Kean in its celebration of poetic eclecticism. “Poetry and utopia go hand in hand,” he said backstage before the show. “In its etymology, poetry simply means making, composing. I wanted to give value to the idea of creating, which shouldn’t be separated from utopia.” Quoting Oscar Wilde, he added “there’s no progress in society without utopia.”Yet there wasn’t much utopia in the breezy sensuality of the collection; rather a plausible idea of gentle masculinity filtered through Kean’s cultivated, sentimental eye. Following circadian rhythms, looks were presented in circular chromatic cadence, from morning whites through sun-at-the-zenith brights to velvety darks dotted with starry figments. Archetypal in shape—kimonos, kaftans, djellabas, wrap jackets closed by obis—it was elevated by what the designer called “a florilegium,” that is a plethora of sparse floral images delicately overprinted with the number 432 Hertz. “It’s the number indicating the frequency of the universe’s good vibration,” said Kean. “It’s the frequency of beauty. It’s like when you charge crystals or bio-dynamic particles with energy—I’ve used it to somehow energize the garments.”The energy-charging ritual may have worked: there was a lively feeling to the collection that propelled it forward, despite the stifling heatwave which made the air feel unnaturally still. Billowy see-through chiffon kaftans and elongated shirts and kimonos in liquid satin were worn open to reveal nude skin, as well as boxing shorts exposing bare legs. The body was perceived through mesh textures, broderie Anglaise inserts, and impalpable silks and linens. The breezy, cultivated Bohemian feel which is the Etro siblings’ signature looked vital and delicate in equal measure.
Kean and Veronica took the bow together at the end of the show, an impromptu gesture of arrivederci cheered by the audience with affection.
19 June 2022
With a new creative director just appointed, the house of Etro is getting ready for its closeup. Marco De Vincenzo is taking the lead, and will show his first collection in September. Meanwhile, resort was presented by Veronica Etro at a showroom appointment.Pop-up takeovers in prime seaside locations have become increasingly frequent—and lucrative—for luxury fashion brands, and Etro is no exception. Its colorful spirit agrees with the atmosphere of the high-style escapism of Porto Cervo and Forte dei Marmi. A new boutique just opened in Capri, and others are in the cards. The collection envisioned by Veronica would be perfectly à l’aise in any of those locations, but it’s also flexible enough to be worn in more everyday situations, full as it is of covetable, easy pieces with a distinctive flavor of joyful bohemia.The label’s staples—the glamorous caftan, the kimono, the dressing gown duster, the flowy dress—were given a fresh, summery interpretation. The paisley motif was blown up into a vibrant abstract rendition, printed on a long chiffon dress with butterfly sleeves, or onto a masculine bermuda suit, or again on a tight body-con number with an asymmetrical ruffled hem. Punctuating the collection with an artisanal feel, a series of crocheted pieces including an elongated mesh cardi, a handknit knotted-fringed miniskirt, and a show stopping robe/poncho exuded the haute hippy vibe that is trademark Etro. Its free spirited attitude will surely transition into Etro’s new direction.
6 June 2022
“The question I asked myself is: How can I deal with the prints in a totally new way? I wanted to go out of my body and see things from a completely different angle,” began Veronica Etro. “So I imagined aliens coming across our archive in 200 years and looking at them with micro-lenses that are sort of zooming in and blowing everything up. So it’s like zoomed heritage!”With Etro’s heritage looping back via its family-founded roots in Italy during the hippie late ’60s, to a style of shawl named after a Scottish mill town that made a massive 19th-century British Colonial fashion business out of appropriating a precious fabric whose culture belongs to Kashmir, on the border of India and Pakistan—the paisley pattern is always the given medium.Veronica Etro’s conundrum has been to contemporize and reconfigure all of that, expanding the range of what her brand can be without losing its character. “You know, Etro was a lifestyle brand,” she observed backstage. “I think the strength is that it has a strong identity, but at the same time it leaves women open to interpret and to be individual and to personalize. It’s about how we can embrace different personalities—I never wanted to make it homogeneous, to make uniforms.”This time she traveled through boho, arty-crafty knitwear to ’80s puffy-silhouetted patchwork bomber jackets to end up with suave, ’70s crushed-velvet trouser suits and slinky bias-cut black satin dresses. The paisley registered in various graphic forms—super enlarged (as the designer had described) to look like an animal-print lining on a shearling aviator jacket, or deconstructed down to its “harlequin” elements, stamped in repeat on a vibrant pink velvet jacket and a semisheer, diaphanous chiffon dress.Etro Remix she called it. With its crop tops, bras and bodysuits, and plenty of skin on show, the styling was unmistakably another step along the path of the brand’s intention to reach out to another generation.
25 February 2022
Parse-able from this afternoon’s Etro show was the will to turn a fresh page in the house’s story without veering shark-jumpingly away from its greater narrative. So while the usual riot of pattern was dialed down to a melee and color clashes were tightly corralled, pixelated blown up paisley knits, the occasional full paisley dressing gown and pajama ensemble and punchily toned monotone looks maintained the house DNA. “We’re trying to get into a more graphic approach,” said Kean Etro pre-show. “All the shapes have changed. It’s a big shift.”Starting with the handsome topstitched shearling patched runners up to the wide, straight leg corduroy and wool jersey pants—which broke gently against those sneakers—this toe-to-top Etro refit was tilted at youth. “I have five kids,” said Etro, “so I know.” A wolf graphic fleece, synthetic, and wolf intarsia knit sweater, organic, referenced the house’s support of an Italian WWF conservation project, and looked fierce in the process. Shiny rubberized puffer jackets, one of them hybridized with a duffel coat and worn by backstrap against a seasonally unusual suit (which was even more unusually waisted with an inbuilt pattern knit ribbed panel), and similarly shiny drawstring rubberized pants howled loudly as a fresh-for-Etro finish.Kean’s bibliophile tendencies inspired the literary accessories—every model held a book—and added depth to the show’s location in the Bocconi University. This was a studiedly diligent pitch to luxury-curious undergraduates looking to add distinction through pattern and color (but none of it too crazy) to their aesthetic portfolios.
16 January 2022
As at other family-owned Italian fashion houses, it’s a time of renewal and evolution for Etro. A new investor (LVMH-backed private equity giant L Catterton) has poured fresh resources into the company’s business operations, amping up expansion plans and production capabilities. On the creative side, Veronica Etro and brother Kean seem to be energized by the change, working together on updating collections with a younger, gender fluid flavor—a move which has recently led to artistic collaborations with unconventional talents, like the Italian rock band Måneskin and British designer Harris Reed.Veronica Etro’s work is focused now more than ever on taking her family’s legacy a step further, while keeping its style fundamentals firmly at the core of her vision. “It’s about constantly elaborating and expanding our lexicon of wanderlust and bohemia with newness and a freshésprit,” she said at a pre-fall appointment. “I like to be challenged.”Etro’s aesthetic has always relied on the impact of its charming prints, free-spirited yet sophisticated. To boost their visual appeal here, Veronica gave them a lighter spin, making the motifs more rarefied and luminous, “almost if they were floating on a white background,” she explained. The extensive use of white in the collection was evocative of wintry landscapes. The offering was rich in protective, cozy layering pieces. Oversized intarsia’d and crocheted knitwear was proposed in lieu of outerwear; ponchos, capes and blankets featured in abundance; and piuminos were knitted and textural, quilted with pretty floral-printed linings.Being a self-described hippie, Veronica remains partial to the flowy dresses which have become one of the label’s signatures. For pre-fall, she gave them a slightly dramatic twist (a black pleated-chiffon number with printed panels and ruched trimming was particularly attractive) and presented them alongside new versions of classic Etro staples. Languid loungewear-inspired robes, loose-fitting pajama suits, chic caftan dresses, and kimono jackets were offered in sumptuous printed velvet or elaborate jacquards with a silver sheen. Their relaxed, versatile look is likely to appeal to the progressive audiences Etro has been courting.
29 November 2021
Veronica Etro was once a fellow regular atWhirl-Y-Gig, the nu-hippie (a.k.a. crusty) London club night in Shoreditch Town Hall: Although we can’t remember meeting there, it’s possible—because even the morning after, one’s recollection would be a little hazy. It was an awesome night that started early and ended early: Bongo drummers would riff live to the sets of Monkey Pilot and crew, there was a lot of mutual massage (maybe mushrooms too), psychedelic light shows, chakra reading, chai drinking, and face-painting. At the end of the night, a canopy of parachute silk would fall from the ceiling and we’d all hug before heading out to wait for the bus home.Fast-forward 30 years: As her family’s house was locked in negotiations that would in July lead to the sale of a 60% stake to L Catterton (a Louis Vuitton–adjacent equity vehicle), Veronica Etro found herself thinking back to those hazy, crazy days under the parachute. She said: “I’m a person who really goes with the flow. Everything will be done. And I’m here, and I’m happy.” This mindfulness 101 position went on to influence the development of this collection, which considered the Beatles’ discovery of transcendental meditation inRishikeshjust as Etro was founded in 1968. This struck a further chord with Veronica’s process in 2021: “In this period I came really close to mindfulness, yoga, and meditation: There was a spiritual awakening, like for many people, I think. This thing of finding balance within, that was also very typical of the early ’70s.”She then took this house-relevant source spirit and renewed it afresh through a design expression filtered through those 1990s Shoreditch nights. So to a soundtrack that sandwiched Massive Attack between Moby, we saw Etro-signature paisleys blended with flower-power florals, mandala embroideries, and tree of life graphics, all punctuated by fertility-symbolizing Zoroastrian seed motifs. As you’d expect at Etro, this decoration was applied to looks including tailoring, kicky denim, and floaty Talitha Getty–ready chiffon dresses. Veronica also, however, pressed fast-forward on the silhouette time machine to introduce a swathe of looks you could totally imagine Björk wearing while dancing on the back of a truck.
These included a spaghetti-strapped backless top and A-line mini in a black kaleidoscope of sequin mandalas, a tranche of patched and patterned slip dresses, cropped paneled bombers, metal mesh skirts and bras, track pants, work shirts, cycling shorts, and bucket hats. These were given extra altitude by hovercraft-sole sandals that were themselves invariably etched with paisley.A side-split cotton shirtdress printed with hyper-sized daisies recalled De La Soul’s 3Feet High And Rising, and that fleeting moment when the new “Daisy Age” seemed like a counter-cultural force with staying power. The show closed with a drumming performance of Whirl-Y-Gig epicness, before we all headed out—no hugs allowed—to wait for the ride to the next one. This was a collection charged with positive pan-generational nostalgia that also strived to pass that spirit forward.
23 September 2021
“The story goes that a group of Celts were sent on a quest with their druid and, of course, with their sacred animals. And this white boar, a female, stopped in this area where several rivers converge, and that is where the city of Milano was founded.” It was typical of Kean Etro to pause his pre-show collection description for an aside related to 590 BC and Chief Belloveso’s history-shrouded interaction with the mythical “scrofa semilanuta” (half-woollen boar) that was Milan’s first emblem. Etro is a man whose mind flies higher and wider than most—and, unlike many fashion-world eccentrics, entirely unpretentiously.Back in 2021AD, circa this morning, we were gathered in a romantically poppy-overgrown train yard to watch an Etro menswear collection that travelled almost as far. Fittingly, our ranks were swelled by freshly-arrived menswear pilgrims from the US, the first on this side for many months.In his Italian press conference, Etro spoke of “unidentified flying dreams,” vitamin colors, and nomadism: the rattan mats rolled into studded bags or totes, and leather-clad canteens slung across shoulders, suggested the road ahead was a long one. Yet as the models stepped from sleeper to sleeper, kicking up rocks with the tangily-toned, round-toed shoes co-ordinated against similarly treated canvas pants, or the conjoined floral and paisley seed printed sneakers that worked against the silky separates and sporty base layers above, they looked less on a mystical quest and more on a saunter to a beach party or club. “Back to the future… Techniques of Ecstasy,” was the paisley-framed promise on a white hoodie. There was lysergic, printed silk shirting pulled open to the navel or no shirting at all—just some vague cummerbunding—under citrus suiting. It all delivered fittingly (r)Etro rushes of hedonistic potential at a show that made you itch to dress very up indeed.
20 June 2021
Who says that the Milanese are conservative and bourgeois? Veronica Etro doesn’t buy into that narrative. “My father Gimmo founded the house of Etro in 1968, so we as a company were born at a time of barricades and youth revolution,” she said at a showroom appointment. “As much as we value tradition, there’s a rebellious spirit which runs in our family, a flair for adventure, open-mindedness, and eccentricity.” It’s a mindset she’s been making good use of lately, steering the label on a stronger, younger course. Less Lady of the Canyon and more radical rock chick, perhaps? “I didn’t want to be too romantic—at least for this collection!” she said.It’s to Etro’s credit that she’s been the driving force behind a rather unexpected (and extremely successful) collaboration with the Italian rock band Måneskin, whose fearless outfits caused quite a stir at the Sanremo Music Festival in March. On a roll to international stardom, the band recently scooped up the first prize at Eurovision Song Contest 2021. To perform their hit “Zitti e Buoni” (which loosely translates as “Shut Up and Be Quiet”) Måneskin wore provocative skintight numbers in laminated, platinum-studded, and cross-stitched bordeaux leather concocted by Veronica with her brother Kean. The track cracked the Spotify Global Top 200 Chart and was listed #9 in May. Veronica couldn’t have been prouder: “I’ve been really galvanized by working with talents with such a gutsy, no-holds-barred mindset, ready to take any risk with absolute aplomb,” she said. “It gave me the courage to challenge my own limits.”It’s not only members of Måneskin who will find pieces to like in the resort collection. Special stand-alone items like intarsia-ed ponchos, embellished waistcoats, richly embroidered miniskirts, and fringed blanket skirts were combined with easy wardrobe staples rendered à la Etro. Less bohemian and more concise than usual, the everyday offer comprised a series of gender-fluid shirts, tunics, oversized blazers, and pajama suits that emphasize the masculine/feminine synergy and code-swapping going on between the Etro siblings. Paisley patterns got a punk-ish treatment with skulls, snakes, and safety pins; prints were bolder and used in patches on nylon anoraks and quilted indigo denim sets; and skintight black leather pants and zippered jackets were intended as a nod to biker subcultures.“After celebrating Etro’s 50th birthday in 2018 I wanted to turn the page,” said Veronica.
“We’re building a new following of young customers who are asking for a stronger twist on our traditional style. The pandemic has taught us to not be afraid, to enjoy taking risks and to embrace change. It isn’t time to hold on to our comfort zone.”
2 June 2021
As Arlissa Ruppert, the British-German singer, pointed out on the soundtrack to this Etro show presentation, the rules keep changing. But whereas from her balcony at the West Hollywood Edition Ruppert was singing about the rules of love, back in Milan’s Zona Tortona Veronica Etro was thinking about the rules of dressing.Etro said: “If you see people going out, how they are making their outfits, I don’t think there are those old distinctions anymore. Between outdoor, indoor, leisure, business…between everything, actually. Which is a sort of freedom that is developing today.”There was a time when 80% of an Etro’s womenswear show would have seen the runway caressed by long-hemmed, richly patterned dresses in velvet, mousseline, and chiffon. Here, Look 37 and 39 notwithstanding, Veronica seized on the Jenga collapse of dress codes to rebuild her show architecture afresh. She introduced more vernacular pieces of a type rarely seen at Etro (that awesome spring 2019 surf show apart) including leggings, T-shirts, and bombers. Although this was by no means a decoratively muted collection, the usual Etro pattern clash was reduced and to an extent replaced by a dialogue between print and solids, notably in a series of patched quilted garments including hoodies and jumpsuits.Etro is usually a house you can bank on for at least one pair of flares, but this element of ’70s boho schtick was also shown the door today. Instead the “daywear” (if that’s a thing anymore) silhouettes were more contemporary thanks to wide-legged, cinched-waist pants in washed chambray-blue and print.One rule unlikely ever to change at Etro is its appreciation of pattern. This season Veronica had looked at the riffs and pirouettes in aesthetics embodied by Jimi Hendrix and Rudolf Nureyev (a large selection of whose personal wardrobe was purchased by Veronica’s father, Gimmo, at auction in 1994). Ballet-inspired patchworks and intarsias plus the house-standard paisley played out on robe coats and chiffon vests; tiger and leopard print roared occasional solos; and some closing blazers duetted with those two long-hemmed dresses via a haze of fringing in clusters of black and purple.Etro said it was only when someone at the show filming had mentioned it, that she’d registered both of her key inspirations for this womenswear collection were men: “and maybe that’s because they both broke the rules too.”
