Agnona (Q2535)
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Italian fashion house
- Agnona
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Agnona |
Italian fashion house |
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Statements
2015
creative director
Blonde hair scraped back and forward-facing stare serene: The resemblance between model Maggie Maurer and this Agnona collection’s co-inspiration, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, was a little spooky this afternoon. Simon Holloway said he had been moved to base his lineup around Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. after seeing a piece featuring the gone-too-soon Camelot couple by artist Jordan Wolfson. Said Holloway, “What I admire is that she was very polished but not a typical socialite lady. Her style was very cutting edge. The rigor of her taste level, even when she was dressed casually, was very, very high.” That Bessette-Kennedy’s day job was in PR for Calvin Klein at the height of his powers surely contributed to this. Here, Holloway used his own rigorous eye to channel that high watermark of New York’s reign as the superpower of style with all the material assets of this Italian fashion superpower (Agnona is part of Zegna) at his disposal.The opening camel coat, for instance, was made of real camel hair and given extra texture thanks to a shearling midsection and suede pockets. The suede-edged and pocket-flapped work shirt in the second look was cut in camel-hair flannel over an 18-gauge (so very, very light) camel-hair turtleneck. The pants and pencil skirt looked like denim but were much finer wool twill dyed indigo.A strapless leather dress in dark blue featured a knitted back section, before a very camel Klein asymmetric knit skirt and top prefaced the big innovation of this Agnona season: the first menswear it has presented in 20 years. This Kennedy-shaped look was a dark wool cashmere jersey suit, so therefore unstructured, and Holloway was keen to emphasize that tailoring was not his chosen direction—this makes sense considering that Zegna’s tailoring territory is already pretty expansive. Instead the role of the masculine here was to act as a sympathetic foil to the feminine, which in this context meant luxurified Ivy League dressing right down to the loafers.The men’s camel coats, an amazing dark checked quilted overshirt, and Aran knits were as swoony as Kennedy Jr. himself, but carefully fashioned to not steal the womenswear’s thunder. This clapped most loudly in a long knit—yes, knit—overcoat in a monochrome simplified Prince of Wales: an extraordinary piece. Also worth noting was that much of the cashmere here was recycled. A “contemporary, timeless modernity” is how Holloway described his ambition for Agnona’s aesthetic.
The problem with that is modernity can never be fixed, and all styles of dress must eventually pass. What this flashback today showed, though, is that the spirit of dress Bessette-Kennedy once epitomized is still highly compelling 20 years into a century she never got to see.
22 February 2020
A big part of what makes Agnona so very special is its fabrication, the details of which can be challenging to glean when the clothes are whooshing past at speed. Happily, the label’s designer, Simon Holloway, is on hand and willing to dig deep into the granular data.Take the trenchcoat in Look 13: “That’s in a silk dupioni woven on an antique narrow loom. There are only four of them left, and when a part breaks down, we have to remake it from scratch.” Or the check tailored looks that ran through the midsection of the show: “These are all in patterns taken from the Agnona archive and made in double-face Century cashmere.” As for the attractive double-breasted, short-sleeve, shirting-reminiscent wrap dress of Look 34: “It’s a yarn-dyed crepe de Chine in a candy stripe. And the belt is napa wrapped around cork.”These were a few of the ingredients in a collection that saw Holloway zero in on Milan’s golden age intersection of fashion and industrial design, the late ’70s to early ’80s. He said: “It was before everyone became obsessed with shoes and handbags, and fashion was all about daywear, which the Italians did better than anyone else.” His starting point had been a grainy, wide-angle photo of baggy pants–wearing Milanese clustering outside the first Memphis Group exhibition in 1981. This was the source of the pastel color story in the last third or so of a show that followed a first two-thirds as neutral as Switzerland. The attention to period silhouette here was precise in its “important” shouldered and low-skirted jackets, but these were also shapes you could imagine working in the world today. Although doubtless mind-meltingly expensive, there was a satisfying sense of roughness in the slubbiness of its silks and the texture of its piqué that contrasted pleasingly with the impeccable leather, voile, and cashmere. If you are both rich enough to buy Agnona and discerning enough to buy Agnona, then game over—you win.
