Antonio Berardi (Q2689)
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Antonio Berardi is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Antonio Berardi |
Antonio Berardi is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2002
creative director
unknown
hat designer
Since opting out of the traditional catwalk some seasons ago, Antonio Berardi has experimented with new ways of presenting his collections, focusing on the lookbook format as a sort of curated editorial manifesto. He’s dispatched photographer Daniel Arnold to the streets of Milan solo with a model; he’s had his editor friends lensed in their favorites outfits, and he’s asked the Swedish performer and women’s rights activist Arvida Byström to take artistic selfies. Last season, it was the flamboyant Paris-based stylist Catherine Baba’s turn to pose in Berardi’s not-for-wallflowers looks.For Resort, he appointed British photographer Derek Ridgers, famous for his stark portraits of punks, skinheads, musicians, and club kids, to shoot the 17-year-old British trans model Finn Buchanan, who recently walked the binary-blurring Spring 2019 Maison Margiela show and was cast by Hedi Slimane in his first men’s show for Celine.“He was wonderful, poetic and lithe, almost angelic,” said Berardi of Buchanan, who personally chose the clothes he wanted to be photographed in. “What’s most interesting in this lookbook is that it has taken certain aspects of what I do into new territory,” continued the designer. “Finn owned all the looks, whether feminine in their approach or masculine in their execution.”Gender blurring is the fashion topic du jour, as the Spring 2020 men’s collections that just closed in Paris proved fairly enough. The open exploration of male sexuality and masculine self-expression, easing somehow into feminine territory, has become one of the most fertile, emotionally profound narratives of the decade. “The young are really writing history,” speculated Berardi. “They can be non-binary, transgender, male-to-female, and vice-versa, and they can live in their bodies and be who they want to be. Finn is a boy, but there will always be that feminine aspect to him. It’s part of who he is. Stereotypes are completely going out the window.” With awareness and support for LGBTQIA+ communities spreading across the industry and society, Berardi’s stance felt not only sensitive but utterly on point.The collection exuded a gentle, fluid feel; the designer took a decidedly softer route than usual, swapping the architectural edge he favors for a smoother, almost breezy approach.
Lines and shapes had clarity and, as always chez Berardi, sophisticated execution; yet a sense of unrestricted movement was conspicuous in the use of sheer, airy fabrications and in looser, more relaxed proportions. Even corsetry was given a breath of lightness, with flimsy organza ribbons laced across the back of a simple yet well-tailored short jacket. Elsewhere, the “shadow of a corset,” as the designer described it, was patched at the front of a floral-printed chiffon dress, with a billowy asymmetrical train. The same unconstrained spirit was conveyed by a marigold yellow floral-printed minidress, cut from a square of dévoré chiffon and gathered loosely at the hips. “People today don’t want to be restricted,” said Berardi. “Neither in their clothes nor in their sexuality.” It couldn’t be truer.
25 June 2019
Antonio Berardi recently opted out of the catwalk format, choosing instead to present his collections by appointment in a private space in Milan. It’s a smart way of taking direct control of every aspect of a label’s operations, from communication to distribution, which appeals to high-end designers with experience, a strong vision, and an independent mindset. In this choice, he’s definitely not alone: There are quite a few creatives in fashion today embracing a more personal way to relate to their audience.Berardi was born in 1968 and, as with his Pre-Fall collection, he took that groundbreaking moment in time as a starting point. “It was tumultuous, a year which changed so many attitudes,” he said. “And where so many new ideas were born.” Indeed: the riots in Paris; a man orbiting the moon; the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy; the Black Power salute at the Olympics. “There are so many similarities to now,” Berardi said. We cannot argue with that; today’s reality is certainly as intense as those years were.The end of the ’60s also marked a major shift in style—in a there’s-no-going-back move, high-fashion met the street for the first time. “The safari jacket, the jumpsuit,” Berardi continued. “Fashion then was geometrically precise, yet soft, romantic.” He wanted to capture that spirit of freedom and haute bohemia while treating sensuous fluidity to the exact, razor-sharp cutting technique at which he excels.The collection, focused on eveningwear, had the designer indulging his penchant for dramatic style. He played with contrasting overblown volumes and feminine shapes, which were rendered sculptural and chiseled. Undulating, shapely frills and ruffles on a short shift dress exuded a theatrical flair, more couture-ish than whimsical; a flowing chiffon caftan printed in pink camouflage motifs had a built-in bejeweled bodice and jacket. Highlighting the inventive work on shapes and cut, a sinuous long dress in flame red silk cady had a balloon cape; and a figure-hugging number in bougainvillea pink paired with a matching sleeveless round-shaped cape-jacket had billowy slit sleeves. You could easily picture an Oscar-winning actress looking fabulous in it. Ditto a white silk cady column dress with a sexy bejeweled lace-up motif on one side, apparently inspired by the 1968 YSL safari jacket.Strong personalities are naturally drawn to Berardi’s sensational creations, from Lady Gaga to Olivia Colman.
That’s one reason why he has chosen to shoot the lookbook’s images on real women, whose characters resonates with his aesthetic. After having involved his editor friends and the Swedish artist and activist Arvida Bystrom, this season he had the collection modeled by Australian-born, Paris-based stylist Catherine Baba. “She looks more French than a Parisian,” he mused. Her personal look relates to a certain idea of glamour that this collection exuded. “Clothes definitely need to be interpreted by a strong personality and become part of someone else’s universe to be given life,“ he said. “Those clothes, they will have experiences all of their own.”