26 February 2021
Creatively curated clutter is part of Kean Etro’s MO. However, even he has used the last few months to rationalize his memoir of acquired stuff. That process was then recycled to frame this collection. Speaking just before this digital presentation was filmed, Etro said: “I played with what we did with our wardrobes; clearing out, looking again, rediscovering, mixing things together, cleaning up... This helped me realize what the moment is—it’s an in and out time. I think [in the future] there will be a strong instinct to express yourself individually; to be your own stylist, be your own designer.”Kean was wearing a green coat recently dug out from some distant corner of his archive that dated back to a 1996 Etro collection titled Tower of Babel, one of his earliest. His remembered archive played a part here, too, in embellished ghillie loafers and pastel cricket sweaters and other bits and bobs he recalled wearing as a schoolboy in Cambridge. Other jackdaw acquisitions included deadstock logo jacquard fabrics used in shirting and molded metal jewelry in which was set cylinders of red mineral that looked like handy portable jade rollers. Both of these were consensually snaffled from his sister Veronica’s womenswear archive.The weight of references and remembrances made for looks that were sometimes densely layered—green upcycled shirting under a cagoule under a knit cummerbund under a paisley piped suit in Japanese woven houndstooth under a shoulder-robed cashmere coat—and sometimes powerfully competitive: leopard print pants in combat with a matchy-matchy paisley shirt and sweater. Etro extended the studiedly shambolic range of source material from menswear to homewear via quilted paisley outerwear and ponchos in tapestry jacquards. He buttressed his looks with velcro-secured bandoliers of printed leather personal luggage. Punchy “vitamin colors” accented fetching weave-detail sneakers, cable-knit sweater vests and those hand-knit cummerbunds to add beetroot, lime or blueberry jolts to Etro’s multiple-ingredient wearable smoothies. When the models emerged en masse from their runway space into the wintery sunshine on Via Tortona they resembled friends reunited who, unconvinced of exactly what to wear, had instead decided to wear everything they could for the joy of it.
17 January 2021
“I’m a natural-born optimist, I always try to see the glass half full,” said Veronica Etro from the other side of the screen during a Zoom review of Etro’s pre-fall collection. Italy is still in its second lockdown with no sign that Christmas travels will be possible—not exactly an uplifting situation—but Etro nevertheless sounded positive. “When we finally get out of this—and we will get out of it sooner or later—we’ll be ready to enjoy life to the full again. To travel, to party, to meet with friends, to get our freedom back,” she said.With her hopeful disposition, Etro hasn’t been tempted in the least to propose the elevated version of the stay-at-home loungewear that many designers have turned to for their post-pandemic collections. She believes that fashion should help women to be better versions of themselves, no matter the circumstances. A need for comfort is an inevitable byproduct of our present WFH limitations; it can’t be ignored. However, she said, “Etro has always been about a natural sense of ease, so I didn’t have to change my perspective much. It’s more about celebrating the freedom we’re craving to go back to. I thought about the future, about the clothes we’ll feel good in, and how we’ll enjoy getting dressed.”The collection reads as a free-spirited round-up of the best of the label, individual pieces as imaginative and romantic as they are effortless to wear, spiced up with a dash of Etro’s haute-bohemian flair, and all worn by a community of diverse characters. Paisley-printed garden party dresses alternated with soft tailored pantsuits in plush velvet, while languid tapestry dressing gowns, richly printed kimonos, and jacquard-knitted cozy wool cardis looked versatile enough to sit comfortably in a masculine/feminine wardrobe.The free-style ’70s vibe of her references connects with today’s lust for unconventional self-expression. “It was a time with the same strong desire of breaking barriers, conventions, and rules we’re experiencing today, so I found it a telling reference,” said Etro. Jimi Hendrix’s glamorous psychedelia was obviously the inspiration for a series of hippie-ish pieces. Shearling embroidered waistcoats were paired with floral-printed frilly minidresses or worn over animalier bell-bottom denims, while unisex wool ponchos, geometric intarsia-ed capes, and roomy patchworked blanket coats nodded to the passion for travel ingrained in Etro’s narrative.
“Traveling is always a learning experience and I miss it terribly,” said Etro. So much so that in the look book a model carries an amusing XXXL paisley-printed shopper, big enough to hold the entire collection. It seems unlikely though that it’ll be allowed as a carry-on item when Veronica Etro is finally able to get back in the air again.
8 December 2020
Faced by a rainstorm, Etro brainstormed and relocated its show from the gardens of the Four Seasons to a garage space, quite Parisian, just down the road from its headquarters on Via Spartaco. One slight downside to this new spot was that due to Italy’s strict and strictly observed COVID-19 restrictions, Veronica Etro could not offer pre-sees backstage. So just like Roberto Cavalli used to (but for fun, not safety), she held an impromptu press conference on her runway before the show began.This meant early arrivals (there were a lot of freshly landed influencers in the house) got a good look at the collection on the board before they saw it on the models. By chance, that proved fitting for a collection that was about taking a second look with new eyes. Here in Italy, along with the widespread observation of rules and regulations (at least when it comes to COVID-19), another rarely seen national trait that has emerged in 2020 is a keen appreciation for this country. For Veronica this catalyzed a collection that stayed firmly rooted at home—highly unusual for this most nomadic of fashion labels.As those early arrivals took sneaky phone shots of the board, the designer explained: “It started during lockdown. Like everyone else I was at home, cleaning. And my mom and I restored an old record player and started listening to these old Neapolitan songs, and we were bewitched by the serenity, the timelessness, and the elegance. Then I started thinking about a trip I took in 2019 to Ischia, Capri, Naples, and Positano, and—maybe because we were so patriotic during that period—I thought, okay, let’s make the collection all about Italy.”In another thoughtful departure, this collection contained around a third fewer looks than last season. “I wanted to avoid waste,” said Veronica. What remained was a consciously informal—“Who needs formal with no events to go to?”—selection of foulard dresses and terrycloth separates in Etro prints drawn from its 1990s archive. Lovely but understated were the rope sandals and belts in green, yellow, red, and blue that used stone-set metal hardware, while T-shirts featuring faux beach club logos were both fun and very Italian. Ashley Graham was suitably Sophia Loren–ish in an open-skirted, sweetheart-neckline gown in dark silk. However, there were also several nods across the border to Brigitte Bardot via marinière knits and the opening halter bra top and miniskirt.
Sticklers for a consistent theme might have grumbled at this, but strictly speaking, Nice and the surrounding area were part of the Italian peninsula until relatively recently, so there.Unpretentious and lovingly executed, this was a cute collection that will doubtless be highly desired on the beaches of Italy and beyond next summer. When the applause died down, the PA fired up: As you now exit a plane, we were asked to exit this show, in stages, with those closest to the door first. Only one or two especially self-important or ignorant showgoers broke those rules, because why would you?
24 September 2020
Today’s Etro show will go down in fashion history as the very first physical show held in front of an actual audience after the pandemic-enforced lockdown. Staged in open air in the garden of Milan’s Four Seasons Hotel, it was joyfully welcomed by the 80 mask-clad, safe-distanced guests convened at breakfast time over cappuccinos.“We’re live and alive!” Veronica and Kean Etro exclaimed at an impromptu press conference after the show. They worked together on both collections during quarantine, which fueled even more of a spirit of collaboration than usual. Only recently did they decide to present them with an actual show. “It’s an act of courage that comes from the heart,” enthused Kean. “We wanted to bring back life and energy to our city,” chimed Veronica.Hard-hit by the pandemic, Milan’s Quadrilatero shopping district, usually busy with tourists, is slowly coming back to its former bustling self—the Four Seasons just opened a week ago. “We’re born optimists,” they said. “Giving in to doom and gloom—not an option. And we wanted to kind of break the circle of solitude.” Soulful music was played live, with a soundtrack paying homage to the late Ennio Morricone.The collections were entirely produced in Italy, where artisans and entrepreneurs were eager to restart and resume operations after months of working remotely. It was a creative and productive joint effort. “The sense of community was touching,” said Veronica.As an extended family, the Etros have always embraced inclusive values and individuality. The idea of traveling to far away destinations, which is at the core of their aesthetic, is intended more as a respectful exploration of different cultures than as wanderlust or pure escapism. Their ethos seems to resonate with what’s happening today in the world; the show’s casting reflected diversity, “as if guests of many different provenances were checking into the hotel, with their unique stories to tell and their wealth of memories and experience to share,” underlined Veronica. Each look was styled uniquely, tailored to its model’s personality.Etro’s repertoire—the inventive jumble of archival patterns, the rich color palette, the bohemian attitude—was reworked into tightly edited offerings focused on daywear pieces. Masculine and feminine elements were playfully interchangeable, highlighting the creative dynamic between Veronica and Kean.
A fresh-hued soft-tailored blazer was worn over a romantic mousseline dress, while a sensual animalier motif was printed all over a sporty tracksuit. The mood was light, easy, real. “Nobody wants complicated clothes right now,” they said.Commitment to sustainability is a concern that the pandemic has only made more pressing. The Etros’ approach was to use responsibly sourced fabrics—yarns made from eucalyptus or from recycled plastic bottles. To reduce waste, upcycling archival textiles and vintage clothing also came into play. “We wanted to bring old fabrics back to life, giving them new longevity and purpose,” they said. “ For us, it’s not only about the final destination—it’s about the journey.”
15 July 2020
There were various reasons why Veronica Etro encased the cloisters of the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music so that we were sitting in inky blackness. Backstage she said she wanted to totally change the look of a venue she’s used before and that “black is a color that protects,” plus the blackness spoke to the nearly all-black but color-edged worn-effect trenches that costumed the now-standard mass Etro finale. The ultimate reason, one suspects, was the launch of a handbag named the Black Pegaso that each model held during that finale.Still, it seemed a shame to wall us in when there was a beautiful sunny day outside that would have illuminated this space and collection gorgeously. Just because the handbag is black didn’t mean everything else had to be. This was the only real criticism of a collection that was in many ways archetypal Etro. This house has been trawling the world like an eclectic nomad for so many decades that you can hardly accuse it of cultural appropriation—being open to the aesthetics of diverse global cultures is the Etro way. Here, Veronica’s folk stopovers included cropped and fringed woven gaucho blanket ponchos over riding pants and one of two great boots—a Cuban heel and a block—that ran through the collection.There were fringed checked and plain blanket coats and cashmere separates, a fantastic embroidered white afghan shearling, lushly embroidered denim with more fringing, and a series of typically gorgeous boho dresses including a galloping green example with a head-scarf neckline. In the first third or so of the show, there was an atypical detour to Paris via a series of overtly haute bourgeois looks that seemed like a slightly wayward diversion, but Veronica had said she wanted to contrast “respectability and seduction” and “coziness and tailoring” and this was part of that. The tailoring also included the closing tuxedo and suits in tartan and house-standard paisley.The two gold looks near to the close were obvious yet powerful attention grabbers. The casting here was strong, and the collection totally consistent in its eclectic variousness that is one of the key values of this house.
21 February 2020
Balefully staring from the walls of this garage showspace were the subjects of scores of old portraits; these included some well-off officers from the 1910s, a girl with a bob and a red kimono lying in an art deco frame, an Edwardian lady wandering through a flower meadow in white lace, and a group of late 19th century hunters. Just down the bench Veronica Etro said all of these had been collected by her father, Gerolamo, partly for pleasure and partly for professional reasons. “Some of them are of our ancestors and others he bought because he liked the clothes. See that woman with the paisley sash? He likes uniforms, writing, and military… I like that they are here today looking down on us.”Gerolamo’s collection was handed down to Veronica and her siblings, brother Kean included. Backstage Kean was resplendent in a red velvet jacket, which he promptly took off. “So this is a love jacket. For me it’s an archetype. I started wearing it in 2005—and this is my heart beating inside.” The orange lining was imprinted with Mexican folk framed pictures of Kean and his wife. “It’s me and Constanza and this is our Mexican altar, our altar of love.”The jacket, in other words, was Kean’s portrait for posterity, commissioned upon a canvas of his preference, and of the person most important to him—just as many of those portraits outside were for others. Via a lot of entertaining Keanish conversation we got to the point that the collection was about ancestry—both personal to him and more broadly cultural: “call them family ties, tribal ties”—and handed-down traditions and mannerisms and the adaptation of old wisdom to today.Cut center stage then to a series of looks that you could say were archetypally clustered, but loosely so. There was a spot of languid time travel, à la Vuitton women’s wear last season, from the great-coated and riding-booted openers at the beginning (not unlike those of the army officers and hunters staring down from above) to the closing firework barrage of corduroy suiting in top-to-toe color featuring slim kicky pants and sometimes overlaid with piumino (the Italian and much more elegant equivalent of puffer) gilets in the same color.
Between these more defined sections came far more hazily stirred incarnations of the Etro stew: a fringed blanket topcat above black denim and a cowpoke’s belt; Mark Vanderloo (his return along with John Kortajarena was another cross-generational undertow here) shoulder-robing an abstracted regimental/blanket stripe overcoat above a contrasting bead piped suit; a fringed blanket and leather western and peacoat hybrid; a monochrome leopard print ponyskin topcoat over skinny jeans and Chelsea boots; and a short cloak coat beaded with paisley seeds twisted at the top to resemble the outline of two preening peacocks.
12 January 2020
Etro’s collections are imaginative and compelling, with refined references layered in a millefeuille of colors, patterns, and textures. Yet, for all their elaborate visual charm, a refreshing simplicity of lines and volumes is always at play, which speaks of modern ease. Nothing is ever too convoluted: The apparent sensory overload dissolves into effortless silhouettes, attractive and rich in references (the Etros are passionate collectors), yet surprisingly friendly to wear and flattering to every body type. Does it have to do with Veronica Etro being a woman designer, perhaps? “Well, I definitely have real women in mind when I design,” she said.Etro’s nomadic spirit is one of the label’s long-lasting signifiers: It isn’t a mannerism. They did bohemia way before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon. For prefall, Veronica embarked on her usual imaginative world tour: “It’s an entire universe that fits into a suitcase!” she mused. Her eye traveled from the gauchos of Argentina to the valleys of Tyrol, ending with a dash of British heraldry, all of which imbued the collection with a sophisticated medley of quirk and clarity. Ponchos and blanket capes were thrown over roomy corduroy pants, fringed suede jackets were mixed with floral-printed velvets; and sumptuous paisleys gave a luxe edge to romantic tiered dresses in light chiffon. Masculine tailoring blended with soft feminine pieces; oversize, crisp poplin shirts contrasted with shell coats in precious hand-woven brocade jacquard that were inspired by sacred vestments in the family’s archives.As always with Etro, cultural references were worn lightly, and reworked into new propositions. “One of our best qualities is being timeless,” said Veronica. The 21-year-old actress Alice Pagani, star of Netflix’sBaby, is a fan, but it isn’t only Gen Z-ers embracing the label. Recently the Italian movie director Lina Wertmüller wore an Etro dress to receive a Life Achievement Award. “She is 91!” said the designer. “I couldn’t have been more proud."
4 December 2019
Let’s begin at the end. For the finale of her Spring/Summer 2020 show, Veronica Etro sent out a parade of barefoot models in super-classic men’s shirts (striped and monogrammed) tucked haphazardly into resolutely slouchy jeans (paisley-printed, mid-rise, raw-edged). The cut and vibe of both these items were perfection: pristine but easy, patterned but somehow neutral. There wasn’t an editor in the room, male or female, who didn’t sit under the thought bubble “I want to be that girl.”The finale was Veronica Etro at her best—old-world, bohemian, cultured, and feminist. And her conviction that the shirt is due for a return (“we are all full of tee shirts”) was the best part of this collection. There were two shirts that ruled the catwalk today: one, a classic men’s piece with sharp cuffs and a shirttail hem; two, a massive blouse in dotted swiss or cotton lace, piratical and romantic in the extreme. Both were positioned as wardrobe essentials for a groovy vixen who alights in a paisley, animalia-themed hot air balloon (there were three on the runway) to follow dudes in bands to gigs the world over. Yes, this was a collection devoted to festival girls—groupies, actually—but only the great ones (Birkin, Pallenberg, Rampling, Bissett), those leggy British beauties who, in the ’60s, floated effortlessly between Pune and Tangier, Formentera and Monterey.This is not unfamiliar territory in fashion, of course, but it is a historical landscape that Etro has some claim to. Haute hippie heritage chic is basically the DNA of the house. And they do all the basics of this look well: ruffly, floaty dresses in mini and maxi lengths; intricate Silk Road–like vests and boleros; kimono-esque robes and wicked obis; velvet jackets, just because; pirate boots and gladiator sandals festooned with metal butterflies. This season the news was the shirts, tailoring in general (which included an elegant and seasonless three-piece suit in brocade), and the sweaters, which were multi-textural, appliquéd, and fringed.The knitted coats were extraordinary, actually: artisanal in the extreme and all the more collectible for it. Toss one over a tailored suit for extra warmth on a brisk summer night, and you would always feel chic and original. Toss one over a stripy shirt and paisley jeans, and you would feel like the luckiest girl alive. Now all you need is a ride in a balloon to the Isle of Wight. And a Stone, a Kink, a Byrd.