22 September 2019
Need a crash course in the finest, most inconspicuously luxurious fabrics on the market? A visit to the Agnona showroom can provide it. And if you could secure Simon Holloway’s fluent, meticulous expertise to guide you through it, even the trickiest exam could be passed with top grades.A fastidious attention to quality has always been embedded in the label’s DNA. For Resort, the variety of blends where silk, cashmere, and wool were variously combined to achieve an almost preternatural featheriness was mind-boggling. When you have at your disposal fabrics of such exquisiteness, you don’t need style pyrotechnics: Holloway’s play on shapes is subtle. Pure lines are substantiated by the fabrics’ discreet richness. It’s high-brow minimalism.The designer always filters references through a contemporary lens; the Resort collection hinted lightly to an elegant ’80s aesthetic, as in Paul Schrader’s movieAmerican Gigolo: “It recalls that clean American sensuality, but wardrobed in an Italian way,” said Holloway. “There was something about the relaxed tailoring mood of that time that I’m just feeling for at the moment, that polished American good taste but with that European luxury tailoring.”Soft tailoring imbued with a light sporty flair was the collection’s strong point, highlighted by subtly mismatched textures and a neutral color palette. A checkered linen silk trench coat, thrown over an elongated chemisier dress with matching slouchy trousers in wool silk toile, was emblematic of the collection’s spirit, as was a loose-fit, deconstructed and unlined double-breasted blazer in fresco gabardine in a delicate linden color. “It’s a little David Bowie moment,” mused the designer, explaining that he took cue from a famous picture of the artist wearing a bright apple-green suit, toned down in the Agnona way.Elsewhere, the chic, relaxed approach was reiterated in buttonless kimono-cut cabans in light double-faced silk-linen-cashmere blends, worn with ’70s-inspired midi skirts in buttery-soft nappa or with sporty slouchy pants. Dresses came mostly as fluid, elongated tunics worn over matching trousers, while an archival illustration provided the graphic patchwork-printed motifs for a feminine chemisier dress. Usually, the wordpatchworkevokes a disorderly feel: It wasn’t the case here. As with the rest of the collection, it was serene and poised. To cut through the fashion noise, you don’t need to scream to be heard.
10 June 2019
WhenMarc Jacobs’s Spring 1993 collection for Perry Ellishit the runway, it got him fired and the critics in an almighty lather. “Grunge,” pronounced Cathy Horyn, “is anathema to fashion.” “Grunge is ghastly,” averred Suzy Menkes. Similarly, bothThe New York TimesandNew Yorkmagazine descended into fits. It turns out that collection—reissued late last year—proved to be one of the most significant in New York Fashion Week’s history. One publication that spurned the winds of prevailing opinion to embrace Jacobs’s take on youthquake wasVogue: Its December 1992 spread by Grace Coddington and Steven Meisel ranks as both the first and the finest editorial encapsulation of Jacobs’s ’90s-defining eureka moment.Today at Agnona, Simon Holloway paid full homage both to the editorial and the Jacobs-catalyzed injection of teen spirit into fashion of the time. “It was about when I left fashion school,” said the designer. “And I’ve been thinking about that landmark ‘Grunge & Glory’ shoot, and how it relates to a moment like now in terms of the continued casualization of fashion.”This collection played between Agnona-flavored riffs on the source material of grunge and Agnona-flavored interpretations of the informal nature of fashion’s contemporary manifestation. Examples of the first included Look 35—four-figure Seattle thrift—that combined a hand-beaded silk georgette dress with Agnona archive floral print under a blue-on-white buffalo plaid coat. Or Look 13’s hand-tinted alpaca coat worn under a silk buffalo-print shirt, slouchy cashmere pants, and, ahem, health sandals. Or 18’s shearling plaid-clad car coat over more slouchy pants, this time in suede.These cover versions were the launchpad for Holloway’s articulation of today’s shifting conventions with a few pieces to “elevate that and make it more tailored and hyper-luxe.” A beautiful suit in double-face gabardine with a leather lapel and that key slouchy pant with a soft break at the ankle was among the most lovely looks, yet least convincing as part of Holloway’s thesis. That’s because the real disruptor of fashion now is sports/streetwear. Looks 25 and 32 were cut in an Agnona woven textured tweed whose pattern reflected the work of Anni Albers, a mover in a far more venerable creative uprising. Philo meets Fila via Agnona: This was not a youthquake, but it was pretty great.
23 February 2019
Simon Holloway, Agnona’s creative director, was fascinated by the recent exhibition “Making Her Self Up” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which showcased Frida Kahlo’s private belongings, displayed for the first time outside Mexico, where they had been locked away for 50 years after her death. They revealed the formidable strength as well as the fragility of the artist’s identity; while her crutches, body casts, and prosthetic legs exposed her impaired physical condition, the bright red lipsticks and nail polishes, perfume bottles, and powder compacts spoke of her refusal to give up the seductive power of her femininity.One black-and-white picture in the exhibition seemed to express a less theatrical side to Kahlo’s self-possessed, forceful personality: Sitting in the sun, simply dressed in a masculine tunic and boot-cut pants apparently made of denim, she wears no makeup and her dark hair is loose. “I love that picture,” Holloway said. Kahlo’s relaxed poise, coupled with the cosmetic color palette of her belongings, was a loose inspiration for the Agnona Pre-Fall collection, the lookbook of which was photographed on model Mariacarla Boscono. “She reminded me of a modern Frida Kahlo,” said Holloway. The fact that her hair, which was recently dyed a bright shade of strawberry blonde, matched the collection’s chromatic range was a kind of serendipity.Shades of plum, rosewood, amber rose, and terra-cotta had a gentle sophistication; combined with darker tones of charcoal and smoky quartz, they were well calibrated to enhance the luxurious feel of high-end fabrications, like double cashmeres, zibeline flannels and wools, and gauze mohairs. A soft purity of cut and a modern, balanced take on volumes and proportions, together with an attitude of refined ease, is what Holloway has been up to at Agnona. Here, double cashmere wrap coats were layered over loose cowl-neck sweaters and wide-leg pants or elongated napa V-necks. Tailoring leaned masculine on herringbone coats and double-breasted peacoats, and on fluid pantsuits in extra-fine light wool. Knitwear was also emphasized, as in a ribbed-knit cashmere cape sumptuously trimmed in astrakhan. The collection offered plenty of desirable outerwear, often paired with relaxed track pants that were made in a luxurious camel-hair velour jersey.