12 March 2019
The freedom of doing what you really like on your own terms is a luxury not many fashion designers can afford. We all know that today’s fashion world order doesn’t make life easy for those who decide to fly solo, but the rewards are surely worth the effort. At least that’s how it seems looking at Antonio Berardi’s professional trajectory. His company recently went independent, and a refreshed energy has been activated, clearly perceptible in his work.After relocating to Milan, he opened a showroom that also works as a made-to-measure atelier. Fashion shows have been reduced to a more intimate format. Berardi enjoys the freedom of collaborating with creative friends and artists with a strong point of view. His collections’ lookbooks are treated with the same artsy attitude that editorial projects require. For Pre-Fall he entrusted the lookbook to 27-year-old London-based Swedish photographer and women’s right activist Arvida Byström, whose art practice centers on gender politics. She photographed herself in a series of self-portraits, modeling the collection’s looks.Byström’s fierce personality and her liberated confidence in celebrating female sexuality clearly fascinated Berardi. He’s drawn to intense, assertive women. “I grew up with feminine role models in my family, unknowingly subversive, and often overlooked, but they were pioneers,” he wrote in the press notes. “I’m lucky to work with women who are trailblazers in every sense. Feminine to the last, but who at close inspection are actually the alpha males of our species.”While in his fashion shows the celebration of powerful femininity is often indulged through a majestic sculptural theatricality, in the Pre-Fall collection he softened his message with a more youthful spirit. Yet his masterful tailoring technique still did the talking. Berardi’s suits are cut with sharp precision; here, they were proposed in heritage checks or silk and corduroy, the blazers either feminine and fitted at the waist, or masculine and slightly oversize, worn with elliptically cut matching miniskirts. Trapeze opera coats in black silk duchesse or in bright green curly wool had a couture flair, counterbalanced by the sensuous fluidity of short dresses in floral-print crepe de Chine with black Chantilly lace inserts. Berardi’s penchant for immaculate, chiseled shapes was highlighted in short bustier dresses and in high-waisted tutus paired with matching brassieres in sumptuous emerald green brocade.
Even a bona fide activist like Byström seemed to enjoy their seductive, hyperfeminine flair. Looking beautiful can actually be rather subversive.
19 January 2019
Milan’s runways were full of supermodels of previous eras. Carla Bruni, Shalom Harlow, Karen Elson, the list goes on. Antonio Berardi did something different. In place of a show or presentation, the designer invited his friends in the industry to pose for pictures in Spring looks of their choosing. My Vogue Runway colleagues Sarah Mower (look 8) and Tiziana Cardini (11) selected a printed blazer and trousers, and a flowing robe de chambre and slip dress, respectively. Representing the opposite polls of the collection, the two looks showcase Berardi’s always impressive sartorial skills and his knack for flou; he’s that rare designer who can convincingly do both. He’s also got a wicked eye for color. Photographer Rosi di Stefano shot Anna Dello Russo, Lisa Armstrong, Net-a-Porter’s Alison Loehnis, and Berardi’s longtime stylist Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, among others, for the project. Not a millennial in the bunch, and with reason. Berardi’s sensibility is sophisticated. He likes a “worked” silhouette, which means his clothes lean strongly toward the glamorous and dressed-up.The unique thing about this collection was its lighter, more relaxed aspect. That was intentional, Berardi said. Pre-seasons are his bigger collections; here he wanted something more intimate. So, rather than use actual lace, he printed it and blew it up, and embroidered parts of an easy tunic with flat mother-of-pearl beads. Poplin button-downs with adjustable sleeves were cut in the shape of Ts—easy. That said, Berardi’s ingenuity didn’t fail to impress. One special dress cut on a circle required an astounding 50 meters of fabric, yet remained surprisingly light. And be sure to look closely at dello Russo’s toile de jouy number. Its deceptively classic motif features all kinds of kink.There are a couple of working models in this lookbook, but it’s something altogether different to get women who live their lives on the other side of the camera, who maybe (probably) don’t like to be photographed, to agree to pose for you. That so many agreed is a testament not just to Berardi’s charm, but also to his talent.
24 September 2018
If he weren’t a fashion designer, Antonio Berardi could consider a career in writing. The email he sent this reviewer about his Resort collection was a well written and moving account of his British upbringing as the son of Sicilian immigrants. His childhood memories served as inspiration this season, but they are also a perceptive reminiscence of the clashes and overlaps of two different cultures in a moment in time, filtered through the eyes of a sensitive kid.Berardi is steering his fashion house in a new direction. Last season he showed in Milan for the first time, presenting his collection in his flat after years of showing in London, and he recently opened a new showroom in an elegant yet intimate apartment in a Milanese palazzo. He also had his Resort lookbook shot around Milan by the photographer (and frequentVogueonline contributor) Daniel Arnold.“Everything in this collection has a little story behind it,” said Berardi. “It has a lot to do with my childhood memories.” In England he attended an all-boy grammar school, where kids wore uniforms and sports like rugby and cross country were big commitments. “I even played cricket, which for an Italian wasn’t really stimulating,” he remembered. “But soccer was enjoyed at all times.” The stripes of his house colors were reinterpreted on silk tie fabrics from Stephen Walters & Sons, a historic English mill, and ’70s soccer shirt weaves were remixed in the full-bodied jacquard of a sharply tailored double-breasted pantsuit and a corseted stiff-flounced skirt worn with a tight bolero over a striped bodice.Berardi is a designer who favors a sculptural, elaborate silhouette, yet the collection had a supple feel. His rigorous tailoring was infiltrated by a relaxed sporty vibe visible in lightweight striped parkas layered over masculine shirts and city shorts rendered in substantial shirting cotton or cotton drill.Despite all the sharpness of cut and the precision of construction, there’s always a sensuous flair in his collections, and Resort was no exception. It was brought about by another wave of memories: “I remember the beautiful slips and matching dressing gowns the women in my family would be wearing while getting the children ready for church on Sunday mornings, when we visited my aunties in Sicily,” he recalled.
This sentiment was captured in sensual bias-cut silk devoré ruched slipdresses worn with matching billowing blouses, or in flowing caftans in burnt chiffon voile, which conveyed a sense of breezy movement, as did a wind-swept-palm-trees motif printed on a lightweight, loose-fitting duster-parka. “Being a kid coming to Sicily from gray England, those palm trees and blue skies made such a big impact on me,” he remembered. “I was thinking: Where am I? It felt like I was visiting the most exotic, wondrous place on earth.”