20 September 2019
Veronica Etro’s vision for Resort felt more in keeping with her brother Kean’s menswear than usual. The same ’70s hippie traveler vibe so charming in the men’s collection last week was reprised here, only with a more classic flair. “Going forward, we’d like to have a more cohesive creative approach,” Veronica said. “I’d call it a bohemian-bourgeois collection.” While Kean Etro presented a few guys’ looks on girls, here Veronica infused the sense of romance she favors with a slightly masculine, borrowed-from-the-boys twist.Travel is a recurring subtext for Etro, a metaphor for an open-minded attitude, exploring and welcoming cross-cultural influences, approached with a cultivated and respectful eye. For Resort, motifs inspired by the Moroccan desert and Berber jewelry were rendered into abstract prints in soothing, dusty pastel tones of sand, shell pink, mauve, and light chartreuse, giving floor-sweeping ruched dresses in cotton gauze, organza, or chiffon a feel of lightness.Suede fringed belted jackets reinforced the ’70s haute hippie vibe, together with elaborate wool jacquard patterns inspired by Moroccan rugs that were translated into belted cardigans worn over striped masculine shirts or romantic blouses. Continuing with the theme, djellaba shirt jackets in thick textured wool were decorated with patches of floral motifs, and embroidered caftans were worn Talitha Getty–style with billowing dresses in a new, lighter take on the label’s signature paisley patterns.The contrast between free-spirited nomadism and a more bourgeois attitude played out in ’70s-inspired suits in checkered wool featuring slightly oversized blazers and culottes. Worn with slim-fit cashmere-printed blazers, flared wide-leg denim pants were given a twist of chic, while a mannish pantsuit had a rather conservative flavor, just enlivened by a multicolored checkered wool.Veronica Etro’s breezy approach felt convincing: Toning down the color palette and introducing gauzy fabrics and prints with more delicate designs conveyed a sense of freshness, while maintaining a sensuous haute bohemian attitude.
21 June 2019
Reading inVogue Runwayyesterday about Etro’sStar Warscapsule, due to jump into retail space on July 1, it was hard to parse how it would meaningfully be integrated into this afternoon’s collection. The fear was that this great merch-led disturbance in Etro’s force would lead to something terrible—or at least highly incongruous—happening on the runway.No worries. Kean Etro, who cites Yoda as his favorite character in the series, has the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. Pre-show he cited Joseph Campbell’s notion of the monomyth—often linked to George Lucas’s films—amongst his usual Gaia-flavored, hippy-vintage, early-sustainability-adopting, spiritual-wanderer mix of seasonal influences (these included a book on astral projection andLe Petit Prince). It also didn’t hurt that this season’s collection—entitledDesert Saga—had an overlap with Tatooine (real location, Tunisia). The collection was gorgeous.AsA Horse With No Namewas trotted out over the PA, the leather-sandaled models kicked up bright clouds of powder dye as they strode through the garage around the corner from Etro’s headquarters. Their attire was a traveling man (and woman, wearing men’s looks) mix of cross-cultural garments and decoration. Ponchos played against suiting, bombers against kaftan hoodies, and trench coats above keffiyehs. There were richly detailed oasis jacquards on jackets and grip bags, and plenty of rough, textured striping.In many ways Etro is closer toIndiana Jonesin spirit than it is toStar Wars. This house has spent years exploring the furthest reaches of human decorative traditions and taking inspiration from them: in this collection there were designs drawn from Indian, Persian, and Mauritanian culture, amongst many others. Which leads, in the present cultural climate, to another potential for disturbance in Etro’s force. Carolina Herrera’s creative director Wes Gordon was only last week called out by Mexico’s culture minister for appropriating the signature patterns of indigenous peoples in that country for his Resort collection. At today’s show one element in Etro’s mix—as declared loud and proud on his moodboard—was patterns and symbols created by Mexico’s Sierra Madre-dwelling Huichol people: what would Kean say if it prompted similar criticism to that leveled at Gordon? “It’s difficult, but we have to find some way to be free based on mutual respect. I also think about the idea of glocalism we used to talk about so much back in 2001, 2002.
” For Etro, reference goes hand in hand with reverence: the extent of Kean’s research and travel is testament to that, as is the beauty of the clothing that results from it.
16 June 2019
Etro, the Italian family brand, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, has quietly and elegantly grown in relevance and vigor over the past few years. The reasons might seem straightforward: a renewed global interest in heritage houses generally—and more specifically, those with clear and transparent artisanal traditions—and a growing preference on the part of consumers for the sort of crafty special pieces at which Etro excels, items that preference personality over utility or trend. Clothes that embody “values” have value at the moment. This is a good thing, especially when those values come in the form of a chartreuse velvet jacket, richly embroidered, nipped and peplumed, and dripping in crocheted lace.That piece was one of the many gems shown today for Fall 2019 at a music conservatory in the heart of Milan that Verdi once aspired to attend. The theme of the collection was, essentially, heritage disrupted: Veronica Etro began by taking inspiration from her family’s archive of 18th-century paisley scarves, a trove she revisited when planning for the 50th celebration. Into the luxe mix of paisleys, jacquards, and tapestries, she added nods to Cool Britannia, both the ’90s Britpop moment (when Veronica lived in London and admired the stylings of It-girl aristos such as Stella Tennant and Honor Fraser) and the punk era, which captivated her young Milanese self.The opening portion of the show was paisley through and through, and literally head to toe in the case of a caped Guinevere Van Seenus. (Can paisley be a neutral? It would seem so . . . . ) Then, stripes and preppier references entered in (boyish rugby, yummy Fair Isle) creating the sorts of print/pattern mash-ups that are a signature of the house. Finally, the collection tilted to the Victorian/Edwardian with jet beading, gold-thread embroidery, lashings of taffeta, yet more capes, and an endorsement of opulence when worn in an offhand, just-heading-out-for-a-pint-of-milk way. The long evening dresses were especially lovely, delicately patterned and overlaid with caviar-beaded lace. The tiny cocktail dresses were also compelling: strongly strapped, loosely corseted up the back, and chicest when gilded.The show featured models of all ages—from the legendary Farida to the American teenager Cara Taylor—and, in a season of age-diverse castings, here it felt right, not forced. Mostly the women looked like themselves, or an opulent downbeat version of themselves.
Mostly, they looked like cool reflections of the mind of Veronica Etro, who is perhaps the true reason behind her brand’s unflashy renaissance. Every season, she imbues the codes of the house with some personal fascination of her own—be it female surfers or Beat writers or her own decades-old love of the Clash and Oasis. She doesn’t seem to rely on the research binders of well-paid stylists or to bow unthinkingly to the whims of marketing folk. She is true to her enthusiasms and curious about the world, which speaks beautifully to the DNA of the Etro brand.
22 February 2019
Strolling down to the Etro boutique this afternoon, Via Monte Napoleone was peak Via Monte Napoleone. Outside Valentino a fat man in a one-seater Smart car smoked his cigar with the window down, playing funky saxophone house at top volume. A beautiful woman in a shaved mink and thigh-highs, heaped with shopping bags, stared through the reflection of her rhinoplasty bandage at the pavé diamonds in Vhernier.On the sidewalk across Etro there was a crowd looking up at the five masked mannequins set perilously on the edge of the first floor balcony in richly patterned parkas andpiumini. Inside—oh Lord—there was a group of Etro-clad interpretive mime artists, some wearing plain white masks, some wearing plain white masks with long gray beards. There are few things less liable to make you feel self-conscious than a mime artist mimicking you while you work—in this case your reporter was feeling the pile on one of those aforementionedpiuminiand checking the jacquard on the suit below it.The collection was a beguiling mix of fantasy and reality. There was a dreamy fairy-tale theme running through the decorations in jacquard, print, or embroidery on these pieces—dragons, unicorns, slightly freaky fairies, and the like—which also presumably informed the Legolas vibe in the casting of this lookbook. There were some pretty forest-print parkas and a bomber jacket decorated with alchemical symbols in metal thread.The reality part of the the collection lay in its fabrication. That wonderful brushed overcoat in a dark, rich check was entirely made of recycled fabric, the boldly decorated oxford shirting was made in sustainably produced eucalyptus fiber, or bamboo, as well as “biological” cotton drawn from producers working to make this especially wasteful material less so. The cashmeres were colored in dyes drawn from flowers and roots, and check raincoats made of recycled plastic bottles.“It’s about the aesthetics of a dream but also about ethics,” said Kean Etro of the collection. Unlike his mime artists, he wasn’t pretending.
13 January 2019
Veronica Etro called her Pre-Fall collection Artsy-Crafty: The World of Collage, a fitting description for her artful approach to design. The label’s prints are always glorious visual assemblages where folklore, local cultures, botany, paintings, and a medley of disparate suggestions are blended together seductively. The world and its many charms seem to serve as Etro’s creative canvas; it’s not surprising that she has a passion for travel. “But this time, it was like I didn’t want to land in any particular place!” she said. Indeed, the collection’s multifaceted references were patched together in a cut-and-paste style to achieve a pattern original and unique.As always with Etro, color played an important part in giving the pattern play a compelling allure. Spanning from saturated tones to delicate, ethereal hues, the chromatic palette paid homage to modern and contemporary art: the intensity of Rothko’s oranges and Christo’s vibrant pinks; the dazzling luminosity of Lucio Fontana’s reds; Alberto Burri’s deep, enigmatic blacks.The decorative profusion of climbing branches, paisleys, Liberty bouquets, and vintage gravures was balanced by the fluidity and ease of shapes and volumes; because of their forgiving yet seductive proportions, Etro’s silhouettes are naturally inclusive of different body types, ethnicities, and ages. Dusters and ponchos in knitted patchwork jacquards were cut kimono-style and layered over boxy T-shirts or matching blouses and paired with svelte cropped pants; bohemian dresses in sensuous silks were light and flowing as caftans. A few touches of black, as in a slim coat trimmed in Moroccan-inspired passementerie or a tiered chiffon number with floral embroideries, nicely punctuated the collection, adding just the right amount of sophisticated restraint.
23 November 2018
With the temperature here Milan still in the 80s, women in the streets and at shows are drifting around in full-length print dresses, talking wistfully about their vacations. Etro’s scene synced seamlessly with that longing for endless summer—not least because it’s also the title of the seminal surf-culture movie of 1964, Bruce Brown’sThe Endless Summer. Sure enough, Etro brought in two female pro surfers, Victoria Vergara and Maribel Koucke, all beachy hair and natural smiles, sporting terrific neoprene swimwear, paisley-printed boards tucked under their arms.They acted as personifiers of Veronica Etro’s feeling this season. She took her inspiration from “the skate and surfing scene of California, [and] the denim and calligraphy of Japan, the Pacific, and Hawaii. It’s really about being free, joyous.”There’s always a place in fashion for the bohemian, culturally eclectic vibe which began with hippie dropout countercultures in the mid-1960s. In the 21st century, it’s reborn in the mainstream wellness and meditation movement—the modern ideal of a sound mind in a superhot athletic body, clad in an accidentally pretty print dress. Etro is the Italian stylistic epicenter for the luxurious version of all that—the torch held aloft in the second generation of the business by Veronica.She’s well at home weaving happy, easy-to-wear vibes into a rich tapestry of a collection that spans everything from glam tiered dresses to pajama suits, to swimwear, hats, jewelry, towels, and homeware. The first look out epitomized it: a multi-pattern patchwork blanket thrown over the shoulders of a girl wearing a full-length paisley-print dress, a cowrie-shell pendant nestling in her cleavage.Western assimilation of the textiles of indigenous craftspeople goes back centuries—Etro’s business is founded on the paisley pattern, a print bearing a very long story which originated in Persia, was adopted by Indian iconography, and first traveled into aspirational Western fashion as far back as the 16th century. The difference between now and even 10 years ago is that every instance of cultural quoting in fashion is rightly being interrogated—the good part of which is that thousands of peoples’ overwritten ethnographic histories are finally being revealed. Veronica Etro is conscious of that. To celebrate the brand’s 50th anniversary, an exhibition opens at the Mudec Museum of Cultures tomorrow, and it is endorsed by anthropological research.
It’s called “Generation Paisley,” and it promises to take a “visionary and conscious point of view” of what this company reflects.
21 September 2018
Alongside a 10-million-year-old Indonesian tree fossil that was a gift from a well-wisher, Kean Etro’s board sat next to a small canvas painted, Etro said, by his herbalist. “He’s my amico,” said Kean. “This is a painting he gave me that he says shows how we are all connected, all the shapes are one.”Get me that herbalist’s number, because whatever Kean’s having, I’ll have, too. Etro has a truly panoramic sensibility rooted in a long-counter, now-current-culture attitude: sustainability, togetherness, Gaia—that kind of thing.This season Kean’s always-ajar doors of perception turned his ice-palace-via-Piranesi venue into a forest of bamboo plants meant to be meandered through. As you progressed you encountered groups of looks as well as Keanish asides: bottles of water an experimental Japanese outfit had permeated with the sonic waves of the wordEtro, some kind of alpha-wave-scanner life-reset machine the queue was too long to linger for. In the middle was a clearing in which stood Kean, that mood board, the herbalist’s painting, four of five stressed-out Italian TV crews, and a huge nest of what Kean purported were dragons’ eggs. “Yes, dragons’ eggs,” he clarified of what were clearly not dragons’ eggs (fashion editors are easily duped, but we have our limits). “They are there because I think imagination, fromimaggo—magic!—is part of sustainability. It’s an altogether-ness, and a belief in the possible.”The collection was a sometimes-patchwork tour of an intermingled world. Kean explained how some of the pieces, for instance, referenced Indonesian patterns in a nod to what he said was the introduction of Dutch print to Africa via a detachment of soldiers from Benin deployed to Borneo in the 1890s. There were jute woven bomber jackets featuring Mexican dreaming symbols. One model held Kean’s recently acquired bamboo didgeridoo, while another posed with his 20-year-old bambooyumi, the better (along with that forest and the print on many of the looks) to signal that much of the fabric here was bamboo too.He explained: “Bamboo is virulent, infestate [invasive]! You don’t need water to grow it. And hemp! We should go for these fibers, and we do. I don’t know why cotton was chosen—it’s not cotton’s fault, it’s humanity’s fault.” You suspect that had Kean not been born a textiles scion he would be perfectly happy playing that didgeridoo in an ashram working on his recipes for nut butter.
But as his excellent, conscious clothes continue to demonstrate, the Universe put him in exactly the right place.
17 June 2018
Veronica Etro and her children recently read British writer Ian McEwan’s 1994 book,The Daydreamer, the story of a boy whose imagination transports him to the world of Hans Christian Andersen. The novel had her daydreaming, too, and since she was working on her Resort collection, she infused it with the same sense of enchantment and childish wonder. She called it Start Dreaming and Dancing, and worked on novelty prints full of sweet little characters: dancers twirling in a night full of stars, acrobats on swings, genies in bottles, and paisley motifs as spiky as carnivorous plants growing in succulent gardens.“It’s a bit la-la land, a bit Peter Pan, a bit psychedelic, a bit crazy British pop,” said Etro, clearly amused by the opportunity she gave herself to break free from her label’s classic iconography. And indeed, the collection had a playfulness and lightness that was refreshing, gracefully nodding to the ’70s with bias-cut midi dresses in triple crepe that were vaguely Ossie Clark-ish in silhouette, or with languid Biba-esque kimonos worn over sensual ankle-grazing skirts in liquid metallic silk jacquard.“It’s if as Tinker Bell were sprinkling a little of her magic dust all over the collection,” enthused Etro, pointing to a series of softly shaped knits with elaborate floral motifs in Lurex jacquard, which were more in keeping with the house’s exotic decorative codes. Yet they were given room to breathe, offset and counterbalanced by a quite consistent use of black and block colors in unconventional chromatic combinations. A standout was a one-shoulder, square-cut, asymmetrical cape in chocolate and bubblegum pink crepe, cinched at the waist and worn with matching palazzo pants. It looked enchanting and glamorous, magical enough for a modern fairy.