13 December 2018
Edie Campbell in a trench, a shirt and bra made of a poplin woven in vicuña, and a loose pant, and Amber Valletta in a vicuña knit kaftan dress were at the top and tail of this lushly fabricated Agnona collection. Who even knew poplin in vicuña could exist? Simon Holloway riffed loosely on the work and attire of Joan Jonas after being inspired by the exhibition dedicated to her at Tate Modern in London. The silver parka, the sequin relief skirt and mismatched shirt, and the dress in parrot-print silk were all literal nods to the performance artist’s personal style. More broadly, Holloway’s this-season recipe for full-volume but still structured, often ingeniously layered looks (many of whose source code lay in menswear tailoring) produced some deeply chic and grown-up pieces of womenswear.The red—okay, cinnabar—look combining a fine-knit sweater with an extended hem at front and back over a machine-pleated silk skirt that was layered front and back with an additional panel of slightly broader-pleat crepe de Chine was a handful to describe but a delight to watch: really lovely. Holloway sometimes repeated his shapes—the silk and wool voile trench in look 34 and the in-house “Century” cashmere the look after, for instance—and played with a delicate mismatch of color. There was a pleasing contrast between the obvious softness of his minimally profiled cashmere outerwear and the riveted hardware applied sparsely to it. The shoes, both cashmere-upper, molded-sole sneaker boots and heeled leather boots, were beauties. Not many houses are providing properly womanly womenswear in Milan this season: Agnona is one of the exceptions.
22 September 2018
Simon Holloway is not keen on delving into elaborate references for Agnona’s collections; he doesn’t need to. He seems to have a natural understanding of the Italian label’s codes, which are as deceptively simple as they’re sophisticated. He has a real woman in mind, not abstract archetypes: “Our collections are ageless; our customers are young women in their 30s, as well as ladies in their 70s,” he said. Inclusivity? The box has already been ticked.During his tenure at the label, which started in 2016, Holloway has focused on polishing the brand perception, bringing a subtle, consistent modernity to classic wardrobe staples, updating proportions and volumes while keeping a sophisticated, understated style. He has even further elevated the already luxurious quality of the fabrications, taking full advantage from the rather extraordinary combination of innovation and craftsmanship that Italian manufacturers can provide. His approach was well displayed in the Resort collection, where apparently uncomplicated, quiet materials were in fact anything but.A sporty washed-denim jacket-coat, clean-cut and elongated, with a reserved, unassuming charm, at closer inspection revealed itself as being made in the heavenliest double cashmere and lined with a detachable layer of shaved shearling so thin it felt lighter than any bird’s plumage. Same thing for a pair of pants, which looked like usual chinos but which were actually made in the finest, most expensive feathery wool poplin.That quite sensational, illusionistic cashmere denim fabric took a long time to be perfected; it was displayed in many iterations throughout the collection, rendered in slightly ‘90s-inspired, minimal silhouettes, a recurring trend this season. An elongated shirtdress looked casually chic, while a sporty parka had a relaxed, easy attitude. A gently oversize bomber jacket was worn with an ankle-grazing A-line skirt, which looked pretty cool.Elsewhere in the collection, a feel of fluidity and ease was highlighted in sweater dresses, caftans, and pleated tunics in precious lightweight fibers: wool cady, nylon silk, extra-fine merino, cotton voile. A delicate watercolor print on pleated skirts and matching blouses added a touch of graceful finesse.
7 June 2018
Helene Schjerfbeck was a Finnish painter born in the mid-19th century, known for charming self-portraits and a sense of melancholic realism; her work was recently the subject of an exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The slightly chilly Scandi hauteur that permeates her oeuvre resonates with Simon Holloway’s penchant for restrained, sophisticated elegance. The severe high-neck dresses the artist often portrayed herself in constituted a starting point for Agnona’s pre-fall collection.The crisscrossed neckline was one of the many subtly elegant details in the lineup; it was translated into turtlenecks or into the collars of coats and jackets. The season’s silhouette was a bit boyish and slender, with a cool Northern sense of clarity. Softly tailored masculine coats and suits made for a compelling proposition, with deconstructed shapes not detracting from precision but adding ease and comfort. A beautifully cut checkered coat in soft Prince of Wales brushed cashmere had lapels made from alpaca, replicating an old-school mink collar. Elsewhere, a feminine flair was apparent in the considered use of floral prints, including a botanical-inspired wintry motif of dried pressed leaves and an abstract floral pattern printed on silk twill with a virtuoso technique of needle-punched cashmere that created a romantic faded sfumato effect.As always with Agnona, the variety and quality of fabrics were as high as can be. This season, Holloway raised the bar on the label’s responsible sourcing. “In reality, we already start on a very good base in terms of responsible use of fabrics,” he explained. “Nearly everything in our collections has always been natural.” But since the sustainable game is getting tougher, Agnona is responding with an even keener awareness of best practices. To start, it is addressing more responsible sourcing of synthetic yarns. “For example, the viscose in our viscose cady is now sustainably sourced; that is, the trees from which it is harvested are replanted, instead of leaving a barren forest,” said Holloway. Cotton shirting is also almost completely organic and responsibly farmed; the polyester blended into wools to make the fabric stretch has been replaced with recycled polyester; and the nylon used for the inside of quilted jackets is now only recycled. “We no longer use synthetic padding or down feathers for filling puffer jackets; we use only recycled cashmere,” continued the designer.