25 June 2018
“Welcome to my world,” wrote Antonio Berardi in his press release. He meant it literally: The small show was held in his turn-of-the-century parquet-floored studio in a residential quarter of Milan. Berardi’s been showing in London for a long time, but this English-born Italian has been living around the corner from his workplace for years. He said he’d made the decision to narrow down his statement—there were 23 looks versus last season’s 44—to give his audience a closer look at the detail of what he does.Good move, because Berardi is a super-skilled cutter whose design flair is fully on show when he sets about modernizing eveningwear. Midway through the show, there was a Moment: a high-waisted streak of silvered, snakeskin-patterned velvet with a black lace décolleté, covered with a long black cloak. An elegant Academy Awards entrance-maker if ever we saw one.Taking this demi-couture tack, Berardi explored his ideas about dignity, strength, and fashion as protection—themes many designers are currently probing. Some of the micro-studded surface embellishment and square-cut, layered shapes of the outerwear seemed to have been abstracted from armor. Even within such a condensed collection, there was a lot of variety—voluminous lightweight taffeta skirts with open sides paired with sweaters, fluttery chiffon dresses, and blouses over trousers. Sitting up close on gold chairs, the audience did indeed get a better appreciation of the character of his design, and the structural subtleties of such details as the black chiffon edging he inserted in place of the tuxedo stripes in a pair of black pants. Nevertheless, along with the grand silver gown—a guaranteed showstopper for a one-off public event—it was his emerald green velvet trouser suit that won the most self-identification from the women watchers. When Berardi holds back from over-complication, the more likely he is to produce clothes that offer practical longevity. In times when there are just too many clothes in the world, that combination of simplicity and quality is exactly what women are looking for. 
24 February 2018
Giuseppe Berardi left Bivona, Sicily, at 16 and came to Britain in search of work as a miner. Some years later his wife, Concettina, joined him. Their son Antonio was born in Grantham—also the hometown of Margaret Thatcher—and the Berardis had turned to a source of income that supported many first-generation Italian families: selling gelato. Antonio said this collection “was looking back. They had no money, but they were determined to look their best. Relatives in America would send clothes, and they remade and embroidered what they had.”Thus the patchwork and splicing of many pieces here. To the melancholic trombone of “Speak Softly Love,”The Godfathertheme song (Bivona is close to Corleone), we saw an opening section of Prince of Wales–based tailoring-inspired pieces patched with waves of olive, pink, black, and white. A complexly hemmed dress in a metallic floral brocade bordered by scarlet silk was worn beneath a fabulously cut double-breasted jacket with scarlet piping that seemed to meld into its fellow garment. A sort of shirtdress-parka hybrid and a parka worn over another complexly hemmed dress came in a fil coupe pattern and resembled the faded and torn wallpaper in a dilapidated Sicilian palazzo. The fabrication of dresses in linen and cotton voile—sometimes simply checked in blue or more knottily patterned in a vaguely Italian restaurant–tablecloth red—was a conscious evocation of simplicity that was simultaneously belied by the focused complexity of Berardi’s design. A penultimate black section featured broderie anglaise, silk dresses with sheer cutaway sections, and the cousin of that earlier jacket—here in black with a sheer sleeve and shoulder, cinched by a belt-cummerbund hybrid.The models’ hands were marked as if stenciled in lace gloves, a nod to Berardi’s mother’s insistence on wearing just those when going anywhere smart. He said: “And, you know, looking around today, nothing has changed, honestly and truthfully. I see people who have just come over to Europe and they are trying to present themselves the best way they can.” This collection’s integration of Berardi’s authentic experience—an instinctive sympathy—lent an added layer to already very layered clothes. And it was refreshing to see those ostensibly less luxe fabrics in the hands of a designer whose usual commitment is to unambiguous gloss and glamour.
18 September 2017
Backstage, Antonio Berardi said that a vision of Lady Macbeth scheming, screaming, and schlepping her way through the Highlands of Scotland was his starting thought for this collection. William Shakespeare first came up with the character, his most compellingly poisonous catalyst for tragedy, three years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Contemplating the dress of this period and the rustling synthetic technical gear you’d wear to hike the high road today were aids to reading Berardi’s text in dress.Twin lines of metal-tipped drawstring ran through ruffled skirts and at the hip of some jackets in farthingale arcs. There was an Elizabethan elongation to some of the bodice shapes—some were cast in knit, while others were gridded with constellations of crystal or prettily colored pins and beads (vaguely North African) magnificent enough for Bess (Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I) to paint her portrait in. The wired-stiff, oversize stitched collars on a camel jacket and coat were raffish but versatile. The softly ruffled peplum on the coat was detachable via a golden popper, which offered dressed up or more casual options.Drawstrings were used in suiting to afford a glimpse as well as cinch: This was a covered-up collection with narrowly targeted flashes of fleshy revelation. Panels of textured embroidered chiffon, grayish from afar, were worked into silks on jackets and dresses to provide topography for the watching eye. Apparent-jackets were, in fact, stitched into their billowing-trained skirts or jauntily wide-cut pants. At the end, Berardi’s own narrative wound its course as inevitably as Lady Macbeth’s: Soft pink silk gowns strafed with black lace provided with-a-twist evening poetry. Cleaved not to his mold, this was an unusually wide-ranging collection that touched new ground for this designer: His shirt-hemmed, quilted elongated liner jacket was a far subtler and more compelling riff on British country dress than most floating around London this season.
20 February 2017
Antonio Berardi is British-Italian, born in England to Italian parents. He has always been part of the fashion scene in London, where he has often presented his collections since 1995. Everyone assumes that he’s based in the U.K., but he’s actually lived in Milan for quite a while. His home and studio, which he recently renovated, are in one of the city’s poshest and most elegant neighborhoods. Apparently, the time felt right for a celebration, because Berardi has decided to open the atelier not only to friends, but to press and buyers. He’ll present his Fall collection in February with a series of intimate salonschez soi. It’s a big step, and also a game-changing move. Welcome home, Antonio!Showing on a more personable scale makes good sense for Berardi, whose skills as a tailor are best appreciated up close. The intricacy of the cuts and the refinement of the details; the meticulous study of fabrics and how they adapt to the body; his approach to shapes—it all adds up to a unique style with a made-to-measure flair. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.Berardi’s Pre-Fall collection was inspired by manga cartoons and byThe Handmaiden, a thriller by the Korean director Park Chan-wook with psycho-erotic undertones. He matched the film’s imagery with a modern utilitarian feel for elevated daywear that looked quite spectacular. The outerwear offer was expanded and treated with imaginative panache, as in a hybrid kimono-cape. Cut in cotton jacquard printed with quite hallucinogenic motifs (“It’s bonkers, like Jeff Koons on acid,” Berardi said.), it was slashed with metallic zippers to make its shape fully transformable and ductile. The same feel of architectural malleability and experimentation was given to a series of black chintz-ed cotton outfits. Worthy of note was a masculine shirt, impeccably tailored if seen from the front, but revealing an elaborate accordion-pleated, obi-esque “sculpture” on the back. It was a testament to the illusory element inherent in Berardi’s elaborate style. “If it wasn’t complex, I wouldn’t enjoy it,” he said.