23 May 2018
Ah, that’s better. On a stormy, stacked-up, and back-to-back day of shows in Milan, Etro proved a port of momentary respite. Bob Dylan’s overlooked soundtrack toPat Garrett & Billy the Kidtwanged as a sonic massage on a gentle loop. After a season’s hiatus, guests fondly reacquainted themselves with the ceremony of surreptitiously swapping the patterned Etro pillows left on their bench for those of a yet-to-arrive neighbor.Veronica Etro neatly encapsulated her collection: “[It is] as if Ettore Sottsass and Laura Ingalls were chatting together and making this new synthesis of handmade earthiness and rigorous postmodernism.” If not quite “Little Bauhaus on the Prairie,” you could see what Etro was getting at. She incorporated Memphis-touched patterns and Damier, and imposed a rigorous campaign to connect her swirling source material with a larger geometric logic established on her toiles. This, though, was quite hard to discern as the clothes walked past simply because they were so very intensely various in their dizzying pattern and so very broad in their source material. Was that Peruvian, Patagonian, Navajo, paisley, or something else? It was probably all of the above and more, and was described by Etro as an “ethnic futurism.” The fine knits spun so precisely in the globe-trotting patterns that Etro played with were impressive; they looked to have been printed rather than conjured up at the source. The nub of it was a kaleidoscope of expected Etro-ness—appealingly boho dresses, tailoring fastened with scarlet-stoned buttons, fringed shearlings, and blanket coats with printed panels—that was intensified and enriched by Veronica’s addition of today’s fresh conceptual filters.
23 February 2018
The sonic eddies of Keith Jarrett’s spontaneously composed 1975The Köln Concert, played live by Etro’s Circle of Poets young artist collective, filled the iron-vaulted hall of the Palazzo del Ghiaccio. From one side of the room to the other, this former ice-skating rink was heaped with vintage furniture, rugs, and other eclectic collectibles ranging from motorcycles to pinball machines. Some of this fine stuff hailed from Etro’s own family collection, but much of it came from the stores of the Il Ponte auction house, and was stickered for sale. Milanese aesthetes who’d come to see a new season’s menswear collection were walking away with mid-century soft furnishing, unable to resist.Kean Etro, wearing a check suit and beaded headband, riffed on the relationship betweenabito(suit) and habitat—exterior attire and interior design. “I have always worked with habitats that become anabito,” he said. “The velvet stories, the carpet stories . . . sometimes [when I am designing] I look at sofas and curtains. And yurts!”Almost camouflaged in this habitat, theabitosworth inhabiting included check topcoats with rough-edged hems and malachite brooches and pins at the lapel, velvet coats with contrasting paisley collars, trousers in leather corduroy, marble patterned and riotously psychedelic bombers and suits, woolen coats with horse embroideries trailing yarn fringes, Bruce Chatwin felt hats, brocade-edged robe coats, carpet backpacks, and neck chains linked through antique teaspoons. Kean named this presentation Dandy Detour. Happily, this was a much more thoughtful, soft-edged, and bohemian variety of dandyism than the peacockery on show at Pitti. Once acquired, an Etro habit would be very hard to break.
14 January 2018
Veronica Etro said she considered her own shopping habits while designing her Pre-Fall lineup. Lately she’s found herself seeking out pieces she can wear on more than one occasion. “I want nonchalance,” she explained, “easy things not just for night.” And so, amid the special-though-not-necessarily-special-occasion dresses that are this Italian house’s signature, there was also a cropped tank and matching leggings on the racks. Etro doesn’t see her clients sweating in these pieces at the gym. Rather, she anticipates they’ll pair them with a cozy cardigan for an easy weekend look.There was a lot of that kind of vibe here, from the matching silk pajama sets to the washed denim jeans finished with deep banded hems of ribbons. The nomadic spirit that is the label’s other signature pointed Etro in the direction of the Far East this season. Her de rigueur printed dresses were cut in relaxed kimono shapes (one even came with mink trimming its cuffs), or, less on message, in one-sleeved ruched styles. The low-key lineup’s freshest look was a two-piece dress consisting of a fitted V-neck top and a narrow midi-length skirt—easy and versatile in winning combination.
14 December 2017
Etro the brand was born in 1968. Kean Etro was born in 1964. And Veronica Etro was born in 1974. According to both brother and sister today, that chronology precluded any sibling rivalry when they were kids. Said Veronica, “He was in Switzerland, in school, and I was in Milan, so we found each other later.” Added Kean, “I used to go to London when she was studying at Saint Martins and say, ‘Come, please come.’ I was doing a lot and I needed my sister. And she joined in. And now . . . ” With this he smothered Veronica in a big, bearish, fraternal hug. “Power to women, always.”This tender scene came thanks to a show at which Kean brought his menswear collection out of the menswear schedule to present it alongside his sister’s womenswear to mark the 50th anniversary of the house. Brother and sister borrowed from each other—Veronica’s women wore Kean’s embroidered jacquard jackets and his men wore her jeweled velvet robes and silk printed waistcoats. They also both borrowed from genres and styles and moments of history that crossed over with that of the paisley pattern that has so defined Etro since its introduction there in 1981. Cricket jumpers, jodhpur trousers, five buttoned Beatles jackets, and boho chiffon maxi dresses hinted at the multigenerational occidental assimilation/appropriation of this ancient Persian/Indian pinecone motif. Sherwani-cut robes and sari necklines doffed their caps to its origins.The collection started out colorless, as a sort of birthing moment, and it served, very interestingly, to display the really excellent cutting of Veronica’s dresses: She doesn’t need to drench her designs in gorgeous pattern to achieve gorgeousness. Soon enough, though, the kaleidoscope kicked in. Two recurring flashbacks from women’s are a Lurex-edged orange gown with embroidered bodice featuring two elephants on the back (41) and a silk paisley foulard dress in green (73)—both mesmerizing. In the menswear, the rich green suiting near the end (67)—actually, the women’s version of this was very good, too—hit the spot. Don’t be surprised if this anniversary coming together turns into an ongoing coed operation: Brother and sister enhance each other.
22 September 2017
This September Kean Etro will show alongside Veronica Etro in a brother/sister–led co-ed first to mark the 50th anniversary in 2018 of this uniquely conscious Italian house. “We’ve started working closely together for two months now,” said Kean this afternoon. “She’s always been my little sister—Veronica is ten years younger than me—but the thing is I believe inmatriarcale. I’m an Italian boy. So I am very happy to follow her; years are passing and this is an opportunity to play together again.”This presentation, held in the house’s endearingly ungussied building on Via Spartaco, was a low-key preamble to September’s celebration: no runway today. Instead the Spring ’18 collection was upstairs on mannequins and shelves. T-shirts and scarves on those shelves mixed oversize paisley teardrops and kashmir motifs with prints from theKama Sutra’s guide to co-ed yoga, an image of a psychedelic frog wearing a shamanistic headdress, and a Hendrix-inspired image of Etro’s founding father, Gerolamo, with a full head of hair drawn in Wes Wilson–esque swirls.The mannequins wore linen-viscose or wool suiting of kashmir, overdyed madras, and paisley patterns. Fitted cotton army jackets in blue or navy cotton came with painted patches of swirl, beaded spiraling mandalas, and nonviolent military flashes wrought in colored pins. Linen-mix drawstring pants in stripes or plain ocher were worn above sometimes-fringed espadrilles with paisley and leather uppers.Downstairs, Kean was in a room surrounded by some of his favorite texts drawn from a personal collection built to trace the warp and weft of pattern, both in fabric and thought. In addition to two of Etro’s weighty books of fabric from its archive, these includedThe Mahabharata, Robert M. Pirsig’sLila, a chakra manual, the histories of a Piedmont hippy commune from the late ’60s, and Ignazio Maria Gallino’s broader history of the Italian countercultural press. Whether it’s yoga, environmentalism, raw food, youth protest, or social benevolence, so many preoccupations that first flourished around the time Gerolamo founded Etro are either ubiquitous or increasingly mainstream today. As Kean said: “These patterns have always been there.” Etro’s special bandwidth allows it to weave a wearable membrane that joins all these disparate but eternally enmeshed dots.
18 June 2017
Veronica Etro seems to be on a perennial Grand Tour, a constant traveler seeking inspiration for her feminine, romantic collections. She's roamed the entire planet in her imagination, exploring cultures with relentless visual curiosity, which has nurtured a rich aesthetic. For Resort, she fused African decorative motifs with the traditional patterns of Anglo-Indian textiles: "It's a paisley jungle!" she said.Etro is provided with a formidable family archive, built upon the research of generations. With such an extraordinary range of references, mixing and matching might seem the easiest exercise in free style. Yet the polished results of the designer's collections are proof of a keen eye not only for decorative flamboyance but for subtle balance and restraint. It was apparent in Resort's lineup, where clashing patterns were fused together with effortless flair.Shapes were elongated and languid, as in kimonos, robes de chambre, pajamas, and fluid cardigans in smooth silks and crêpe de chines printed with batik motifs, paisley patterns, blossoms, and harlequin damiers. A trompe l'oeil camouflage revealed itself at close inspection to be little zebras, leopards, and parakeets playing hide-and-seek between polka dots and stripes. Dresses had Etro's signature bohemian allure, with asymmetric hems creating a sense of movement and ease.After such an extensive itinerary through Africa and India, Etro returned to Europe, touching on opulent folklore and Klimtian magnificence. Swirling Art Deco patterns, beaded Venetian murrines, and watercolor flowers were scattered as wallpaper prints on floating dresses and luxurious opera coats in lurex jacquard, gold polka-dot fil coupé, and rich brocade. They looked like beautiful peacocks, parading their fan tails in a lush, exotic garden.
15 June 2017
On a rainbow-edged runway carpet below crisscrossed arcs of scaffold-hung prayer flags, Veronica Etro presented an eye-saturating, world-traveling, tribal gathering of a collection that was full of pleasure and detail.Yes, you could argue that the afghan-like shaggy knits; pleated silk caftan minidresses in riots of paisley; jackets and shirts studded with nonspecific ethnic weaves of thread and metal; and pretty much everything else here felt heavily rooted in the 1960s and early ’70s. Then add to it the feeling that retreating into nostalgia appears to be an empty cop-out right now. The counterpoint to that notion is to check your vantage point: It was on-the-cheap hippie Marco Polos going overground through Asia in the 1960s who first propelled many of these motifs into London, New York, and Paris. They are both too old and too enduring to be encapsulated by any single decade.Backstage, Etro said, “I tried to do something joyful, full of collision and color explosion. It’s [a] festival of the world, not set really in one place—it is an imagined place.” It was a busy place, too, and to fully unpack it would probably demand a re-see. Worth noting, though, is that the natural seasonal emphasis on outerwear—from Central Asian padded jackets to northern European quilted puffers, all in rich brocades encompassing chinoiserie and, of course, paisley—obscured many fine dresses. Those that were presented uncovered—particularly powerful: the pleated, full-sleeved dress in subtle paisley-intersected leopard print with two horizontal panels of red paisley at the hem—were day-to-night paradigms for the decoratively bold.The Earth has its music for those who will listenread the patches on parkas and a knit half-hidden under a brocade down jacket. This Etro collection sang a familiar-to-this-house tune and it was pitch-perfect.
24 February 2017
Etro makes clothes for the most aesthetically adventurous; even for this label, this collection was a heady prospect. For years now, Kean Etro has been deeply influenced by René Daumal’sMount Analogue, an unfinished French novel that charts an allegorical mountaineering expedition to enlightenment. Today, Kean equipped his models for that path, taking further inspiration from Reinhold Messner—the first man to climb all 14 8,000-meter-plus mountains—and his own in-built mysticism. There aren’t many designers who would airily contend that their spirit animal is a gorilla.“It’s about the sacredness of the mountains,” said Kean, “mixing the idea of climbing andascendere: ascent.”To set the tone, the show was preceded by a movie featuring a rugged explorer in brocade outerwear pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp in a wolf mask up a mountain. At the top he climbed a golden rope through a shower of feathers into a nirvana inhabited by figures in masks—some quite Pat McGrath forGivenchy. For those watching this presentation via stream, those figures were superimposed above the audience, swooshing here and there above us.Even without augmentation, these pieces were out there. The first look matched mountain-boot sneakers with a bronze floral velour jacket secured at the wrists with drawstrings, suggesting these were clothes for explorers of inner landscapes as well as outer ones. Knits etched with mountains; capes; two kilts that Kean said he’d been itching to introduce because he wears them all the time; and double-breasted jackets and coats that were a fuzzy hybrid of Nepalese and technical outerwear were base-camp looks.After a stage of deeply etched velvet and velour suiting with moonlight shimmer, the designer ventured into figurative illustrations of the paradise he was seeking. A sweatshirt worn under a gilet by a model with henna tattoos down his arm showed a starlit montage of antlered wolves, wheeling eagles, and serious-looking magic mushrooms. Visions. Psychedelically rich paisley and floral kaleidoscopes on drawstring-cinched ripstop and nylon pants and tops were ravewear par excellence. Wide-weave lattice check coats in green and red were more prosaic but still out-of-body colorful. A zigzag hooded jacket of clay-printed velvet had 3-D contours along its colors. The brocades, weaves, and jacquards grew denser and richer, more and more golden, until we summited at an oversize paisley T-shirt in gold-on-black above ski pants and sneakers.
Kean Etro’s quest for a higher state of consciousness is producing some enlightened clothes for men of powerful taste.
16 January 2017
Frida Kahlo was the inspiration behind Etro’s Pre-Fall collection: “I’m such a fan of her work,” said Veronica Etro. “I own one of the pictures that the Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura took of himself impersonating Frida.” The designer is in good company; Madonna is also known to be an avid collector of the Mexican artist and famously protective of her prized Kahlo possessions. So much so that the Material Girl denied loaning one of Kahlo’s most famous and troubling paintings,My Birth, to the Detroit Institute of Arts for its blockbuster Kahlo exhibition in 2015.Kahlo’s life was not short of dramas and tragedies, yet what appealed to Etro was her powerful resilience and flamboyant, indomitable energy: “What I like about her is the passion, the strength of her personality, her attitude toward life,” enthused the designer, who called the collection Floral Frida, in homage to the painter’s unrestrained sense of color. And vivid color was definitely one of the lineup’s strong points, together with the house signature medley of prints and patterns. Adding a modern twist, paisley was mixed with stripes, and bold florals were contrasted by polka dots or by more graphic motifs. With prints and colors being so visually abundant, silhouettes benefited from smart, easy lines, fluid volumes, and short lengths, which gave a youthful twist to wrap pleated dresses, kimono-inspired dusters, and embroidered pajama pantsuits. Fabrics were both rich and light, with plenty of silks, cotton voiles, jacquards, and cloqués; laser-cut and sequined ruches graced asymmetric hems or décolletages. Adding to the decorative vibe, elaborate embroideries and appliqués were morphed into oversize earrings or glitzy necklaces and brooches. Frida Kahlo would have loved them.
12 December 2016
Etrowill never be painfully cool. And that’s a testament to its inherent pleasures. For the spirit of this house is too generous, unpretentious, and securely anchored to succumb to fashion’s lame urge to exclude. Anyone can join the Etro tribe. And this season, Veronica Etro returned again to that anchor, the house paisley, around which to alchemize a wonderfully rich portmanteau that should seriously tempt new members.Although Edith Sitwell starred on Etro’s mood board, it was Talitha Getty’s footprint that seemed strongest, stamped on looks that played roughly textured leather and bead-trimmed caftans, ponchos, and cloaks against silk maxis, mid-length dresses, jumpsuits, and pants. A monochromatic opening saw interplays of stripes and paisley that sometimes seemed touched by the geometry of Art Deco. Hammered silver jewelry and gold-hardware hunks of ceramics and minerals—plus the satisfying Led Zeppelin soundtrack—reinforced that Getty-esque frequency of affluent mid-century bohemianism.It rambled on, touching down in contemporary modernity via silk floral jacquard, white weave–piped running shorts and bra tops, moto-detailed pants in leather, and an acid yellow nylon jacket. Simultaneously, Etro had us harking back to an age where athleisure was as likely the name of an unknown kingdom as it is a trend: There was a lovely print incorporating the pressed-gold lettering and illustration of leather-bound 1920s books and frontispieces, plus bags pragmatically equipped with hip flasks and sketching pencils. A portfolio of pasts played against the present thanks to a blur of geographically disparate decorative motifs. This was a lovely exercise in eclecticism given life by that paisley palm seed.