“We can’t fix everything overnight, but this season we’ve tackled every single aspect that we could in a more cohesive way.” The company’s approach to responsible luxury is a praiseworthy example of commitment and engagement on issues crucial today for the fashion industry—and for the world.
10 December 2019
Simon Holloway was leafing through past editions of the no-longer-publishedAgnonamagazine from the late 1970s and early 1980s when he stumbled across a trove of rather lovely film noir–style editorials featuring the knit house’s garments in makeup shades: chocolate, taupe, nude, plum. These proved the starting point for a collection that enveloped the “protection” theme running through this season in a softly colored, innovatively fabricated, totally luxurious, and ever so slightly retro-futurist-flavored wrapping.Those down inserts were the satin-wrapped inner layer of double-faced cashmere coats and parkas: double protection, worn over knit dresses or slip dresses and wedge boots wreathed with rope-like coils. The prints on those silk dresses and shirts, worn above attractive cashmere-lined, high-waisted nappa trousers, were decoupage reproductions of the old shoots that first sparked Holloway’s creative direction this season.Holloway’s counterpart at Ermenegildo Zegna, Alessandro Sartori, was in the audience today and would rightly have been impressed by a fine rustic-yarn three-piece suit that updated the form with poppered fastenings at the ankle and a cool-looking track-tabard vest. Berry-dyed Donegal tweeds were enmeshed with satin and nylon down inserts in a lush-looking peacoat-bomber hybrid. At the last, Holloway ramped up the color via a dégradé alpaca/cashmere/shearling coat striped in a powerful orange, and an all-orange double-faced mohair overcoat over a long tunic in Shetland wool. Both protective and innovative, this Agnona collection would, you reckoned, not only insulate but embolden its wearer, too.
24 February 2018
A few stunning Hans Feurer pictures from an ’80s editorial grabbed the attention on Simon Holloway’s Agnona moodboard. The Swiss lensman is one of the masters of modern fashion photography; among his many achievements, the advertising campaign he shot for Kenzo in 1983 helped put the Somalian model (and later, David Bowie’s wife) Iman on the map. But it’s his luminous backlighting; a sense of freedom; and the ease and energy expressed by models captured outdoors and in urban landscapes that will be his true visual legacies. Holloway found Feurer’s dynamic images resonant with the attitude of his Pre-Fall collection.Agnona is all about luxurious pieces for every day, exquisitely crafted in the finest fabrics. “The design studio is based here in Milan,” explained Holloway. “So I keep thinking of that fictional Milanese woman; she likes discreet, luxurious dressing, and favors touches of eccentricity, like a beautiful fedora in beaver or arctic hare, possibly sculpted by a traditional milliner known for generations.” To make his point, the designer singled out a double-faced cashmere wrap in an inconspicuous shade of oatmeal, nonchalantly worn over a buttery-soft leather midi skirt and a tweed cashmere sweater. It looked chic and modern, andmoltoMilanese indeed.Holloway worked around the idea of fusing outerwear with tailored coating; puffa jackets and parkas had a luxe finish typical of traditional coats’ construction, while rigorous tailoring was given a sporty, outdoorsy, relaxed vibe. This blending of techniques gave the collection an interesting rhythm, injecting modernity into classic shapes, spicing up practicality with a dash of polish. To amp up the feel of sophisticated ease, there was no shortage of heavenly textures: wool cashmere flannels and jerseys, brushed alpaca tweeds, cashmere-touch cottons. An abundance of supple capes and scarf-coats added to the sensuous feel, yet they were cut with confident precision, blurring the lines between knitwear and tailoring with finesse.
11 December 2017
Agnona is a lush knit specialist with a long history of producing garments that emanate unshowy poise. And, by his own admission, creative director Simon Holloway tends to start his process by focusing on neutrals.This season, Holloway was inspired to turn that around after examining the fiercely colored fabrics commissioned by couture houses from Agnona in the 1960s and visiting the Tate’s epic David Hockney exhibition. So, that hand-embroidered cashmere Fair Isle over lilac pants in Look 15 was based on Hockney’s drawing of Ossie Clark, and the bold blue, lemon, pink, and raspberry color palette was lifted, with heartfelt respect, from the artist as well.In terms of furthering Holloway’s development of Agnona as a sportswear-rooted label for the progressively inclined (but with an unabashed commitment to luxury), the color served him well. The two dresses—a shift and a kimono wrap near the beginning in blue and pink, respectively—were both made in the house “century” cashmere, digitally printed with a soft white shade to add contrast and depth. The closing three-look section of viscose knitted silk column dresses in gradient panels with loosely futuristic complementary knitwear slung above were impactful without compromising on points for poise. The tropical-print pieces—also inspired by the attire of a Hockney subject—were the perhaps the biggest jolt of irreverence, but they translated effectively onto polo shirts with knitted silk trims and matching wide-cut pants. Most of the outerwear featured slashes at the armpit to allow the owner or model to wear the garments with sleeves or without. This sister brand of Zegna rather boldly laid a claim to its brother’s tailoring turf by offering gently oversize blazers in cashmere with off-color decorative stitching and an angle that ran from bottom button to hem, which was rather reminiscent of Alessandro Sartori’s cutaway detailing during his days at Berluti. A mac and a sibling skirt both lacked Hockney’s searing color—Holloway described their tone as “cord”—but were enlivened by inner hems of something shiny and metallic, which lent both a sleek, look-twice gleam.