23 January 2018
No mincing words here: Antonio Berardi’s Resort was outstanding. The exquisite execution, the elaborate cutting techniques, the variety of shapes and volumes, the profusion of superb details that went into every single outfit—it could be fully appreciated only at close inspection, yet it’s a collection that could’ve easily commanded a runway.Berardi doesn’t have to prove his skills as a fine tailor; he could cut an intricate jacket blindfolded. Yet he seemed to set the bar higher than usual. The play between stiff, masculine tailoring and ultra-feminine shapes was handled with such confidence, it made even the most sculptural silhouettes look fluffy and light. Berardi is British-Italian, and his two sides are in constant dialogue. In his vision, there’s always a game going on between covering and revealing, sensuality and restraint, instinct and control.“Shapes here are much less concerned with how they fit the body, but how they react with the body in movement,” he said. “Another idea was to use textiles that have certain connotations and play them in a totally different way.” Case in point was broderie anglaise, a fabric associated with an almost virginal purity. Here, Berardi had it molded into tailored, sexy pieces, as in hand-embroidered, corseted bustier dresses, cinched at the waist by quilted belts, their ballerina skirts stiff and asymmetrical or tiered with stark flounces. On the contrary, jacquards and Prince of Wales wools became flirty on short, shapely jackets with ruching undulating from collars or soft decorative pleats at the back. Berardi has a love for precious fabrics; cotton organdy, linen gazar, flattened brocade, and crépon had a pristine retro feel, highlighted by handmade embroideries and stitching. Long floaty dresses in ethereal hues of pink, cerulean, and ivory exuded a delicate yet powerful femininity.
22 June 2017
For his Pre-Fall collection, Antonio Berardi turned to the ’40s for inspiration, and to the idea of uniforms that working women wore at that time: “I was thinking of Rosie the Riveter, the American cultural icon which represented women working in ammunition factories during World War II, often replacing men who were at the front,” he said. It seemed a timely reference, considering the increased interest in feminism and discussion of gender roles in the media, yet the designer addressed such matters only obliquely, by way of his fascination for the 1940s’ empowering fashion style, which gave women a new, strong silhouette, conveying freedom and strength. An assertive look is always in favor chez Berardi, whose penchant for sculptural shapes and a fierce attitude is firmly ingrained in his aesthetic.The idea of everyday utilitarian uniforms seems far from the designer’s style, whose polish is almost couture-like. Yet he was able to fit such references into his high-end approach, working around the masculine/feminine dialogue to which he’s partial, then adding his signature element of powerful sensuality. “In the ’40s, sheer nylon stockings were every woman’s most coveted item; it was very difficult to get a pair,” said Berardi. “They were the epitome of feminine seduction, together with the soft leather gloves which fastened at the wrist with tiny buttons, leaving a small peek-a-boo loop which exposed the skin.”Berardi’s Pre-Fall look was as feminine as it was architecturally designed, rooted in the sharp tailoring technique that he has mastered. The flimsy gossamer of nylon stockings was translated into long goddess dresses finely draped in the sheerest jersey; the loop holes opening on a glove’s wrist became decorative cutouts on sculpted bodices and jackets, subtly revealing erogenous zones on the collarbone, along the spine and on the back of the hips. Masculine fabrics such as Prince of Wales checks contrasted with papery Japanese nylons for a dash of experimental flavor; gray thick wool felt gave a structured shape to coats and jackets punched with metallic rivets; and padded hips were added to a black cotton-wool dress to achieve a crinoline-like, rounded shape. The silhouette was kept sharp and precise, even when worked with fluid fabrics. Berardi’s strong style could give attitude even to the most self-effacing girl in the room.
It’s not surprising that celebrities turn to him when they want to exude self-confident charm on the red carpet: Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, and Cate Blanchett, not to mention Queen Rania of Jordan, are all fans. “I guess they all like my style also for its timeless glamour,” said the designer. “Today, everything has such a short life span, yet a well-designed outfit becomes more interesting with the passing of time. It’s like when a coup de foudre becomes a serious love affair—it has to be nurtured, and sometimes it takes longer than you thought.”
19 January 2017
“I have a lot of friends who are DJs and, in listening to their music, I started thinking about the concept of remixing,” said Antonio Berardi of the catalyst behind his Spring collection. It was this idea—of reframing an original so it becomes new again—that got Berardi’s engines firing. To successfully remix something, one must rely on engrams, supposedly how ideas are remembered, moments fleeting or otherwise, and a sense of temporal hybridization. On the runway, this all boiled down to, essentially, a remastering of the designer’s dogmas—new suggestions on lingerie details, graphic tailoring, and unconventional sensuality. Corseted tops opened up into billowy blousons on the back and down the sleeve. A double-peplum effect pantsuit featured a pretty ombré treatment of silver-flecked florals; Berardi rather dreamily called it a palette of “half-colors that can pretend to be another.”There were times where the remixing skewed into oddball territory—bejeweled sleeves, for instance, connected with a free-flying swath of fabric around the back. Then again, other instances struck more refreshing notes—see a lilac frock applied with tassels (a strange new take on the flapper dress) or embellished stirrup-shinguards, fastened over Jimmy Choo for Antonio Berardi heels. If at times the collection felt a bit scattershot, it’s because it was supposed to relay a work in progress—or rather, a work that will remain forever in progress. (How benevolently Sisyphean.) “I like the idea that nothing is ever, or should ever be, truly done,” concluded Berardi.