23 September 2016
A dog on the runway will always win points in this critic’s notebook. Yet Canita, the companion of Igor Ramírez García-Peralta, founder ofSolarmagazine, was an especially excellent canine addition to theEtrorunway today; wiry of hair, noble of haunch, perky of expression, and moist of nose. His owner and the majority of the men at this show were nonprofessional models recruited by Kean Etro to show off this typically warm and beguiling Etro collection. That’s been done before, sure, but the interesting thing here was that Kean gave his recruits carte blanche to choose their own pieces to wear, rather than being styled into them. So after a slightly confusing opening video in which a chap threw himself tragically into the Mediterranean before meeting a gorgeous girl in an Etro dress underwater and reaching paradise, Kean’s parade of real men unfolded. Highlights included Beniamino Saibene, an “urban farmer” and film festival organizer, who wore a beautiful delicately patterned blue silk suit with its cuffs turned up just like you should; Stefano Pitigliani, a really delightful chap who works for Karla Otto in Italy, kept his radically furled. Nicolò Gialain, a photographer, wore a supple suede field jacket with baggy and turned-up ocher striped pants. Tommaso Sacchi, head of the Cultural Cabinet of Florence, was magisterial in black pants and a yellow, scarlet-flashed shirt. Vlad Ipate, Kean’s regular fit model, upgraded to the unreality of runway in an ikat shirt. Alessandro Frigerio wore a fine deep mustard short robe jacket half-tucked into his silk ikat pants, and no shoes. When he spotted his wife, Veronica, on the runway, he lost his Blue Steel and broke into a toothy smile. “He’s an amazing fellow!” said Kean backstage of his brother-in-law, “so full of energy and happiness: a happy lawyer!” Kean’s sons were in the show too. The sparks of recognition that kept firing in the room gave this collection its good vibe. But the notion of real men choosing their clothes and looking fine in them delivered a longer-lasting glow.
20 June 2016
Veronica Etro has a clear vision of where she’s leading the family brand: “It’s about evolution, not revolution,” she said during a Resort presentation. The house’s codes are firmly in place, built around the cultivated exoticism that has always been the label’s signature. Her father, Gimmo, is credited for having passed this aesthetic passion down to his children. “He founded the label in 1968, when all things bohemian were all the rage, it was the spirit of the times,” said Veronica, surrounded by a medley of prints, patterns, colors, and textures that gave the showroom a mind-boggling vibe, as if being encompassed by a treasure trove of souvenirs from the most magical and arcane destinations. “I travel a lot,” she enthused. “Mostly in books and in my imagination.”For her research, Veronica can tap into an impressive family archive, almost of museum standards; the Etros are known as art collectors with a sharp eye for rare antique finds. It shows in her work, which blends a modern sensibility with an appreciation of the past. This was apparent in the Resort lineup, where a mix of disparate yet sophisticated folk and ethnic references coalesced in a very contemporary wardrobe, built around simple lines, enhanced by a play on textures and patterns. Berber tapestries mixed with kimono-inspired intarsias; Indian golden passementeries trimmed slim denim pants; paisley motifs swirled on Lurex jacquards; and vintage caftans served as a template for romantic, flowing long dresses and light, fringed ponchos. It was a streamlined eclecticism, stripped of nostalgia but loaded with charm.
25 May 2016
Two classics from the ’90s heartbreak canon bookended the soundtrack—“Missing” by Everything But The Girl and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O'Connor. They signaled a flashback to Veronica Etro’s time studying fashion design at Central Saint Martins. That was between ’93 and ’97—great years in London—so did she party hard? “No, I was a very good student! I had also a very dark period but I loved it. I loved the freedom of expression, the freedom to create.”Her thesis was entitledAdvertising Adverteasing: Breaking Boundaries in an Image World as Fashion Imitates Life, and todayEtrowas trying to present a show with many looks that were transferable straight to street. That, though, was within the kaleidoscopically unrelenting decorative codes of her family house. Bikers in purple or black came backed with brocaded panels of tattoo-touched embroidered florals and beading and were worn over dresses that layered lace under, over, and within (as panels) swaths of floral or dragon print silks and chiffon. Parkas, one of them a hybridized kimono, were presented in metallic floral brocades with shaggy fur-like collars. One, quite jarringly, looked at first to be in a plain taupe gabardine, but as it floated open on the runway you could see a lining of purple floral-print silk that allowed for a quick inside-out switch to retro Etro Deco. One overt insertion from the ’90s was a block check, all 90-degree normality in the midst of the swirling curves and petals of Etro’s psychedelic staples. Knits were oversize to enable tortured sleeve tweaking and featured frayed hems at their ribbed waists and cuffs. They sometimes featured a fine translation of military frogging into golden branches of suppressed paisley.There was more, so much more—including some wonderful yellow-splashed velvet dévoré pieces that zipped past way too fast. Watching a collection as intensely dense as this one can challenge the eye’s capacity to process the detail and craft in front of it. But it does make you want to keep on looking.
26 February 2016
This isEtro, so the show’s title, “State of Nature,” plus a runway background projection of forest floor, augured a russet autumn storm of foliage patterns. But no: Milan’s most consistently kaleidoscopic house today presented a wardrobe so relatively muted that it seemed practically Puritan in its restraint. Especially as it came straight after Gucci.The themes were rusticity and spiritual affinity. An opening movie soundtracked by a husky reading of Walt Whitman’s cosmically paternal “Song of Myself” showed models unconvincingly chopping wood, smoking a pipe, and otherwise communing. Like the 24-hour cycle of a day, the collection opened and closed with darkness. The opener was a high-hemmed jacket and wide straight pants in rugged, almost-black blue cotton above a black knit accented by another knit—this one raspberry—both hemmed with irregular castellations of moth eaten-ness. At collection’s end, a cluster of black looks were elevated both in fabrication and decoration—they included an all-black Hendrix-flavored hussar's jacket—but they were still black.The day between these nights saw brighter moments—trousers in yellow or blue suede, some impressive woolen jacquard jackets in animal print that had a half-convincing protein fuzz—but within the meteorological system of Etro, it was wintry. These were elevated countryman’s clothes. Cheviot wools and brown-spectrum checks came patched with suede for the appearance of functionality. There were six overalls, some suede and some tweed. The shoes were brogues with panels of velvet or suede for upper interest welted to marginally elevated crepe soles. One check suit was overprinted with the shadow pattern of leaves, and Kean Etro’s 15-year-old son Gerolamo made his catwalk debut in a shrunken wool tailcoat. There was some paisley—there had to be—but this was as softly spoken as Etro gets. Why so quiet, Kean? “It’s just a feeling. Everything is more subdued. So you can listen to the wind and the whispers in nature.”
18 January 2016
One has the sense of having completed an epic journey, only without the jet lag, when perusing anEtrocollection. Cultural inspirations are part of the luxury label’s charm. It’s known for sumptuous and sensuous renditions of botanical splendor and plush prints. For her latest collection, Veronica Etro didn’t disappoint, as she was inspired by the work of the early-20th-century French painter Henri Matisse. Aside from her playful interpretations of his abstract, architectural forms, she tossed away the notions of what color goes with what, and her key looks flaunted the many brilliant hues of the artist’s paper cutouts of the late 1940s and early ’50s.In keeping with the low-key luxury vibe, her abstraction was never really abstract: You could always see the nature in it, thanks to the flowers that ran throughout the collection. Long-sleeved dresses were a patchwork of pulsating print, with stronger lines or intense tones, as in the case of a languid silk turquoise-hued dress with a ruched neckline, giving the bohemian silhouettes a relevant modern fix. The Italian house’s signature paisley motif was worked to resemble cutouts on black silk pants or a bomber jacket with bright fur curlicues, which reclaimed a bolder sense of structure.As a working mother, Veronica is one of the few designers to harness that much-overlooked factor—practicality. Her Javanese-, Moroccan-, and Japanese-inspired silks lean toward city life. Coats with a profusion of chrysanthemums, versatile kimono jackets, and brilliantly colored tunics over pants will be translatable and understandable for a broad range of women.Like the many divergent moods of Matisse, the designer’s choices of print were similarly flexible and wide. The lineup alternated between the organic and the geometric. Brightly colored tunics and expanses of soft georgette blouses with lush brush-style designs seemingly rendered in gouache were contrasted with the occasional abstract use of diagonals, diamond patterns, and zigzags.
30 November 2015
Veronica Etrotoday delivered a sumptuous medley of house staples—the kaleidoscopic prints, the rich concentration of color, and the bohemian sensibility—in a collection that also melded European folk costume, Victorian Pre-Raphaelite nostalgia, haberdashery, Arts and Crafts, and a shot of Ballets Russes. It was pretty busy. Yet it was to Etro’s great credit that with so very much going on here, at first glance nothing on the runway ever seemed especially OTT. For while there was plenty of ruche and flounce and ruffle in her silhouettes, particularly on the soft undulations of her sleeves, these were never jarringly proportioned pieces. To get lost you had to stareintothe clothes. On one look alone, quilted printed cotton was shot against gridded twine run through with embroidered ribbons that were overlaid with ivory silk and hemmed with silver lace above a scalloped hem. Reversible bombers combined strata of ribbon and dévoré silk. A lace-fringed dress was a patchwork of floral-wrought paisley—patterns drawn from the Etro archive—overlaid with a hypnotic constellation of dots that recalled the antipodean psychedelia ofKean Etro’s most recent menswear show. Backstage, Etro said that she had left some of the finishes rough in the wine-toned closing section to resist the sweetness and whimsy so much ornament might otherwise muster. There was friction and roughness and pain in this romance; just so, emotional perfection was not the objective. In a season that is betting heavy on 2010’s appropriations of kooked-up ’70s approximations (thinkPicnic at Hanging Rock) of Edwardian lady laciness, Etro’s analogue abandon was a cynicism-free take: Victoriana eminently incorporable into the cool-girl wardrobe.
25 September 2015
Is capital-C consciousness compatible with capital-F fashion? You'd think, like, no: But the two certainly meet in Kean Etro, who oversees the masculine arm of his family's Puglia-rooted, Paisley-famed business. This show was yoked to the egg, "as a symbol of primordial life." It also incorporated the spot iconography of indigenous Australian art, which preempted the oeuvre of Yayoi Kusama by—ooh—30,000 years or so. These Morse-d telegraphs from pre-antiquity were incorporated into the floral and Paisley overlaid jacquards on the collection's revereless topcoats, the sisters of which starred in the most recent Etro womenswear outing.The Aboriginal spotting was the seasonal decorative insertion—soundtracked by the mighty outback—but the underlying theme here was a wrestle with notions of gender appropriateness, or lack of. As an entrée our perceptions were scrambled with a vigorously mixed pink section: pink suede jackets and shorts, a suit of pale pink with dotting at its shawl collar. This inured the eye to the crepe de chine shirts and V-necks beneath those topcoats. As Etro said backstage, this house has long inveigled men to engage with the ornate: "If you tell me that Paisley is masculine … well, it took me a long time to fit it in." At the finale Etro's models emerged, stood in an oval around the runway's fingerprint-dot central relief, and linked hands. The poor dears looked awkward, but Etro was in his element. His is a uniquely sincere Italian luxury fashion house—idiosyncratic and erratic—and this collection was an expression of that. If you get it, you get it, and you might want to wear it. If not, move on.
22 June 2015
It was a homecoming for the Etro girls this season. "After Spring's gypsy detour, I thought it was time to settle down and enjoy the pleasures of interiors," said Veronica Etro backstage before today's show. Which she did promptly and quite literally, taking inspiration not only from carpets, wallpapers, and tapestries, but also from the inlay techniques of luxurious boiserie. Etro's idea of interiors, just to be clear, is not minimalist. Rather, it verges on the grand and the bourgeois: You could picture her set of boho characters sitting on velvet sofas reading by a wrought-out mantelpiece, precious wooden furniture inherited from their ancestors all around them, warm colors and, of course, paisley throws everywhere. "Controlled maximalism" was how the designer summed up the effort. "I mixed a lot of different materials in each piece," she said. "Even the prints have a textural 3-D quality."On the surface, there was a lot going on—tons of patchwork and intarsia, mixes of grainy mannish tweeds and brocades. At times, it was a bit difficult to digest, but Etro managed to avoid the haphazard, focusing on a lean '70s silhouette and a moody color palette. A lighter hand would have made all that craft shine through, however, as it was truly outstanding: Editing is crucial, and by overdoing, she sometimes overshadowed.In the Italian language, the words "dress" and "to live" have the same root, which is curious, bringing the two worlds close. Etro's take on the interiors theme, however, was not about intimacy or coziness. It was more about snobbish selfishness, which made it truly charming.
27 February 2015
Milan men's fashion week is an exotic bazaar of disparate international tribes united by their appetite for fine, fast-selling gentlemen's apparel. So details can be lost in translation—such as when Kean Etro set out to explain a little about the thinking behind this Etro collection. A blissed-out, philosophical soul, Etro decided to lead in with the rhino illustration on his invitation. He said: "That rhino is a symbol of the rhino that came to Europe in the early 1500s, was painted, and became a sensation.""The one Albrecht Dürer drew?" a reporter asked. "Yes…giraffes too were important," Etro gamely replied.Linguistic dissonance be damned: This was a collection that needed no translation and was the strongest Etro has shown for a while. Tautly constrained to a palette of browns and khaki touched by purple, yellow, and red, Etro used his family estate of rich but easily overwhelming pattern with the lightest possible hand. There was just the faintest suggestion of paisley shadowing the worn horizontal corduroy outerwear, and the swirls in the evening suits at the end were obscured and enticing rather than amplified and alarming. Great on the flesh were a series of wool-tweed track pants that combined mature material and youthful silhouettes—see looks 29, 30, 34, and 35. Perhaps the rich, red ponyskin ensemble—"remember, it is a cow, not pony," Etro cautioned—was a tad de trop, but this was a deft and interesting menagerie of clothes that pulsed with soul.
19 January 2015
It’s that time of year when many are off to mingle at Art Basel Miami Beach, that annual South Florida pilgrimage where partying has a purpose: how to partake of a VIP viewing or personally meet the artist one collects. And yet, as the art on view becomes increasingly auxiliary to the myriad of splashy events,Veronica Etrorather ironically used the work of the reclusive avant-garde Russian artist Kazimir Malevich as a muse for her latest zingy, print-based collection. Malevich was famed for his abstract, Suprematist work that started life as a single black square, and similarly, Etro’s standout pieces are reminiscent of his simple geometry, like boldly colored intarsia jackets and vests rendered from fox-fur panels. The radically clean forms seemed to reset the collection from bohemia into a bolder and fresher place, buoyed by a color palette of cobalt blue, coral red, apricot, and lavender.Accordion pleats are key in Etro’s pre-fall line-up, rippling her traditional love of the fluid, while her use of print provides the all-important background noise. Graphic black-and-white palm-tree-printed separates are picture-postcard-perfect for those who love a frond but prefer something a little less overt. Seemingly impossible pairings made the collection memorable, her constructed pieces working in perfect sync with homely marl knits slung over wide, natty, printed silk trousers, possibly the new blazer—kimono-esque cover-ups (if you’re reading this, FKA twigs, there’s many a high-octane stage jacket here for you) which evoked traditional Eastern romanticism. Etro urbanized them all for pre-fall, along with her trademark paisley, creating a cohesive creative capsule and an artsy foil for differentiating oneself from the fair’s purely social interlopers.
3 December 2014
By her own admission, Veronica Etro is not technologically inclined. She prefers the handmade and imperfect to the serialized and industrial. Her new collection was all about making things by hand on your own—customizing, dyeing, cutting, braiding, embellishing. It was also about light textures, dense embroideries, and a sense of bohemian ease. It channeled a message: freedom. "I figured out this woman, an artist, living on her own in the desert," said Etro backstage. "I'm not particularly interested in festivals and gatherings, but I am inspired by the energy that arises from being close to nature in its wildest state."The collection had an elegant, hippie feel; the '70s are certainly the decade of choice at this Milan fashion week. Etro's lineup didn't conjure images of Burning Man, but it did channel an en plein air concert vibe. It mixed Native American nods with the flowing layers and neckerchief hems of Zandra Rhodes, feather necklaces and beads, textural vests and billowing skirts, and ponchos. There were almost no trousers in sight, save for laser-cut, frayed, tribal-looking denim. What really got your attention were the textures—lived-in, matte, at times even faded, like something that had been washed and left to dry in the glaring sun, or a treasured hippie hand-me-down found in the attic. Etro said she didn't want anything to feel too stiff, precious, or new; she washed even the most delicate silks to obtain that effect. The collection had a hypnotic rhythm, which was enhanced by the psychedelic soundtrack. If anything was lacking, it was a twisted take on the hippie theme; things looked too perfectly manicured and literal. Break out the individual pieces, however, and they'll shine.