23 September 2017
The wordfinesseseems apt to describe Agnona’s new Resort collection; creative director Simon Holloway proved that consistency of vision and respect for heritage don’t clash with a subtle sense of modernity or a considerate translation of contemporary fashion codes. The lineup exuded a sophisticated attitude, with sleek silhouettes made discreetly voluptuous by the finest fabrics, heavenly to the touch and impossibly light.Cases in point were the elongated summer coats in featherweight double cashmere; dyed the most inconspicuous “blanc blue” or pale vetiver green, they were as transparent as a shadow. The coats were layered over or under short boxy jackets and were paired with fluid slouchy pants for a svelte urban look. A slim, dark blue duster was cut like a robe and lined with knit trimming, highlighting a sense of ease. Worn with an oyster crepe turtleneck and royal-blue soft pants, it had the chicest feel, and at close inspection it revealed itself to be shaved mink reduced to its thinnest consistency—the height of understated luxury.Elsewhere in the lineup, traditional Cruise elements were mixed with a touch of the sporty, as in a crisp linen cashmere sweater dress worn with leggings (in precious fibers, of course, certainly not fit for a SoulCycle session). Agnona’s customers are meticulous about quality and, as Holloway put it, “they understand the difference between a hundred disparate shades of camel.” Appropriately, again, he offered them the most exquisite color palette: pearl gray, oyster, wild rose, and ivory in a zillion variations.
8 June 2017
Simon Holloway was on a buying trip when he found an old photo of Halston on the roof of the Agnona mill. “They were all wearing these great taupe suits,” said the designer admiringly (wearing a camel cashmere blazer, himself).That photo was taken in the 1970s, around the same time the brand graduated from simply functioning as a supplier of knitted fabrics to producing clothing under its own line. So Holloway looked back at those early collections—a lot of brown, a lot of taupe, a lot of innovation, and a lot of hope—and thought about updating the sporty-sensual-sophisticated, American-flavored luxury freshness Halston once telegraphed, but from a European, 21st-century point of view.And, hey, it worked! With the exception (to this eye) of statement furs that were too screamingly volumized and heeled boots whose height undermined the ease of the pieces above, this collection brimmed with highly want-able wearables. The opening A-line skirt and round-shouldered trucker jacket in a cashmere denim mix signaled Holloway’s intent to broaden his parameter. A long leather piped overcoat in alpaca came served in rust and camel check, drawn from Agnona’s first collection back in the day. Particularly fine was a leather-shouldered tunic whose body was a panel of orange-on-navy weave by a factory Ermenegildo Zegna only recently acquired a majority share in. These were worn above straight-cut cashmere jeans and the cool vulcanised shearling sneakers that were this collection’s footwear highlight.Alessandro Sartori is the artistic director of Ermenegildo Zegna, but his purview does not extend to Agnona. It was interesting how two camel looks—one a double-layered cashmere blazer over a V-neck, the other a slightly darker (edge of khaki) purl knit, loose gilet worn with an over-long-sleeved sweater (both looks were worn with cashmere harem pants)—subtly mirrored one of this menswear fan’s highlight outfits from Sartori’s debut show in January (look 18). From Agnona to Zegna this is a house in fine creative fettle right now.
25 February 2017
While delving into the archives,Agnona’s creative director, Simon Holloway, happened to find an advertorial from the ’70s shot on location in the Sonamarg valley in the Indian Kashmir region. Against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains, two blonde models swathed in sumptuous layers of the label’s albino cashmere were playing shepherdesses to a herd of Himalayan goats. “It looked like one of the extravagantVoguespreads that Diana Vreeland used to style,” crooned the designer, who was obviously thrilled by such a glamorous find.Holloway’s aesthetic has a restrained flair, which seems to suit Agnona’s core values. He infused the new collection with a plush yet contemporary feel, touched by a whiff of ’70s cool. It was translated into elongated lines, played around a layered silhouette, whose sophistication was enhanced by delicate cosmetic shades. Noble fibers were firmly at the heart of the design process; cashmere had the lion’s share, as well as precious camel hair and fluffy, feather-like alpaca. They felt so heavenly soft, you just wanted to wrap yourself in one of the many impossibly chic capes, coats, and sweaters on display, as if in a snug cocoon, and forget about the world.In keeping with the collection’s modern, urban vibe, ’70s-inspired elements were given a luxuriously utilitarian attitude, as in a lean taupe city coat in double cashmere zippered like a biker jacket. Capes were thrown with nonchalance over cropped pants or light crepe skirts, topped with ribbed cashmere sweaters for a layered, softly architectural look. For a touch of modernist bohemia, spiced up a bit with a sense of humor, a crepe de Chine dress with poet sleeves was printed with little alpacas, goats, camels, and vicuñas happily roaming as if in a Himalayan valley; they would have certainly inspired Vreeland for one of her flamboyant, witty editorials.