19 September 2016
John Donne’s famous line “No man is an island” is an apt one for fashion designers, who tend to be insular creatures inhabiting peculiar worlds of their own, dense with layered images and personal memories. “Memories take you on a journey,” Antonio Berardi said at a Resort appointment, emphasizing the point. “I’m a nostalgic.” Nostalgia doesn’t really come to mind when thinking about the designer’s aesthetic; he’s known for his sculptural body-con silhouettes. Yet memories are powerful tools for Berardi, so much so that he made his new collection around a treasured 19th-century Frenchglobe de mariée, an antique miniature Wunderkammer in which couples displayed their most cherished souvenirs. In Berardi’s own globe, pictures and family memorabilia were piled up in delicate chaos around an ormolu floral cutout.A sense of intimate storytelling and the designer’s signature tailoring formed the foundation of his new collection. “It’s my British side, a strict cutting technique of almost military precision, but then there’s my Sicilian sensual side,” Berardi said, pointing out a crimson silk double-breasted jacket, which at the back revealed a feminine, fluid asymmetrical tail. That play of opposites was carried out throughout the collection: softness and rigidity, severity and a sense of drama. A case in point was a stark white see-through organza dress with a built-in bodice in woven lace, weighted at the hem by a stiff flounce in thick bonded cotton. Paired with a short asymmetrical skirt in broderie anglaise, it conveyed a structured sense of lightness.“I like strong, powerful women—feminine but in control,” he said, highlighting a vest with Velcro straps that looked like a luxe version of a bulletproof jacket and a black knee-length tailcoat embellished with golden doves. Geometric flourishes gave a lively, sexy vibe to the architectural rigidity the designer favors. Flashes of dramatic colors such as cardinal red and purple were definitely not suited for wallflowers, which anyway have never been an option chez Berardi.
18 June 2016
AtAntonio Berardi’s show this morning, the designer chose a remix of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” as his soundtrack. The song could have served as the title of the collection; Berardi sent forth loads of glitzed-up eveningwear, often in black and always with a measure of combined tenacity and glamour. Dancing in the dark brought to light.“I started to look at things that were tough,” said Berardi backstage, mentioning a family member going through a difficult period at the moment. “But I realized that certain things that seem tough are actually very, very feminine.” He made a point to flag metal riveting, which was employed on everything from seam lines on a noir gown to staples down the torso of a baby doll dress to silver-dollar–size buttons on a funky sleeveless leather coat. Instead of channeling punk, as one might expect, it was meant to signify a rite of passage in many young girls’ lives: getting one’s ears pierced.Berardi was feeling a continued use of black on the runway (which is atypical for his brand), followingPre-Fall’s nod to the artist Louis Reith’s dual-tone collages. The show opened with a wide-collared coat featuring a bondage strap at the neck. It proceeded into dimmed velvet and lace hybrids (some looks boasted 10 different kinds of lace), blazers and dresses belted in patent leather, and, in time, navy filigree accents. Later in the lineup, oxblood, blush, white, and vermilion entered the palette (of the latter, a slinky gown with an off-the-shoulder satin wrap stood out). But it was when Berardi stayed in the dark that he found his greatest success, as some of the colored parts felt extraneous and could have used a tighter edit. Given the eclipsed elegance of collections such as Marc Jacobs, Simone Rocha, and even newcomer Molly Goddard, it looks like the night is heading back to black this fall.
22 February 2016
There’s nothing like a well-chosen reference to get a designer’s head in gear. This season,Antonio Berardipicked up on the work of the relatively obscure, Amsterdam-based artist Louis Reith, who’s probably best known for his graphic collages incorporating pages from old books. Reith’s rhythmic approach to form had a nice decluttering effect on Berardi in this collection—there was real punch to his tailored off-the-shoulder black dresses, jackets, and tops, worn over simple white tops, and his patchwork effects and placed bead and paillette embellishments communicated a certain architectural rigor. The discipline was welcome.Berardi did go in for a few longueurs. The scallop-edged matelassé looked a little out of place here, for instance, and he arguably gilded the lily with his patchworking by embedding it into jackets with petal-like hems. On the whole, though, Berardi chose to focus his decoration on one design element per piece—the grommets stippled on a sharp velvet suit, for instance, or the bodice of black feathers embroidered on a top—which gave the clothes a nice sense of clarity. Likewise, most of Berardi’s sculpting was limited to gestures, frequently found in the back, which underscored his tailoring’s form-fit finesse. Berardi owes Louis Reith a debt of gratitude—here’s hoping his lessons about paring back stick.
6 January 2016
Antonio Berardi’s stated theme for Spring was “distressed glamour.” He got at it best at his show this morning via his use of transparency and his lacing and fringe. The strongest look, by far, was a knit dress with a leotard-like top and a full skirt in a cobweb weave; it was a bit of a shame he didn’t explore that idea further. But there were other similar, nearly as nice touches, such as the pieces composed in part of a knit done out of shiny, filament-fine yarn or window-paned in sheer chiffon. Meanwhile, the most focused part of this collection were the looks in black crepe that featured skin-winking lacing that spilled out in fringe.Much of the action here was going on in the back of these looks. Many of Berardi’s diaphanous dresses and skirts came with long trains, and a number of jackets tailored through the front opened up in back in soft pleats. There were also evening coats with internal crystal straps that allowed the coats to be slung off the shoulders like a backpack, a design nicked from activewear. That wasn’t a bad idea, but it was one of several in this show that didn’t seem fully thought through, certainly not in relation to the collection as a whole. Berardi’s intention throughout seemed to be to mix baroque formality with undone-looking or off-kilter shapes. There was an appealing collection hiding somewhere inside this busy outing, but overall it suffered from a too much of muchness.
21 September 2015
Antonio Berardi is about to marry off a sister, so it's not too surprising that bridalwear was on his mind for Resort. "Nostalgic, but incredibly modern," is the way he described the collection at a showroom appointment. To be sure, these weren't the sort of pieces that demanded a veil. Instead, Berardi extracted traditional elements from wedding gowns—lace, covered buttons, taffeta—and transported them into his world.For instance, a nylon-and-silk taffeta was fashioned into a fitted dress with a double-layer back and drawstring sleeves, the outer layer molded into a bubble shape that sat away from the body. "I wanted to experiment with shape so that the body could move on the inside," he said. A macramé lace was blown up and decorated everything from the back of an opera coat to the edges of a blouse, as well as a gown backed by a lovely raw silk that was slightly more opaque than organza. Covered buttons were used to frame the front of a cream bugle-beaded gown. (They were pretty but also practical, serving as a way to attach a matching cape.)There was something doll-like about the expansive collection, which also included studded brocade frocks and high-low sweaterdresses paired with pleated paper wool miniskirts. But Berardi worked in enough sporty elements—even a T-shirt dress, a new concept for the quite formal designer—to keep the modern and the nostalgic in balance. Just as he had set out to do.