19 September 2014
Milan is already throwing up structures for next year's Food Expo, so Kean Etro was hardly ahead of the curve in devoting his new collection to comestibles. But that didn't make the inspiration any less strange. In the grand scheme of Italian culture, food has always been a more logical fit with film and fine art (Etro reminded us of Arcimboldo's 16th-century vegetable paintings) than with fashion. Not that logic is one of Kean Etro's lodestones, but he kind of showed why food and fashion are an odd couple, when one model walked by in a shirt and track pants printed with plates of seafood. Gamberoni are not glamorous. Bivalves are not beautiful. And tomato sauce embroideries only underscored the risk when the real thing meets white jeans on a summer holiday.Etro being something of a philosopher, there was the obvious subtext that you are what you eat. So if youwearwhat you eat, you're punching the point home even harder. The prints of pasta and shellfish were a trifle indigestible, especially when combined with Etro's swirling paisleys writ large, but the culture around enjoying food in the summer translated much more successfully into clothing. Blue- and red-checked tablecloths, for instance, were a cliché splendidly transmogrified into suits by the tailors Etro acknowledged so movingly on last season's catwalk. Gelato colors were celebrated in an uplifting sequence of separates. And you could say that the new emphasis on athleticwear was all about working off the last meal, as much as the generously cut double-breasted jackets and trousers would gracefully conceal any excess avoirdupois.A musical note: The live soundtrack was supplied by Hang Massive, an English duo encountered on the street in Goa by Kean and his wife, Constanza. They play hang drums, with a sound like a softer, sweeter steel drum and they're worth YouTubing. An Etro show is always an education on some level.
22 June 2014
For some time now, women have made their case—quite literally—for a holiday wardrobe they pack and can forget about.Veronica Etro’slatest collection fits into the overall scheme of easy looks for resort that flaunt vibrant color (including a new hue the Etro team is calling “corange”—a blend of coral and orange, get it?) and print with a broad appreciation for items that can fit in a carry-on; slim floral pants, languid jacquard tops and silk slashed pleats—some with the house’s distinctive paisley print—liquid pajama suits; and a standout jacquard silk duster coat with a pretty floral border.That said, the practical needs of city dwellers weren’t resigned to the bottom drawer, and there were plenty of pieces to accessorize with an iPad case rather than an exotic beach bag (on the subject of which the label’s new leather bucket-bag model is one to watch out for). A geometric-intarsia mink fur in a vivid yellow and black check, a smart wool jacket in a wonderful chartreuse hue (worn with hip leather shorts and paisley sneakers), natty slim windowpane-plaid separates, and a pretty silk collection of shifts and jackets with bloom patterns all had stylish buy-now, wear-now appeal. The canny use of black and white throughout marks a graphic shift for the label, taking the family’s signature aristocratic patterns to a more urban place—and that’s a point of departure absolutely worth pursuing.
27 May 2014
Veronica Etro took a trip down the Silk Road today. Hailing from an Italian family known for its fine textiles, she was particularly well equipped for the journey. But this collection's satisfactions went beyond Etro's famous paisleys. It was the designer's most accomplished show to date, confident in its layering of textures, patterns, colors, and embroideries, and chock-full of fall trends like blanket dressing and shearling.Veronica has long had a knack for sussing out which direction fashion is heading and putting an Etro gloss on that. What made this collection stand apart from previous ones was the list of special pieces that women will want to pull from the sometimes-heady mix on the runway to wear and wear. Backstage the designer was talking about timelessness, and more than a handful of the coats and dresses here had the feeling of an exquisite vintage find: a copper and black dévoré velvet dress shot through with shimmery Lurex, an almost weightless silk chiffon number in a tapestry print woven with thick stripes of gold, a wool coat paneled here and there with intricate thread embroideries.Amid all that finery, a couple of fox-fur jackets looked like too much; a long wool paisley coat lined with mink was just as luxurious, but more discreet. Elsewhere, Veronica did a smart job of balancing the riches of her materials with easy, flowing silhouettes. We can think of a lot of girls who'd like to go on this journey with her.
20 February 2014
In the sweet watercolor that decorated the invitation for Etro's show today, animals attended to the sartorial needs of a Milanese gentleman. A wild boar held one end of a tape measure, a bird the other; a bear adjusted the shoulder of the gent's jacket; a squirrel waited patiently by an old sewing machine. In its charming whimsy, the image seemed pretty typical of where Kean Etro's head is at so often, but there was a serious message in there, too: Among Italy's endangered species are the master tailors who have made the country an international byword for artistry in cloth.The financial pages have been muttering that Italy's economy has turned a corner. Shoots of growth, indicators increasingly healthy, and so on. Any Italian you ask begs to scornfully differ, but the show staged by Kean today took the high road. We were told to expect "an ode to the very best that Etro and Italy have to offer," a celebration of the artisans in Puglia, in the South, who have been working on Etro's menswear for ten years. And that's just what happened: an exhibition of tailoring at its idiosyncratic, dandified best—culminating in a respectful acknowledgment of the proud, sturdy men and women responsible—that was so heartfelt on Kean's part it brought a tear to the eye.The first outfit offered a rarefied vision—three-piece suit, coat, tie, gloves, shoes, and bag, all in the same windowpane check—that carried Milan's current appetite for top-to-toe dressing to an extreme. And the show never let up from there. A nightmare for matchy-matchy-phobes, no doubt, but as a reiteration of the conventions of bespoke dressing, it pulled off a few surprises (when fit is everything, trousers "adhere to the legs," as the show notes decorously described the impact oftightpants) and it also presented a manifesto for modern masculinity that was both reassuringly broad-shoulderedandpleasingly eccentric. And it's been a while since the Etro paisley looked as good as this, as an engineered print on an overcoat or as a ghostly shadow print on velvet.At the show, Kean distributed his "10 Best of Italy." Slow food, a favorite publishing house, herbs, bears, and boars were included on a particularly eclectic list, with the implication that most of them were under threat in some way. On today's evidence, Kean is going to change that, one fashion show at a time.
12 January 2014
Like most designers,Veronica Etrodoesn’t use the pre-collections for extreme innovation or making superbold statements; they are designed for the Etro woman and her dressing needs. However, the line does go in a new direction this pre-fall when it comes to that thing the house is most famous for: print. Usually, Etro layers patterns over one another for one mishmashed motif (see spring’s florals transposed over paisleys). But this season, prints have been separated out—that signature paisley alternated with a “crystallized” stripe that resembles a reflected skyline; a blown-up cravat-print trimming a black-and-white paisley.So what does it mean for the clothes? For one, it adds structure to well-tailored but simple silhouettes. It also lends femininity to what is otherwise a fairly masculine offering. Trousers are inspired by menswear, but chicly cropped—and sometimes cuffed, like one black keep-forever duchesse satin pair—it should be noted. So are jackets. One is made of Prince of Wales check, but has colorful metallic thread woven through its bouclé. There are tuxedo ruffles on a dress and one flirty and flattering little skirt, but those aren’t fussy in the least. The collection goes for that very desired balance of refinement with novelty and feminine menswear and hits it on the mark.
18 December 2013
Veronica Etro's English grandmother, Audrey, used to bind her books in the beautiful fabrics that draped the Etro family's life. In each volume, she'd write the time and place she read the book. That's how we know the prints Veronica lifted from her gran's library for her show today were from the 1940s. Graphic, abstract, naïve, whimsical, they were the meat of the collection. Yes, Veronica paraded the family's signature paisley, splintered, collaged, and mutated, but it was those prints that captured the imagination. And she let them sing in fluid, wrapped shapes. True, there was a metal spine to the collection—the placket trailing down a blouse, for instance—but its essence was deconstruction. Maybe it was the Donna Summer remix on the soundtrack that cued the free and easy disco spirit. Whatever the cause, this was a collection that felt fresher and more alive than usual.
19 September 2013
"I am complete," Kean Etro said, banging his chest for emphasis."Mi corazón,my heart." His emotion made perfect sense after an Etro show that celebrated Zorro, the man Kean called "my guiding spirit" for his heroism, his humanism, and his humility. The invitation was accompanied by a picture story of a Milanese urbanite who is magically transported to a Mexican mesa, where he learns to trust his instincts anew. That is kind of what's been happening to Kean lately—he's been spending a lot of time in Mexico with his wife Constanza's family—and that was also how the show played out: Etro's sharp tailoring steadily infected by bandolero-isms like chaps detailing on trousers, Western pockets on polo shirts, bandanna and horse prints, and tooled leather detailing all over the place. The label's trademark paisley was a more subtle presence than usual, if indeed "subtle" is the word to describe the pattern branded into leather shirts and jackets.The collection was a textbook illustration of how to refresh one set of traditions (Etro's) with another (Zorro's). Kean added a Western yoke and a silver frog closing to a navy suit, trailed chains of metal coins down trouser legs, and co-opted the techniques of saddlery to add a new level of detail to Etro basics. He borrowed the shade of orange from saddle-makers, too. The sombreros, serapes, and bandoliers literalized the theme, but strip away those stylist's flourishes and you were left with a new take on a three-piece suit, or a dinner jacket, or a blouson. Yes, the show was another chapter in Kean's romance with the heroic male, but commercially, the collection was as sharp as Zorro's blade.
23 June 2013
Experimenting with print was a priority forVeronica Etro,the designer who gave her family’s old-school Italian label an update via fabric innovations this season. How did she do that, exactly? By taking heritage paisleys from the house archives, recoloring them in a Rastafarian range of primaries, and then printing over them with modern, micro geometrics. How else? By dragging splashes of color along the bottom of a pant leg or across the shoulder of a jacket, the effect of which resembled an exaggerated ikat. Lastly, there was a faux plissé applied as vertical stripes over another classic Etro motif. Bits of urban street culture—graffiti, stenciling—came to mind in all of these print executions, and its spirit—of rebellion, of self-expression, of cool—was echoed in the relaxed shapes and silhouettes of the clothes, too. Menswear touches and slouchier fits reigned; necklines were athletic instead of being deeply V-ed. This concise collection, made of seven looks representing the line’s much larger selection of commercial pieces, was, in other words, the leader of its pack.
6 June 2013
Veronica Etro seems so happy, so full of life and optimism, that the collection she presented today was a bit of a head-scratcher. The impressive kaleidoscopic backdrop might have offered a clue: Reality is mutable, darkness inevitably follows light. And it was a dark, hard-edged collection that Veronica showed, right down to the heels that zipped up the back. But those hard edges didn't have the usual sexual connotations. Instead, she insisted she was thinking about defense and protection.The Etro children were raised by their father, Gimmo, in an enviably aesthetic environment. Just look at Veronica's stated influences for her collection: cathedral vaults and Renaissance ceilings, nineteenth-century ethnic textiles, Russian ceramics. That kind of scholarship is under threat in a world that digests "culture" in Kardashian-size bites. Small wonder the designer chose to couch her influences in such an aggressive way. Intricate prints were overlaid with black geometric intrusions. Going on the offensive, Veronica layered a biker over a mohair sweater (as punk as an Etro will ever get) or weaponized glamour with an armoring crust of micro-beading. If she herself wouldn't acknowledge anything punk (it's what the world is looking for right now, after all), the zipped, flappy kilts did the talking for her. But what they were saying didn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of this label. Finding the sense is Veronica's ongoing challenge.
21 February 2013
Panta rei: Everything flows. That was the theme of Kean Etro's collection today. But isn't it always? The label that bears his family name is a testament to an extraordinarily consistent continuity. The world that Kean regularly presents on his catwalk is a romantic, hallucinatory circle of life. The fact that he manages to sell so many clothes off the back of it is one of menswear's minor miracles.Today, he cast himself as Genghis Kean, and there was a pleasingly barbaric undercurrent running through the collection. You could picture a Mongol yurt piled high with cushions made from the fabrics he used for coats and jackets. Even an oversize checked mohair coat had a fierce edge (though that might have been down to the model who was wearing it). There was an odd moment in the show when a candy-striped velvet coat and jacket appeared. They looked so much like "old" Etro that they felt out of place, until you realized that everything flows, the Himalayas connect with Northern Europe, shapes and patterns repeat. "We're living in a time of transition," Kean told us in his show notes. The Mayan prophecy wasn't about apocalypse, it was about change.Quite how you attach those convictions to a suit cut from jersey knit is up to you. The easiness of such an outfit is certainly attractive. But Kean's grander designs—the gilded brocades and jacquards, the golden orange panne velvet kimono, the jacket in a shimmering tiger print, the clotted collages of rococo swirls and animalism (the nose of a big cat floats by in aLife of Pimoment)—are truer to the joyous essence of the Etro man, dreaming his opium dreams in his bohemian heaven.
13 January 2013
The lifeblood of Etro is the paisley pattern on which Gimmo Etro founded the family business in 1968. Wisely sensing that there is only a finite amount of inspiration to be derived from the print, Gimmo's daughter Veronica masterfully advanced it today by reconfiguring flora and fauna as a paisley for the future. She did it by engineering hand-painted prints for the entire collection. If they played as a comprehensive "fuck you" to the digital age, it was the more elevated notion of the hands-on artisanship of Japan that was Veronica's touchstone. (After Prada last night, we may have a developing story on our hands here.) She was feeling the primal discipline: martial arts, Orientalist paintings, the ingenuity of a dress cut from a square of fabric, the tradition of intricate knotting. But if her initial outfits took shape somewhere between the kimono and the judo suit, the collection expanded to embrace everything east of the Bosporus. The one-shouldered swag of an Indian sari, the elegance of a Chinese cheongsam, the attenuated line of a Nepalese kurta with matching pants, the airiness of a Persian caftan—the show turned into a veritable atlas of style.All the time, Veronica was returning to Etro's wellspring of color and print. Which meant that, for all its peripatetic to-ing and fro-ing, the collection ended up being her most focused to date. Toward the end, she had the smarts to drop some solidly monochrome outfits into the mix, as palette-freshening pauses. And then one final outfit spread abstracted peacock wings and flew away. It made sense that Florence Welch was the soundtrack for the show. There was something about the floaty, caftan-y grandeur of that last look that seemed made for her.
20 September 2012
The Etro empire is founded on paisley, the Kashmiri design that Scottish weavers turned into the pattern we know and—if our name is Kean Etro—love. So much so that he renamed it Playsley for his new collection. But if that promised the kind of lighthearted circus he usually stages, it was misleading. Kean has been spending a lot of leisure time on mind- and culture-expanding activities in the countryside outside Milan, so the foundation of his show was, according to the extraordinarily complicated notes he gave us, "complex explorable tridimensional structures." And it was quite possible that the soundtrack was being provided by Eskimo shaman Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq.The waves of color that determined the show's rhythm flowed from blue via red to white, symbolizing, according to Kean, "the attainment of a state of serenity and light." And, in the vein of the Eastern philosophy that rhythm so clearly referenced, the collection was a return to paisley's Kashmiri roots. Rather than the masculine hyper-tailoring that has been a traditional house signature, there were soft, flowing pieces that were much more androgynous. Jewel-toned silks were cut into loose trousers and long kurta-like tops. The paisley pattern was exploded or faded away to nothing, embroidered or overdyed. There were braided military jackets which suggested that Kean might be spinning a yarn of life on the old Indian frontier. (One of his notes referred to clothes suitable for a party at an embassy, which is a 19th-century notion if ever we saw one.) A passage of striped cottons looked plain-and-simple fresh by comparison.A question hovered at show's end: What would the traditional Etro dandy make of this silken be-turbaned fantasia? One imagines that, unfazed, he'd simply tamp down his opium pipe and puff on.
24 June 2012
Veronica Etrotook the famed paisley print of her family’s design house on an intrepid tour through the jungle for resort. Not any specific one, more a mythologized notion of a steamy locale where ladylike sheaths, structured blazers, and billowing, oversize shirts, dazzling with tattoo-like prints, are the appropriate attire. So it didn’t take much to decipher that these silhouettes were created with upbeat urban dwellers in mind, rather than any those jetting off to a torrid location.What resort has taught us so far is if a collection isn’t for traveling, then it’s about convivial looks for the holiday season (these clothes land in stores in time for Thanksgiving and stay until early spring). If that’s true for Etro, then a relaxed, boxy shift with low-slung pockets—which started out with a graphic, paisley design and soon trickled, ombre-style, into a scattering of flora and tribal patterns—would be the collection’s after-hours forerunner. At the other end of the spectrum, a basket-weave–print pantsuit and matching tweed skirt suit embroidered with gardenias offered quieter, but no less optimistic alternatives. All in all, not for shrinking wallflowers.