3 February 2017
It’s hard to argue with a collection full of clothes beautifully made to be beautiful that succeeds as well as this. The only possible caveats to proffer are that a) this uptown cracker of a collection from Simon Holloway will almost certainly be fiendishly expensive (I felt a sense of impending doom just to be near a double-faced, tortoise-shell-detailed jacket inAgnona's finest gauge cashmere) and b) this was not a collection that said much apart from “I am very rich and beautiful, and I am dressed accordingly.”With ODLR currently in a fallow phase, there may be an opportunity at present to seize the “ladies who lunch” market. Agnona, long false-started, might be in the mix. Holloway went straight for the exquisitely attenuated jugular by imagining this collection through a prism of Truman Capote’s swans (Slim Keith, Babe Paley, Gloria Vanderbilt, et al). Paley inspired the double-faced linen-to-satin softly tailored jackets. There was a happy interplay of softness and expression in an intarsia dress of blue lace and crisp printed cotton. The apparently white denim buttoned jacket and pants, in fact denim-effect crepe cotton topstitched and bonded with a silk lining, was formally casual in the best possible way. Marella Agnelli’s severely lush aesthetic inspired the closing column dresses in yellow, lime, and pink. This was not retro, though: The knit dresses of contrasting machined panels whose Lycra-spiked bodices ensured fit and flare were testament to that.There is not much opportunity in 2016 to casually wear a nude printed fil coupe silk floral and butterfly-print dress under a lightweight fox fur mini chubby in green. If you have it, and can have it, seize it.
25 September 2016
Simon Holloway was appointedAgnona’s creative director just a season ago, but he’s putting his mark on the label’s look, firmly yet gently, as his personal style dictates. Unfailingly polite, the British-born Holloway seems well suited to give Agnona both flair and consistency. One of the storied Italian textile brands of impossibly high standards, Agnona’s wildly expensive knitwear has been favored by well-to-do Milanese ladies, obsessively discreet types so understated as to be snobbishly horrified of even the smallest evidence of showing off. Its signature neutral palette is so extensive that the word beige is translated into countless different variations, probably at least as many as the Inuit have for snow.“I wanted purity, simplicity, a lightweight approach,” said the designer. Yet there was nothing simple in his stylistic vision for the label. On the contrary, his articulate, sophisticated eye filtered Agnona’s legacy in a contemporary way. “I delved in the archive,” he said. “It was full of hidden gems. In the ’50s, the house’s founder worked alongside the modernist movement on textile design, innovating the fabrics’ development; it wasn’t just a mill.” Hence the slightly couture spin that infused the silhouette; it looked cultivated. In keeping with house tradition, materials had a luxurious tactile quality; double cashmeres and crepes, silks and wool cottons, and georgettes and chiffons were of impeccable standards. An off-white suede duster was punched with a guipure-inspired floral motif taken from the archive; at the touch, it felt almost impalpable.
21 June 2016
At last,Agnonagets a show—in a conspicuously modest space—and a dedicated designer in (the conspicuously modest) Simon Holloway. When Zegna charged him with jump-starting its previously stalled attempt at reviving this ’50s-era knitwear label as the feminine counterpoint to Zegna itself, Holloway said, “the brief was wide open.”“This is everything I love as a designer—beautiful expensive fabrics, exquisite workmanship,” he added. “And what I think was really surprising for me was that the Agnona archive was so much more creative and interesting that it had appeared from the outside. They made fabric for every major couturier from the 1950s onwards, and they still are.”While trawling those archives, Holloway discovered a recurring seasonal use of soft nude tones as a baseline palette, so naturally he restored it here. Those tones though were often subtly underlaid with stronger stuff. The opening bias-cut slip dress in “Century” cashmere—of a micron so fine and a cost so high as to be barely creditable—was double-faced with a hue of apricot intense enough to pulse discernably through that outer layer. Furs—something inconsistent with the Agnona backstory—were used here not as superiors but as complementary equals to the house knits around them. So the sleeves of one coat mixed goat and fox to mimic the just as lustrous checked alpaca of its body. Another hybrid blended lavender and gray brushed alpaca in a herringbone on its top, then mink and fox in the same classic menswear pattern below.Waistlines were gently cinched, sometimes even corseted by a gentle tug at the sternum in blouses of silk georgette. One pant and sweater combination—way too elevated to be equated withsportswearbut easy to wear despite that—was mostly made in a lamé jacquard of silk and wool. This had flash, and was eye candy. But a closer look at the sweater’s sleeves, back, and ribbed hem revealed a knitted, bonded, then felted cashmere jersey of such transcendent lightness that it seemed almost criminal to be so relegated to mere context. This collection changes the direction of fashion not a jot—but it should fly straight onto the want lists for retailers whose customers will thrill to conventionally sleek, unapologetically uptown daywear whose fabrication is the non plus ultra of its form. “It's like being given a beautiful present,” said Holloway, explaining that he now feels “very responsible” for taking care of the brand. Which sounds like absolutely the right attitude.