11 June 2015
Like a lot of people who have visited Paris over the past few months, Antonio Berardi has made a pilgrimage to the Bois de Boulogne to gape at Frank Gehry's swooping new Fondation Louis Vuitton. His new collection, he said today, was inspired by the way the trees of the Bois were reflected in the building's glass, and by the architectural curves of the building itself. It was a theme Berardi treated with his customary polish. As usual, the sculpting and tailoring here was immaculate, and the materials Berardi developed were first-class. And yet, in general, the show lacked a sense of movement: Berardi seemed to be trying to capture exactly that with his sculptural draping and ruffle-making, and there was a dynamism to the shapes, but the weight of the materials and the fact that the shapes were so fixed spoiled the effect. He did better when he incorporated some looseness into his looks, as in the sleeveless parkas of sparkly blue organza or leaf-patterned fil coupe. Berardi was onto something, too, with his puckered jacquards woven from fishing wire. There was a sportiness to the outerwear pieces made from the material—they looked a bit like luxe puffers—and the fabric had a glassine quality that made the Gehry inspiration come fully alive, at last. You got the impression, there and elsewhere, that Berardi was making a tentative but timely effort to shake himself up and discover new ways of elaborating his design signatures.
23 February 2015
In his showroom this morning, Antonio Berardi admitted that he's working on a Golden Globes dress as well as doing a lot of wedding gowns. He went on: "But I don't want to be the person who is known only for evening and for the body-conscious dress." With that in mind, he zeroed in on daywear for Pre-Fall, but his Prince of Wales checks and houndstooths aren't your standard guy-for-girl stuff. First, there is the subject of fit. Berardi is obsessive about it, and so waists were nipped, while jackets and vests—some with elongated hems to give the appearance of skirts worn over pants—closely followed the lines of the body. The other way Berardi lent his masculine fabrics a feminine touch was with embroideries. Crystals and blunt metal studs crisscrossed a sleeveless dress in a Prince of Wales check (it sounds like a lot, but it worked), and a houndstooth was, as he put it, "contaminated" with a waffle jacquard. The most striking example of this idea was a robe manteau in an icy gray tweed spliced with a giant houndstooth pattern in a deep teal.A white V-neck gown with a gathered waist (picture an upside-down peplum) and flap pockets at the hips might be too advanced for the Globes—in Hollywood, straightforward and strapless are the general rules—but it was a fantastic dress.
19 December 2014
Never underestimate the power of a good zone-out in front of the tube. As Antonio Berardi explained before his show this morning, he found inspiration for his latest collection in a film,The Flowers of War, that he stumbled onto while flipping channels in Italy. In the movie, Berardi said, Christian Bale plays a "charlatan" who, in the midst of the 1937 "rape of Nanking," winds up safeguarding women and schoolchildren in the church where he's pretending to be a priest. The setup is worth detailing, because Berardi really did take quite a bit from the film, in particular the church atmosphere, with light diffusing through stained glass. There was a lot of saturated color in the collection, as well as prints—jacquards, in fact—that were suggestive of fractured light, an effect developed by glittery bead embroidery and iridescent finishes.The prints were a mixed bag; pattern-wise, Berardi had more success with his tonal embroidery and painterly floral, both of which had an echo of chinoiserie. There was also a nod to the Chinese setting ofFlowers of Warin some sexed-up cheongsam-style dresses, and another nod to the church backdrop in nice-looking, squared-off blouses redolent of vestments. But the film also proved a productive inspiration when Berardi interpreted it abstractly, expressing the innocence and evanescence of childhood memory. The flutter of a blush-toned blouse, the floating volume of a full white skirt—these were evocative, and it was nice to see Berardi working a softer, more buoyant silhouette. Still, the standout looks here were undoubtedly a floral cheongsam and a black pencil dress, both slashed through at the collarbone. This was Berardi at his va-va-voom best. And beyond that, the sheer cleanness of the shapes, and the garments' lack of sculptural flourish, made them cut through the noise of a show that was in need of some discipline and focus.
15 September 2014
Antonio Berardi, like a lot of his designer peers this season, landed on the late sixties and early seventies as a starting point. Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin are his new muses; their glam excesses influenced his Resort collection's vivid color scheme, rich textiles, and intense embroideries. A double-breasted suit with cropped flares looked like it could've been plucked from Hendrix's tour wardrobe, and a long, lace-trimmed trapeze dress would've delighted Joplin, but neither of them knew fabrics as fine as these. The midnight blue silk dévoré he used on a trio of dresses was particularly gorgeous, and a whole lot easier to wear than the bright pink exploded menswear checks on other numbers. Berardi is known for an anatomical fit. More often than not here, frocks flowed freely from the shoulders or flared out from a defined waist. It's Resort, after all, and he was clearly after a bit of ease, but there's no escaping the fact that he's at his best when he's thinking along the hourglass lines he's made his signature. The narrow white sheath with dramatic lacing up the back will be a hit—no Joplin tie-in necessary.
22 June 2014
Show notes are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, you had to raise an eyebrow, looking again at the first line of the release accompanying Antonio Berardi's new collection. "A drive toward minimalism…" it read. But simply put, this collection had a lot going on: collage-style construction. Sculptural flourishes. Windowpane effects. Hand-painted chain embroidery. Sparkly lamé. A panoply of intense textures, many of them juxtaposed in the same look. And that's an incomplete list of the ideas Berardi was playing with this season. His usual Amazonian sexuality came through, and there were a handful of very nice pieces, like the gray flannel coat with raised pockets, or the show-closing embroidered gown with nicely judged bell-shaped sleeves. But too many of the looks here came off heavy and/or cluttered. Assuming the show notes reflect at least Berardi's intent, then his instinct toward restraint is a good one. To get there, he'll have to tighten the reins.
16 February 2014
Ground control to Major Tom…Antonio Berardi never mentioned David Bowie, but when a designer tells you the key inspirations for his new collection were glam rock and starscapes, it's hard to avoid thinking that Bowie made his way in there, somewhere (especially after that big Bowie show at the V&A and all). At any rate, Berardi put his own spin on outer space, deploying a clutch of cool materials to get the point across. The most eye-catching was an iridescent cloque that came off like an interplanetary brocade; the most interesting fabric to feel was a gray Tyvek streaked with wool. Berardi used both of these materials in sculptural looks, like strapless dresses with trailing "comet" hems, or dramatic ruffled capes. The cloque also made an appearance in Berardi's signature body-con pieces, such as a zip-detailed minidress. The designer's fans will like that dress and his curvilinear cropped jackets; his beautiful gray flannel coats will find a broader audience. Elsewhere, it was harder to locate the appeal: The folded shapes on certain pieces came off rather ungainly, for instance. You got the sense that the designer was working too far out of his comfort zone. Whereas the best look here—a pair of sharply cut, ultra-wide-leg trousers topped with a sweater swirled with feathers—totally hit the Berardi sweet spot. Superb tailoring, a touch of the operatic. Done.