11 June 2012
Kean Etro has so successfully established an image for the Etro man—a thinking man with an appetite for adventure—that you kind of feel sorry for his little sister, Veronica Etro, who has had to carve a niche out of nothing. She's looked here, looked there, but she's just been fishing. All too rarely has she latched on to something that feels right for the brand. Still, she's getting there. Today's show was a clearly defined statement of intent. Etro's Mitteleuropa dandyism translated appealingly into lean, tailored looks that used the family's signature paisley as a building block. Not in a particularly respectful way, mind. Laser-cut into a patchwork on a net gown, printed on a sheer top, woven into trousers that were legging-tight, paisley proved itself to be a profoundly alluring thing. As alluring, in fact, as a tracery of tattoos on skin.Perhaps it was that sensual association that spurred Veronica on to such extremes as the perforated leather ruff that limned a velvet jacket, or the hard-edged combo of black leather and fishtailed velvet. If there was one word that worked for the whole collection, it wasflare. Flare in the leather peplum belts, flare in those fishtailed gowns, flare in the godet skirts. It took discipline to make them all work. Veronica is clearly little sister no longer.
23 February 2012
Lately, Kean Etro and his wife Constanza have been spending a lot of time with her relatives in Oaxaca. In the hills above the town, there is a spectacular set of Zapotec ruins. It takes little effort to imagine the ceremonies, the rituals that took place there, all of which is mesmerizing to Kean, the kind of psychonaut who would gladly put himself in the place of the shamans that chemically enhanced their senses so that they could soar over the world. But back in Milan, he had to settle for trying to make his new men's collection take flight, literallyandfiguratively.Discombobulation was the starting point. The show launched straight into lush monochrome eveningwear. Damasks, brocades, and floor-length fringed scarves were garb for decadent fin-de-siècle nights. Then Kean went to the birds—from one jacket made entirely of quail feathers to another featuring a flurry of coq feathers atop its Prince of Wales-checked swallow tails, from a big-time pimping feathered hat to green-soled slip-ons with a feathered cap toe. It got to the point where even a sober tan trench spun to reveal a feathery addendum. Dry cleaners of the world, you have been warned.A more traditional Etro made its presence felt in a paisley parka and jacquard suitings. An eye-popping pairing of a Chinese red velvet jacket and orange plaid pants was a salutary reminder that Etro's traditions actually aren't even that traditional. Still, it's obvious that Mexico has gotten right under Kean's skin, because Indian blanket patterns overshadowed the family paisley, especially in bold black and white. So, did Kean earn his wings? Well, the show came off part Pegasus, part Icarus. It rose, it fell. That probably matters not a jot to the designer himself. The finale featured huge Indian blankets printed with a Mayan sun clock and the words "Game Over." Apocalypse now? Kean just chuckled.
15 January 2012
A vivid image of the Jazz Age, that pre-Depression moment of unholy hedonism and drunken frolics, is hopped-up flappers plunging into the fountain outside the Plaza hotel in New York. Veronica Etro summoned up a new Jazz Age with her latest collection, and she came pretty close to conveying the unhinged waywardness of the original. What stood out instantly: no paisley! Or at least the signature family pattern was unrecognizably deconstructed into black-and-white Art Deco graphics, which appeared, for instance, in a kimono coat that would do a flapper proud. Another thing: The palette was sorbet, where once it would have been a symphony of primary colors.Etro adapted the work of the futurist artist Fortunato Depero for vivid patterns. The Chrysler Building reappeared again (it was a touchstone for Frida Giannini, too) in block-print geometry. But the spirit of the era was also pretty obvious in a Hollywood-worthy charmeuse column, with a fringed bed jacket. As the show climaxed, Sigrid Agren emerged in a gold torso-ed dress with a deep-V neckline and a skirt of lilac plissé. That dress, the saxes tootling frantically on the soundtrack, flappers in the fountain, all begs the question: After this wild party, can the crash be far behind?
22 September 2011
Free-associate on the idea of the Mediterranean and you'll likely come up with sea, sun, sand, citrus, lavender, terra-cotta, and white, lots of white. The typically fulsome show notes insisted the Med was the inspiration for Kean Etro's collection, but, while it's true there was a fair amount of sea and sky blue on display—plus a sun hat or two—it didn't look like any of those other elements had crossed his mind. Even the dreamy shadow-play backdrop of swooping gulls, lighthouse, and ocean-going sloop said Maine more than Med.But that isn't to say that this collection wasn't a winner. Etro is like a favorite dish of especially rich food. You wouldn't want to eat it always, but when you feel like it, it really hits the spot. And that was the case today. There are times when Kean soft-pedals the label's paisley heritage, but here he whole-hogged it with a killer overload of pattern and color that was strongest at its most hectic, as in a mind-bending paisley shirt tucked into searing yellow pants and wrapped up in a huge floral scarf with trailing fringes. The ideal accessory for such a look would have been an opium pipe. Unfortunately, there were none forthcoming this season.Where the Med made its presence felt was in the lightness of the collection. Etro often gets a little too Mitteleuropa in its weightiness, and paisley's rich orientalism ensures the color palette follows suit. Maybe that state of affairs persisted to a degree today, but there was a feeling of floatiness that fought it. Though there were still suits and jackets galore, they'd been unstuffed. Some were so soft as to be pajamalike. Even better than a jacket was a floaty coat, best in paisley, but also looking good in chalk stripe over matching pants.
19 June 2011
If there was a method in Veronica Etro's madness, it wasn't immediately apparent in the pell-mell tone of a presentation that breezed from barbarism to futurism in the blink of an eye. If ever there was a show with a split personality, this was it. But sometimes that means double the fun, and that was the case here, if you were inclined to put a charitable spin on the chaos. The first outfit was an appropriate appetizer: A tartan-bodied coat sported metallic leather sleeves, a heavily embroidered placket, and a curly lambswool collar. Minutes later, a classically draped, one-shouldered gown in a mosaic pattern was followed by a substantial forties-style overcoat, then a psychedelic-ized paisley blouson and matching skirt. A key fabric of the collection was something called nylon Lurex, which flowed like liquid around the body. It made an intense golden evening dress look like a hostess gown from ancient Abyssinia, especially with the substantial earrings sported by Abbey Lee Kershaw. This was, by the way, a good thing.The collection was random enough to turn anyone into a fashion editor. Take this, leave that. So baggy tartan pants looked fine with a lacquered leather biker, but the pairing of the same pants in tweed with an ethnic gold-coin-covered coat was too jarring to work. Still, could randomness even be invoked as a criticism when Etro's combinations were so deliberately wayward? They took on their own feverish life, so much so that the hectic patterning began to look like Rorschach blots. Then along came a gorgeous ivory coat-dress, shading from black and white paisley to rich color. Or a simple black gown, artfully, classically wrapped. File this one in the too-much-is-never-enough folder.
24 February 2011
There was a convoluted path along which you could follow Kean Etro's decision to elevate the cow as the icon of his latest menswear collection. The lifeblood of theEtrobusiness is the pattern we call paisley…it originated in India…where Hindus worship the cow. Bingo! But however tortuous his logic, Kean did have a point, in the sense that the cow has been the literal lifeblood of the human community for thousands of years. Here, for example, he provided the hide for a coat that instantly kicked the Etro collection into a much more primal zone than the one occupied by the brand's usual parade of boho-toned tailoring and paisley detailing. There were furry Friesian-patterned shoes as a complement, and indeed a bovine aspect to the whole collection, evidenced mostly in the brown shades that dominated.But the other fulcrum of the presentation was mountaineering, which you could construe as a primal reach for the stars, the kind of activity a natural adventurer like Kean would be inclined toward. Except here it was made manifest in the influence of the Tyrol, which is scarcely Everest. Still, the Tyrol did gel neatly with Etro's penchant for embroidery, braiding, appliqué, and the like—witness the hand-tooled leather martingales on coats and vests. These details appeared on clothes cut from the kind of traditional fabrics that would have dressed climbers in a more gentlemanly era. They also underscored the fairy-tale quality that makes Etro a fashion story that is enduringly, appealingly out of time.
16 January 2011
Etro collections are incredibly dense affairs. Pattern, color, silhouette and accessories combine to create an effect that is the very definition of eclecticism. But it is almost astonishingly polite for something that is so pell-mell. For Spring, Veronica Etro matched city smarts with a strong tribal influence, but civilization well and truly trumped barbarism, with ethnic patterns cut into tidy printed separates, shifts or shirtdresses, and cropped, high-waisted pants to temper the flighty scarf dresses.Veronica added geometrics to Etro's more traditional paisleys and florals, but, intriguingly, given the label's print heritage, what looked freshest here were the solid-colored, one-shouldered pieces, floor-length or knee-length with one huge puff sleeve. They were a strong, simple statement that offered a skewed take on the season's fascination with volume.
23 September 2010
The original tree of life may have been the date palm, because it sustained early human societies on so many levels. Now, several millennia later, it's sustaining the Etro fashion empire, since it was the fronds of the date palm that inspired the Persian pattern that evolved into the label's signature paisley.In the past, designer Kean Etro's celebrations of that iconic pattern have been primary-colored bursts of jubilation wrapped up in fine Italian tailoring. This season, he had the freshly laid lawn and the hot Latin beats all set to continue the party, but the color was left in the showroom. For his catwalk, Kean eased back, offering clothes that were pale, subtle, and insinuatingly sexy in a way that's new to the brand. This time around, the inevitable paisley shirts were sheer, in georgette or silk. Tone-on-tone paisley scrolled down neutral-hued jackets and pants, or was picked out in see-through lace shirts. The lightness and airiness took an earthy turn with suits and coats in tan, sage, and bone, and skins in olive green; the sun shone through in chrome yellow leathers.To round out the organic vibe, each departing audience member was given a sapling, with the house pledging to plant all those that went unclaimed. Only fitting that Etro continues to pay tribute to that source.
20 June 2010
Straitened economic conditions, packed schedules, and the super-quick absorption of fashion on the Internet being as they are, it was quaint—not to say, verging on bizarre—to turn up to a midday show, only to find a drinks-and-nibbles reception in full swing, followed by a collection that trailed on so long, a quarter of the audience got up and headed out in desperation before the models left the runway. Not to be rude to the content of Etro, whose eclectic-ethnic aesthetic has an immense amount of goodwill on its side (it's a kind of Italian answer to Dries Van Noten), but this isn't the way fashion is conducted anywhere else these days.That said, this was possibly the collection in which Veronica Etro had taken the house heritage in paisley and chinoiserie fabrics and most successfully integrated them into fashion. The paisley motifs were separated out and flatteringly placed in clusters riding on the flanks of pencil skirts or in the bodice of high-waisted dresses. This wasn't one of Etro's hippie-deluxe seasons, where everything flows in breezy gypsy fashion, but one where the richness of travelers' trophies was distilled, imagined as the possessions of Peggy Guggenheim or Diana Vreeland. That gave the cue for some great jewelry, including Cleopatra-like neckpieces, worn on sweaters with chic navy caban coats and cropped pants. Other elements were chinoiserie-quilted jackets, cheongsam blouses, and kimono gowns, but by the time the last few were exiting the runway, the audience had lost the plot and was flooding out.
26 February 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
17 January 2010
Veronica Etro picked up on some of the trends of the season, but managed to weave in a sense of her family's heritage in print and exotic fabric. She started with a floppy duster coat over a pair of pale pink patchwork pants in unpressed silk, and from there found ways to work in the house paisleys on satin, chiffons, and voiles, which she used on everything from pajamas to jumpsuits to long, multitiered halterneck dresses. Her palette of mushroom, dusty pinks, and violet provided a baseline to tie it all together. There were some things that were spot-on trend, like a striped black and gold Lurex sweater or a little pair of army shorts. But then again, why would a woman go to Etro, over anyone else, for that sort of thing? What really will sell is far more likely to be the romantic, early-seventies-influenced printed gypsy blouses, multitier halternecks, and long dresses, items in which to breeze around on a beach. All in paisley, of course.
26 September 2009
Style.com did not review the Spring 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
21 June 2009
Somewhere in the processing of material for her collections, Veronica Etro always manages to excavate a timely East-West connection that reflects the culturally eclectic heritage of her family company. This time, she said she was looking to Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire, whose treasures happen to have just been on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.That meant she could find her own way to weave the season's burnished golds, bronzes, and copper into her show. It also led her to detail neckpieces and belts to evoke the feathers of the angel wings seen in Byzantine icons, and to design spice-tinted prints derived, perhaps, from the patterns of Turkish carpets. Not that you needed a degree in art history to understand what was on show. In truth, Etro has settled into a sensible groove of accessible daywear, one that accommodates house signatures like the paisley coat, edged in gilded leather, as well as specialties like the flowy, halter-neck scarf dresses presented for evening. The gilt-edged suede shoes and the gold-and-fringed bags might pique the interest of a cherry-picking fashion shopper for fall, but mostly Etro has steered the company's designs toward steady middle-of-the-road fare—a safe port in a storm, perhaps, for a company with a following of people who don't care too much about transient trend agendas.
28 February 2009
Veronica Etro looked East for inspiration. In her vibrant lineup were a silk kimono print jacket and pants, as well as an Indonesian batik chiffon floor-length dress. But refreshingly, this wasn't an "ethnic" collection per se. It was more modern than that: Sari overalls (a.k.a. one-shoulder jumpsuits) mixed it up with silk pajamas in a seersucker blue and white stripe, and an Indian-feeling mirror-encrusted jacket was interspersed among an emerald green ombré sequin dress and a matching tank worn with rolled-hem shorts. Throughout, Etro made the most of her family label's heritage, reviving the signature paisley in a very pretty salmon and mint combination for several looks, including a billowy gown that parachuted behind the model as she walked.There were a few wrong turns—a too boxy jacket with passementerie detailing at the collar, a similarly square white leather vest—but overall it was a big improvement over a Fall collection in which heavy-handed styling distracted from the clothes. In a season of prints, Etro's are subtle standouts.
22 September 2008
The ferns and fronds of the jungle-y backdrop apparently reflected the origins of the paisley pattern that made Etro's fortune. Maybe it was the simple integrity of such a notion that freed Kean Etro from some of the twistier concepts he's saddled himself with in recent seasons. If the subsequent show was a celebration of the pleasures of paisley—in shirts, shorts, flowing robes, even as stencils on the models' skin—it was also the loosest, sexiest, most potent presentation that Etro has offered in a dog's age.There's often been a tension in Kean's collections between the riotous opulence of the colors and patterns and the somewhat uptight tailoring. Here, the Etro dandy had relaxed. There were still plenty of suits, but uptight was upended by crumpled linen and shiny silk. Suit trousers might be cargo pants. Or they would be belted with a scarf or tie. (There weren't too many ties around necks.) The Etro buccaneer wore his gorgeous silk shirts unbuttoned to the waist, unless they came with a broderie anglaise-trimmed placket, in which case there wasn't anything to button. Kean's trawl through the Southeast Asia in his mind came back with the Burmeselongyi(for when a sarong simply isn't enough). Sounds like dress-up, but the show looked like a dozen reasons to feel good about the season.
23 June 2008
The program notes promised "Romantic Wilderness," which apparently referred to the snowy woodland set at one end of the runway. From the opening exit, though, it was more a case of a steep plunge into the stylistic wilderness, a surreal place where Etro's potentially lovely paisleys and prints became hopelessly embroiled with fetishistic lace-up platform thigh boots and were inexplicably topped off with velvet air-stewardess hats.Was there something Russian going on here? That could have accounted for the Sonja Henie-like skating skirts and the vaguely Chekhovian Victoriana suitings, with the lower half cut off at thigh level. Did anything escape the debacle? Some good shearling jackets, a shaggy black and white goat-hair coat, and a couple of long, streakily printed chiffon dresses. Otherwise, though, this show was an unfortunate setback for a house whose heritage deserves to be enhanced and celebrated in a much more appropriate way.
18 February 2008
Last things first. While a sun rose on the video screens and the idealist's anthem, "Let the Sun Shine In," soundtracked the finale of his show, Kean Etro ran out on his earth-packed catwalk in pinstriped combats and a purple velvet jacket, picked a sprig of rosemary from a bush sprouting among the many kinds of vegetables rooted in said earth, and chewed it. He's a born educator, and he knew how to make his point about the necessity of nature in fashion. As he said in his press notes, "The soup of life is cooked in the brasserie of style."In the days leading up to his show, select out-of-towners got an Etro box prettily wrapped in ribbon and containing… a potato, nestled in a bed of dirt. So much for glamorous fashion freebies. But Kean wanted us to know that the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2008 the year of the potato, because it's such a valuable weapon against world hunger. The potato didn't make it as a print in his collection, but leaves, fronds, seeds, beans, and bark did. If the parade of gorgeously toned plaids, velvets, and jacquards felt like the Etro we know in excelsis, there was news in a Thom Browne-like proportion that raised trouser hems and hiked the waist of coats and jackets, as well as shortening them. There was also an edginess in an item like a washed-leather trench. But its color was the result of vegetal dyeing, which brought one back to Kean's desire to highlight fashion's environmental obligations.Post-show, he insisted such an issue has been a concern of his for at least 15 years and now the rest of the industry is catching up. Consider the ambassadors he has created this season for his cause—the velvet jacket in a rich shade of pumpkin trimmed in green, the silk suit in a black so liquid it could be cursed crude oil, the cabled cardigan in a lime green—and it's easy to believe that Kean will have his way.