26 February 2016
This was a poignant presentation—yet not necessarily in the way thatAgnona’s producers intended. In the atrium a tree had been installed whose foliage was a mixture of desiccated leaves and dead butterflies. From its lifeless branches hung 16 looks that were two-thirds miniaturized in cashmere voile—11 from the archive and five from the new collection. What they demonstrated was how rich the history of this mill, specializing in rare yarns and founded by Francesco Ilorini Mo in 1953, truly is.Balmain,Dior,Chanel, Cardin,Saint Laurent(when it was all about Yves)—back in the day, Agnona cast all of these canonical designers’ sketches in wool. Agnona made brilliance real.Today? Well, it’s not awful. Agnona is never going to be a summer house, obviously. Still, there was a gorgeous suede wrap dress that, while completely divorced from the essence of this brand, was a thing of beauty and rightfully spotlighted center stage. Some impressive hand-painted plissé pants were worth an ogle. The brown leopard blouse was less moving, the foliage-print caftans were definitely wearable, but the safari jackets just served as piquant reminders of Saint Laurent. Agnona is owned byErmenegildo Zegna—a titanic fashion house whose main business is the sartorial outfitting of men. The arrival ofStefano Pilatiwas heralded as a new dawn for the Agnona-Zegna womenswear dream team. That plan changed when Pilati’s focus shifted to the wonderful Zegna Couture. In the meantime, Agnona has been left out in the cold—a book without an author. It deserves one.
25 September 2015
When Stefano Pilati pitched his tent at Agnona, he was deliberately a shadow figure. He wanted a clear division between his creative duties there and at its menswear counterpart, Zegna. There would be no shows for Agnona, no designer appearances. He would be a presence unseen. But, oh, how he was felt. The Pilati signature was that distinctive. Now, a couple of years have passed, Agnona debuts its smart new space in Milan, and lo! Pilati is on hand to greet visitors, walk them through the new collection, and talk with refreshing honesty about ironing out the wrinkles."At first I was a bit frustrated with not showing," Pilati admitted. "But now I'm enjoying that I've taken the time. I was able to develop a business structure, and because I wasn't reacting mechanically to deadlines, I've also had the luxury of developing the brand." And that has brought Pilati to a point where he is happy to acknowledge the symbiosis between Zegna and Agnona. "There's a self-assurance that comes from menswear," he said. So there were not just fabrics carried over from Zegna's menswear—the sensational Century cashmere, cut here into dresses, tunics, coats over trousers—but also an attitude, "a fantasy about identity," Pilati called it. "I work on cut and silhouette most of the time, so the details are symbolic," he added cryptically. If that meant a zipper pull exotically shaped like an elongated crescent moon, then so be it. But there were also a cabled sweaterdress with a thick fringe and an equally heavily fringed poncho that spoke to something much gutsier. The culotte jumpsuit, a particular favorite of Pilati's, had a Cossack back. And the coats—always a high point in a Pilati collection—were fluidly caped.Drama attaches itself to Pilati. That is undoubtedly hard for him as an individual, but as a designer it's the kind of asset that subtly elevated the collection he showed for Agnona. And now that he has built an overt bridge to his sterling work at Zegna, things can only get better.
27 February 2015
If you were going to give a snappy title to today's presentation of Stefano Pilati's third collection for Agnona, Old Egypt and New Bondage would probably do it. Pilati's not a fan of nostalgia in fashion, but as he was working the volumes of his new looks, he made a silhouette out of a paneled skirt that reminded him of something he'd seen in a book about ancient Egypt, a period so long ago that nostalgia was safely out of the picture.A papyrus inspired the ancient Egyptian floral motif that was applied with a water laser to a gorgeous sand-colored suede coatdress (an ordinary laser would burn the delicate hide). Hieroglyphics traced silk knitwear, and a trio of sequined dresses were colored jade, amethyst, and amber, which Pilati took for ancient stones. The bags and shoes were a Pharaonic gold. So were the "Rolex" bracelets—like faceless watches "to convey the idea of a timeless woman," according to the designer.The initial challenge Pilati set himself was how to wrap a skirt from a single piece of fabric without it looking like a pareo. His solution? Curving slashes. Pilati cut them into skirts, dresses, and a cape. He thought it was a kind of punkish action, so the result inevitably reminded him of new bondage straps. And if it was a challenge to Pilati, it will be even more so to his Agnona customers. But Pilati paired these pieces with jackets and morning coats in double-face "Century Cashmere," the lightest luxury fiber known to womankind. So it was a win-win situation for the avant-garde and the accessible. Besides, the entire sidewall of the presentation space was lined with commercial distillations of Pilati's ideas, and quietly ravishing they were, too.