2 January 2014
A casual and laissez-faire approach to dress is not something normally associated with Antonio Berardi—and he knows it. This season, it was his challenge to himself to inject a bit more of a sense of don't-give-a-damn into his event clothes."I wanted to do something slightly more urban, but done in an exquisite way," said the designer after his show. "I wanted to use couture fabrics, but not in the context of couture. It was an idea of moving my woman forward and taking myself out of a safety zone, away from the things that I am known for."So instead of the super-sexy body-con, there was the oversize, and the oversize sweatshirt at that—one of the main motifs of many collections this season, but Berardi's were particularly good. There was the enveloping, boyish, biker jacket shape—but realized in duchesse satin rather than rough, tough leather. Meanwhile, the event wear, those fluttering long numbers with their train backs and short fronts, weren't dresses but skirts, a mix-and-match separate to be worn with the more mannish elements.Yet Berardi will never really be that casual—and it is not as if a train skirt, trailing along the ground, will really be the thing worn for an everyday visit to the corner shop. But who the hell ever wants to go to the corner shop anyway? When you are wearing couture fabrics and a train, you no doubt have people to do that sort of thing for you. The body was still revealed in this collection, but through a play of transparencies and lace, particularly in see-through fronted trousers (not the easiest thing to wear) and shirts with delicate triangle bra tops underneath (really easy to wear).Those shirts and triangle bra tops were some of the loveliest things in the collection and had their own boyish sense to them. And this more boyish element really did suit the designer well. But what is perhaps most significant about this season is the ability to take Berardi's clothes out of the context of his own collections and mix them easily with others for almost the first time. Quite often with his clothing, there is no getting away from "the full look," and it is only very rarely these days that people will slavishly devote themselves to wearing only one designer—this has really been holding Berardi back. The color palette of this collection was a bit unwieldy and weddinglike, but now it can be easily diffused. This season might just be a collection for the designer to build upon: promising and pointing the way to something else.
15 September 2013
The richness of Catholic ritual has always been a building block for Antonio Berardi, so, following a Fall collection that referenced Oscar Niemeyer's Brazilian architecture, there was an intriguing logic to Berardi taking on candomblé, the Brazilian version of voodoo, for his Resort collection. "I like the sense of ceremony," he said, which translated into a graphic, high priestess-y group of black and white shot through with lace and pared down by Berardi's own body-conscious signature.If that kind of monochrome effect felt like something the designer has focused on in the past, the rain forest made its presence felt in prints, whichwerenew for Berardi. He was after something hot and sultry, "the feeling of nature, green with flesh underneath." He also used embroidery to duplicate the effect of hummingbird wings.Still, it was less the hothouse of Brazil than Berardi's rigorous precision that ultimately defined the collection. His recent trial by tabloid for a dress worn by Gwyneth Paltrow threw a global spotlight on just how demanding his clothes can be (G.P. wore the gown sans underwear). There was no sense here that the experience had induced any compromise on his part. A red evening gown proved that he can still do that voodoo that he do so well.
24 June 2013
One of those empty office buildings with arresting panoramic views of the city of London was the site of Antonio Berardi's show today. The setting was appropriate: The big inspiration for Berardi's Fall collection was the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who died at the end of last year.In the confines of one of those identikit office spaces so beloved by developers—and probably viewed dimly by Niemeyer—it was up to Berardi to make a collection worthy of the architect's maxim: "My work is not about 'form follows function,'" Niemeyer famously said, "but 'form follows beauty,' or even better, 'form follows feminine.'"Yet the designer did not take his inspiration too literally. He didn't largely lift motifs from the architect, except for the characteristic curvilinear heel design of the shoes and tour de force appliqués and embroideries "inspired by photographs of aerial views of Brasilia," as he explained backstage after his show. But for the most part, Niemeyer's architectural rigor inflected the collection. The curves were, by and large, provided by the girls wearing them. Known for sex appeal, it was interesting to hear Berardi talk about these shapes being "monastic." The monastic was certainly in evidence in the first, structured neoprene cape that made an appearance on the catwalk. It followed in the elongated jacket shapes throughout—including one train-backed floor-length coat—and the almost tabard approach to some of this clothing. In fact, monasticism turns out to suit Berardi's designs well, especially as he is so skilled in building these silhouettes—they by far outshone his more body-con dresses. But the standout pieces of the collection were those whose embroideries were combined with the more linear, architectural shapes. Here, panels of city-grid embroideries would sweep down the almost sheer sides of garments, belying the simplicity of their plain, almost boxy, forward view. It was strictness made sexy, in an altogether unexpected way for this designer.
17 February 2013
Land a couple of cocktail dresses and gowns on the right stars and suddenly you're an eveningwear designer, like it or not. Antonio Berardi, for his part, has been chafing against the definition lately. He's quite a powerful tailor, too, and he made a point of showcasing that power in his pre-fall collection. His blazers came with lapels or without, and have no visible closures—they're as streamlined as it gets. Pants, meanwhile, were full and cropped not far below the knees, the better to show off the boots in his new shoe collection. Berardi even constructed one dress with a built-in back hem below the waist to give the illusion of wearing a structured jacket. He also continued to explore the sportier theme of his Spring runway show. An origami miniskirt in neoprene, and the leotard-tight beaded top he paired it with, conjured images of futuristic figure skaters.In the end, though, the man can't help it: He makes a killer body-con dress. This season's knockout came in black, with a heart-shaped, silver-studded inset on its chest. It'd be a surprise if a celeb didn't fall for it.