14 January 2008
With the seventies back on the runways, Veronica Etro is back in her element. A bohemian with a luxe magpie aesthetic, she let her freak flag fly.The first look was a slim belted coat with eccentric lapels covered in dense loops of red yarn, worn with sporty color-block leggings. From there, she delved into cargo jackets and pants paired with filmy chiffon tops or rugby-stripe sweaters, multicolor hippie-chic crochet dresses, cutaway military jackets with frogging and contrast trim, and silk caftans printed front and center with talismanic agates. To call it kaleidoscopic would be an understatement.The show¿s dominant silhouette was a fitted torso—a studded leather vest, say, topping an earth-toned silk tee—and a short, flaring skirt. At the middle were belts decorated with all manner of tassels, embroideries, and pompoms, elements that reappeared on shoes and bags. At times, it was all too costumey; take, for instance, a new-age long jersey tank dress with deep silver fringing at the neckline. But peel back Etro¿s many layers and you reveal pieces that are not only on-message for the season (ethnic prints, tie-dyes, tiny leather jackets), but also, and this is more important, desirable.
24 September 2007
Reality is merely a concept for Kean Etro. He is a master at creating new worlds. For spring, the Kingdom of Kean was Etropicalia, a jungly place outside time (such are Kean's powers of persuasion that the venue itself felt hotter and brighter as the show wore on). And not just outside time, but outside fashion, too, because Kean Etro is a law unto himself, evolving with little heed to what is happening elsewhere in Milan. Though the introductory "son et lumière" promised a back-to-nature trip, the first outfit was actually a very civilized gray marl suit, worn with a paisley shirt, bow tie, and trilby, followed in rapid succession by more of the tailored stripes, checks, and paisleys that are signatures of the urban Etro dandy.Kean is too canny to fuss with this successful formula. But then he began to warm to his theme. Floral prints were blurry, like they'd been left out in a tropical rainstorm (applied to knitwear, the technique looked a little like tie-dye). Straw was woven into shoes, raffia into waistcoats. A jute blazer had its half-belted sobriety shaken up by the big flower graffitied on its back. And shirts were overprinted with huge glossy petals. Etro's experiments with fabric also yielded jackets and cabans washed in coffee (another subtle tie-dyed effect). A sunny passage toward the end of the show offered response to that retailer who complained earlier in the week about the lack of swimwear in a season that hasn't always had summer on its mind. Q: Why is a bathing suit like a bus? A: Because you can wait forever, then ten come along at once.
25 June 2007
Veronica Etro swapped the psychedelic sixties paisleys and magic-mushroom prints of Spring for twenties constructivism, with some timely Art Deco flash thrown in. The show opened with this season's by-now-familiar round-shouldered, short-sleeved coat with deep fur cuffs. Hers came in a natural linen tweed decorated with geometric blocks of color and slim saffron satin pants. From there, Etro started working the artsy (often over-the-top) layers: belted side-button tunic vests over pussy-bow silk-print blouses with willowy, high-waisted trousers; and a plaid anorak with a fur collar topping a purple pleated skirt with buckles at the sides. For evening, she showed drop-waist numbers, some with crystal embroidery at the hem, others beaded along the racer-back straps. Longer tank dresses were suspended from the shoulders with ropes of jet jewelry. A silk-velvet sack coat as vivid as a tapestry stood out for its simplicity.No matter which decade is the inspiration, a rich interplay of prints and textures is the house's trademark; this season, though, Etro let that exuberance get the better of her. She isn't the only designer guilty of overlong presentations in Milan, but a more thorough edit, not to mention less flamboyant styling, could¿ve sharpened what she said was her message about languid sensuality.
19 February 2007
The invitation was a tape measure. So was the catwalk. And the first outfit featured a navy suit banded by…you guessed it. In a season that has already seen plenty of lip service paid to the tailor's craft, was Kean Etro about to take the literal measure of the modern male? Well, notexactly. The measurements he was interested in were typically a little more conceptual and obtuse, having to do with gauging the quality of a man's life. Given that Kean is a fashion designer, you might safely assume the addition of some Etro outfits would improve that life, and that assumption wasn't far off the mark—especially when you're dealing with someone with as unique a color sense as his. You don't often see yellow in menswear. Here, it was everywhere, in tones from mustard to chrome. There was orange, too, in a hooded cable-knit cardigan thrown over a velvet suit in deepest grape.Etro's signature tailoring was present (and correct) in the mixes of pattern and texture that are the label's staple. There was also a major new focus on hand technique: printing (the stripes on shirts and jackets were printed, not woven); stenciling; and, most striking of all, a method of dyeing calledshibori. It loaned an effect alternately dip- and tie-dyed to the hems of jackets and waistcoats, one of which was paired with embossed-leather trousers, a tweed jacket, and paisley shoes. Come to think of it, the life that particular combo suits might actually be worth taking the measure of.
16 January 2007
WithStar Warstheme music—R2-D2 sound effects, and all—pumping through the speakers, Veronica Etro's lively sixties romp bordered on camp. Less a space-age take on that decade than an eclectic reprise of its bohemian-hippie stylings, the show had paisley silks, patchwork prints, and sequins arrayed in a magic-mushroom motif, all on a base of black opaques and silver platforms. Miniskirts were pleated or flat-front and worn with spring's three-quarter-sleeve, collarless jackets. Dresses ranged from a sleeveless white shift with swirls of geometric color to a pleated black shirtgown tied at the waist, and full trousers were shown with silk blouses and side-fastening vests. She even tossed in a few rompers for kicks.Ignore the tunes—which gave catwalker Irina Lazareanu, as well as some in the audience, a case of the giggles—and set aside some of the more outré looks—like the overlong floral palazzo pants, which caused a major spill during Lazareanu's finale lap—and there were winning pieces here. Etro had the season's smock, shirtwaist, and T-shirt dresses—all in a boldly confident mix of colors and kaleidoscopic prints that has become just as big a calling card as the house's famous paisleys.
25 September 2006
Can't wait for the newPirates of the Caribbean? Neither, it seems, can Kean Etro. At the start of his spring show, he sailed a huge pink pirate ship onto his runway, then marched a full crew of eye-patched, tricorned, Fabio-haired, barefoot brigands down the plank (okay, catwalk). What Etro apparently had in mind was a journey to an imaginary island where a man's soul—and wardrobe—would be regenerated, and there was a definite sense of the designer going for broke with a collection that extended his usual play with color, print, and fabric into the realm of pure costume. Whether his customers will want to go along on that trip is anyone's guess.The key silhouette was a tailcoat worn with dhoti pants, their crotch dropped to the knee. Kean liked the jacket in seersucker, the pants in a huge hibiscus print. Seersucker was also the fabric of choice for a pink striped suit, paired with a shirt and tie in the same shade (head-to-toe pink has emerged as a curious little trend in Milan). The striped suits in linen were more like the Etro a growing clientele (especially in the U.S.) has come to know and love, and a braid-trimmed navy suit passed as a subtle elaboration on the nautical theme. The frock coat with psychedelic jams, on the other hand, suggested Admiral Halsey on acid. Come to think of it, acid would probably have helped the audience fathom the visual and aural farrago of this show.
27 June 2006
This season, Veronica Etro looked at sixteenth-century art and textiles to give a flavor to a collection that always calls to women with an eye for rich mixes of pattern and a taste for nonaggressive, romantic clothes. Boho may be out of fashion for the moment, but she designed herself out of that dilemma by superimposing gemlike purples, dark greens, and golds on simplified shapes, instead of the flowy deluxe peasant look of presentations past. "I was thinking of Elizabethan women, who had so much power," she said. "I didn't want it to be so romantic, and the colors had to be less bright. But in the end, it has to be very feminine."Loose, long-sleeve, knee-length satin dresses, decorated at the neckline and cuffs with 3-D velvet "stones" or smatterings of metalwork studs, put the collection in line with the season's covered-up silhouettes and mood of restraint. The bags, inspired by treasure chests, came in carved and gilded leather or as patchworks of gold brocade and emerald and deep-purple velvet. Etro did well not to force her theme into costumey excess, though. Ultimately, the attraction of these clothes is that they make lovely and not blatantly identifiable pieces to slip into a wardrobe—the sort of things that force friends to close in, feel the fabric, and murmur, "That's nice. Who's it by?"
21 February 2006
After the huge, hell-red backdrop had been slowly sliced open from behind, a man and a woman emerged through the slit and proceeded to dance an impassioned tango. So far, so Kean Etro. You can generally rely on his shows to fire up a crowd. So why, after that spectacular introduction, did this latest presentation feel a little flat? Could it be that the Duke of Windsor, the man the designer claimed as inspiration for the collection (and whose spirit hovered over a number of catwalks this week), simply wasn't a big enough character to hang a whole show on?Kean gave it his best shot, sending out dozens of variations of the Prince of Wales check (he called it "the most classic leitmotif in menswear fabric"). The overriding impression, however, was that the catwalk was awash with gray, and no one has ever been able to say that about an Etro show before. Therewereshots of color, like a hot-pink corduroy jacket or a sky-blue cotton coat, and the Etro paisley was highlighted in everything from silky robes (worn as overcoats) to a suit (finished off with a cardigan in lilac). But from the very first outfit—a double-breasted topcoat over a suit—there was an atypical, oh-so-serious, all-grown-up air to the proceedings.Still, there's no denying the Duke was a snappy dresser, and Kean did him justice in some superbly shaped jackets. And the patterned knit cardigan coats thrown over pinstripes were, if not strictly Windsor style, at least novel enough to pass for class.
19 January 2006
Veronica Etro described her collection as "a journey of light and color." That meant exploring a century of painterly treatments, from the exquisitely realistic nineteenth-century Greco-Roman fantasias of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema to the shimmering, abstract color blocks of Mark Rothko (prettily interpreted in skinny knits or hand-painted chiffon evening gowns).Etro built up slowly to the highly colored, multiprint effects that have lately become a signature of the house once famed for its autumnal paisley designs. The show opened with a natural linen coat, its hem massed with impasto embroidery that evoked Matisse cutouts. This was typical of the collection's artisanal hand detailing, which included rococo volutes of silvery sequins on a wispy chiffon skirt and jet-embroidered whorls garlanding skirts or coats. Only the accessories were simple and relatively unembellished—high, strappy suede sandals, and bucket bags and briefcases in natural or earthy red linen bordered and bound in black leather.Those signature paisleys were subtly revisited—barely perceptible this time—in soft shades of pale yellow for a sunray-pleated evening dress. Meanwhile, the Romany gypsy-scarf prints allowed Etro to run riot with audacious color mixes such as purple, aqua, and cocoa, while a full-blown rose print on a thirties-inspired evening dress captured the season's passion for romantic florals.Etro's eclectic vision also embraced the blues of the Mediterranean Sea, from soft aqua to ultramarine. And the sultry atmosphere that sea evokes was reinforced by evening gowns that suggested Alma-Tadema's ersatz Victorian take on the garb of ancient Greek and Roman lovelies.
29 September 2005
Kean Etro would have you believe that a man can fly, at least in his imagination. There was an actual Jules Verne–like balloonist swinging backward and forward as a backdrop to Etro's latest presentation, but the true flights of fancy were to be found, as usual, on the catwalk below. The way into this show was the soundtrack, a pell-mell mash-up incorporating everything from Hendrix to "Heroes" to "Volare"—in other words, the perfect aural complement to clothes that ran a gamut from tropical-printed jams to a hopsack suit (lining and accompanying shirt in matching florals) to a sober navy blazer. (Mind you, that blazer was shown with candy-striped shorts, a hibiscus-print shirt with mint-green tie, and snakeskin spectators.)Etro's color sense is by now unimpeachable. The needlecord suits in orange, pistachio, sky blue, and lilac would be all the proof you'd need of that, but for good measure, he went on to combine an orange polo with a green plaid jacket, and trousers in an aqua paisley. The fun continued with shorts done in the Etro family's trademark paisley and paired with a white leather motocross jacket, and a military jacket in that hibiscus print (it also showed up in tweed for those of a more sober inclination).
29 June 2005
It was a bit of a Dadaist experience at Etro, in more ways than one. Perhaps inspired by the nonsensical, confrontationist antics of the early twentieth century art movement, several guests were given doubled-up seat assignments, and others received ticket numbers that correlated to invisible chairs. Or maybe that was just a slip-up. In any case, after much delay, the Dada-inspired show went on, though as it turned out, not much troubled by anything more artistically challenging than a twenties interlocking concentric circle pattern.Etro's heritage in elaborate mixed-media print and embroideries explains the hum around the label these days. At a time when pattern and color have become attractions for shoppers, burnt orange, purple, and tomato red, worked into Deco geometrics, antique Japanese embroideries, paisleys, and rose prints have an eye-catching currency. That provided material for some unique pieces, but not necessarily for a credible runway show. There were some pretty floral patchwork-print Empire-line dresses that are becoming a house signature, but there was too much eking out of ideas to sustain this presentation.
24 February 2005
Kean Etro likes to spin yarns, in both senses of the term. After his fabrics are woven and his designs made, he attaches a story to them. This season's was titled ManWash, and the first thing the audience saw on entering the room was a full set of car wash paraphernalia. The impenetrable program notes suggested that Kean was keen to put his models through the same processes as fabric—washing, treating, drying—in order to create a bond between clothes and the man who wears them. Mercifully, this oddly off-putting notion translated into another of the designer's usual upbeat romps.For all his wayward intellect, Etro does possess an infallible and often thrilling sense of color—as in a grass-green velvet jacket under a pumpkin velvet topcoat. But while oranges, lilacs, and greens are the label's lifeblood, his fall palette expanded to include rich heathery tones and the colors of changing leaves. He also explored the dressy-casual clash that is obsessing Milan at present. Skinny sweaters hung below jacket hems, suit trousers came with tracksuit stripes or ankle-height combat pockets, seams on jackets and coats were exposed. Only Etro, with his can't-help-himself decorative drive, would trim those seams in floral motifs—not to mention line a tapestry coat with an eighteenth century print, and march an orange ponyskin coat through the car wash.
18 January 2005
In a season when India is inspiring so many collections, Etro—which uses a paisley print as its brand identity—is more entitled than most to roam the subcontinent. Sure enough, that's where the collection went, but via the seventies hippie route. That meant a combination of canvas patchwork sparkled up with dangling-coin embellishment (on a shorts suit and coat) and drifty, diaphanous printed fabrics, sometimes crinkled and pleated (for romantic dresses and smock tops.)Some of these colorful pieces were luxuriously attractive. One of the standouts—which could make a lovely entrance at any party—was a long, flowing seventies-style dress with belled sleeves, detailed with pinwheel pleating in the Empire bodice. The neo-flower child might also consider dipping into the butterfly sleeve, Zandra Rhodes-type elements of the collection—the tiny vests and soft plissé, floor-sweeping peasant dirndls.As always, however, with shopping the one-world market, it's a question of picking and choosing. Sometimes, there is only a sliver of a difference between the "I've been to Goa" fashion statement and the one that's already available for $30 at the Portobello Road market.
1 October 2004
Kean Etro combines work and play like no other designer. However complex the philosophizing behind each new Etro show, the result is always so exuberant and engaging it could raise the dead (or at least a schedule-deadened band of fashion editors). This time, the models entered via a giant slide, then sped round a spiral catwalk (apparently symbolizing DNA and the galaxy) in a pell-mell riot of stripes, checks, and patchwork.But as usual, there was canny method in Etro's madness: Amid the spectacle were perfect linen suits striped with color, masterful layerings of jersey polos and multihued shirts (some with a single contrasting band encircling their white collars), and artfully crafted decorative elements, like a placket of mother-of-pearl buttons or an appliquéd mandala (that spiral again). The season is all about color, so Etro was in his element, particularly with the trickier ends of the spectrum—a leaf-green suede jacket, a fire-engine-red safari jacket. One of those items should be enough to let the sun shine in, come summer '05.
29 June 2004