19 September 2014
The simplest definition of Agnona under the creative directorship of Stefano Pilati would be that it is Ermenegildo Zegna for women, though Pilati himself would never want you to say that. Still, there was enough DNA shared between the Zegna men's show on Saturday morning and the Agnona Resort show that Pilati presented later in the day to make the two collections at the very least kissin' cousins.The Agnona woman as Pilati sees her has always been surrounded by powerful, entrepreneurial men, and she plays with their wardrobe. Hence the ambiguous spirit that was almost as strong in Agnona Resort as it was on the Zegna catwalk. Case in point: The tailored jumpsuit in a charcoal silken micro-tweed, with matching blazer. Paired with loafers, the look had a sartorial sobriety that read more masculine. But the jumpsuit was actually asalopette,or overalls. "See, she's completely feminine," Pilati insisted. "All the tops in the collection are backless."The feminizing of masculine details could almost be a running theme in Pilati's work (equally, the masculinizing of feminine details). Here, for instance, a classic shirt collar was dropped to form a neckline, and the plastron of a tuxedo shirt was turned into stripes for a shirt and skirt. Speaking of stripes, the designer's yen to experiment has meshed with Zegna's fabric technology to produce Century double-face cashmere, so called because it is Super 100 cashmere, a whole lot finer than the previous industry standard of Super 160 (measuring infinitesimal degrees of fiber diameter). The material defined the collection. "Double cashmere with a summer attitude," said Pilati, cutting the cashmere into a striped blazer, cardigan-soft, and a spectacular dress that wasn't much more than a simple square held in back by two darts.Thinking about other things that define Pilati as a designer, languorous sensuality comes to mind. For Agnona, he made coats cut on the bias. When he carved a pocket from the fabric, it was so sharp and flat that it disappeared. In gold Lurex, the coat is almost all you'd need for a night out.
20 June 2014
Collezione Uno, Stefano Pilati'ssecondcollection for Agnona (the first being the ground Zero of his creative directorship), was a more complete offering than his first: more eveningwear, something for the cocktail category, a signature bag, plus the beauteous Dree Hemingway as the face of the label. But Inez and Vinoodh were still responsible for the imagery, and Pilati, although once againphysicallyabsent from the presentation, waspsychicallyvery present. That's because Dree was such a competent ambassador."She's a strong girl with a secret," was her take on the Agnona woman. "And you can hide many secrets in these clothes." What she meant was that Pilati had created luxurious, cocooning volumes in cashmere and alpaca. There were coats you could move into, and damn the mortgage payments. Even when outfits were cinched at the waist, they were generous in volume. And the long dresses were hung with an unhindered high priestessly-ness. There was something veryAmericanabout them: straightforward and sensual. Pilati wanted to convey the impression of a woman in constant movement, so the leitmotif of the collection was a wave pattern, debossed tone-on-tone on a navy coat, or undulating everywhere in colors he called "dusty brights." The pink and turquoise were particularly striking.It's a true testament to the vision of the Zegnas that they've given Pilati Agnona to play with. And itisall him. He talked about how he wanted to convey the image of agrande bourgeoisein Inez and Vinoodh's pictures of Dree, but there was a twisted, hard little edge: thigh boots and leather collars, a white cotton shirt edged in zippers. A Belle de Jour for now.
21 February 2014
If the launch of Stefano Pilati's first collection for Agnona was somewhat unconventional, his intentions for the label are nothing less. He is making a stab at genuinely season-less dressing, and, to underscore that, the launch took place in a pop-up shop where people could immediately buy the clothes and see prototypes of upcoming pieces. Pilati decided to stay away because he wanted the focus to fall firmly on the clothes, but his presence still filled the room. For one thing, the collection was dominated by a checkered motif called Palaka, taken from a Japanese fabric that was originally used for surfers' shirts and shirts in Hawaii, where Pilati came across it in a vintage shop. It took us back to the surfboard that was propped in the corner of his office at YSL. Surfing in Hawaii was always his escape.Another signature Pilati flourish: He labeled his debut ZERO, after Group ZERO, an affiliation of avant-garde artists that came together in Düsseldorf during the late fifties. Their manifesto called for creativity unfettered by tradition. Given that Agnona turns 60 this year, it would be a wonder if Pilati didn't have tradition on his mind, with a little unfettering not far behind. Revolution at Zegna, evolution at Agnona: That was how one insider defined the designer's approach to his new role with the Zegna Group. But evolution wasn't quite it. It was more like reinvention.Agnona is best-known for its double-faced cashmere. Pilati kept that bit of the past, by double-facing not just cashmere but everything else from kid mohair to stretch cotton. Otherwise, the play with proportions was purest Pilati: the short jacket sleeve over the long shirt sleeve; the bigger, softer jacket shoulder; the culotte; the shirttail coat; the long jacket over short shorts. The languor and the occasional masc/fem ambiguity of the clothes were familiar. One khaki coat could have come straight from Pilati's own closet. Then there was the Palaka, as a woven or a print, fused with florals, on a leather coat, and even printed on a short-sleeved jacket in crocodile. The casual extravagance of such a gesture—onlyyouknow it's croc—also felt like a welcome blast from Pilati's past.
17 September 2013