9 January 2013
The last time London fashion was in such full flower as it is now was in the mid to late nineties. That was when Antonio Berardi emerged as a designer of merit. He was of the McQueen and Chalayan generation—and Berardi shows had that giddy, party, fight-to-get-in atmosphere that many of the major ones did. Everybody was in the thrall of club culture, of dressing up to get dressing downs from door whores and having a good time. And yet this mood dissipated eventually, in large part because many of the London designers went their separate ways, moving to other stages in other fashion cities. Berardi was no exception. Being of Italian descent, he moved to Milan.Now back in London, where he's showed for the past three years, Berardi seems to acknowledge the power of that earlier time—one that has shaped the clubby atmosphere and inspirations of the current crop of young London designers, too—but refuses to look back too much. "We thought about looking back but came to the conclusion that if you've done it, you've done it," he said after his show. "The collection also had to be about what you didn't know as well as what you do."What he didn't know involved a concentration on glamorous sportswear. But even when Berardi makes daywear, it is that nightclub attitude again. "I wanted it to be more sportif than usual," said the designer. And it was as sporty as Berardi is ever going to get in its concentration on separates, its stripped-back moments, its layering of sheer with solid in a more casual sense, the use of Aertex for evening—even the extended apronlike peplums had something casual and sporty about them. But sport for Berardi is dancing in a club, not running on a track.It felt very him, which the designer was happy to chalk up to the good influence of London itself. "You can have your own voice here, and that's the great thing that we're good at," he said. "That's why I came back." Something for the new generation of London designers to remember if and when they are attracted to other climes.
16 September 2012
With his business problems laid to rest once and for all, Antonio Berardi felt like cutting loose with his Resort collection. "Everything was a bit too formal with Berardi," he said. "So I was looking at whatI'mabout. And I was looking at my trainers…" Believe it or not, it didn't take a total suspension of disbelief to see reflections of high-performance footwear in the zaps of fluoro color, in the hyper-athletic fabrics, and in the pure form of Berardi's clothes, sheathing the body, contoured with stretch the way a trainer hugs a foot.All of which re-energized Berardi's signature union of sobriety and sensuality. Those sheaths were inescapable: Some with zips running the length of their spine, others with geometric panels of mesh inserted diagonally (a trick Berardi picked up from photographer Georges Rousse) or printed with monochrome florals placed over graphic geometries. Engineered prints are new to Berardi's vocabulary, but, post-Katrantzou, they're practically a trademark of London Fashion 2.0.Though the bod-con one-pieces were the standouts in the collection, Berardi also liked the idea of separates and, even more, theillusionof separates, as in the striking evening dress with its black skirt, white "corseted" waist, and sheer, cherry red bustier top. Antonio's sobriety has always leaned toward the Catholic, so it was fun to see his inner devil get a look-in.
24 June 2012
The Salander-ish hair at Antonio Berardi came as no surprise. His muse is powerful and smart and certainly uses her clothing as a sort of armor. However, the initial reference for this collection was on the other end of the aesthetic spectrum from the antiheroine hacker. Berardi was looking at the rococo sculptor Giacomo Serpotta, whose molding work he vividly compared to "a wedding growing out of the wall."You'd hardly call these clothes florid, but you saw Berardi's inspiration in all the arced seams—not a single straight line in the bunch, he claimed—and curving contrast panels, which he used to hint at the body-con curves for which he's known. (The effect was quite striking in the hourglass shape set into the back of two coats.) He gained his hourglass-loving reputation years ago, and he's eager to shake it: Today he showed his skill with other shapes, particularly those full, fifties-inflected A-line skirts with kick pleats. For day they came in a bouncy neoprenelike fabric that's actually a silk and linen weave backed with bouclé and cut against the grain. Its great matte finish and the way it looked sculptural but not stiff gave the first half of the show its sharp modern beauty. And to hear Berardi talk about it is to be reminded that he is a masterful technician.Masterful but not perfect. Though he does killer cocktail, Berardi admitted that full-on evening isn't his strong suit. Perhaps it's because his ideas are best served in smaller doses, but his gowns felt dragged down, whether by peplums or weighty fabrics. But in all that was a slight stumble during a strong step forward.
19 February 2012
When Antonio Berardi spent a few days in America recently, he realized he was being shoehorned into the red-carpet/cocktail/event-dressing niche. So he's used his pre-fall collection as an opportunity to bust out. "There's much more daywear," he said. "We're introducing form by using lots of menswear fabrics. Our challenge is to do something feminine with them." With Berardi's track record for body-con dressing, that would have been a breeze for him in the past, but he's keen to move on from that association. Yes, there was still a strong, athletic sense of the female form in a fitted orange tank dress with a purple stripe racing down its front, but Berardi had made everything more sculptural: little sculpted peplums, skirts that dipped at the back, subtle asymmetries.A key fabric was a slubby silk/linen weave with a bouclé back. Berardi used its stretchiness vertically rather than horizontally. "It caresses the body in some areas, stands away in others," he explained. The fabric was cut into a cocoon cape that had a futuristic flair, kind of what Caprica's best dressed might wear. It was all in pursuit, Berardi went on, of something less obviously sexy than he's known for. That probably accounted for the distinct urban feel of a sober group in double-faced gray wool. The flaring shades of orange that were the collection's color accent made a dynamic counterpoint.
18 January 2012
The concept of woman as warrior is one Antonio Berardi's been looking at from different angles for a few fashion cycles. After all, he was and is a favored purveyor of body-con dresses, powerful weapons by all rights.For Spring, his obsessions ran to armor and menswear tailoring—essentially both hard played against soft. But Berardi has a way of working his ideas down to the bone, not looking up from getting the wonky details right, which sometimes hampers the big picture.On the micro level, his idea of, say, embroidering a metallic patent leather ("It reminds you of fifties cars," he said) onto dresses in waist-defining armored panels was clever, and actually quite beautiful as the racer halter that formed the top of a black dress. But otherwise it was worked in ways you felt you'd seen so many times before. That seemed to often be the case here, with the high collars on dresses, the heavily beaded pants under a filmy chiffon top, and those vaguely medieval bustier gowns with beaded jackets.Tailoring fared better. Suiting that subtly pieced together three or four various textures in sort of overlapping sartorial tectonic plates made you stare to suss out the situation. It's the kind of attention you imagine the Berardi woman doesn't shy away from. Much simpler were a pair of looks with fluid color-blocked pants and great slouchy jackets. They were really just an extension of his light and colorful Resort collection. When they passed by, you felt you had a moment to breathe.
18 September 2011
Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.
14 June 2011
Antonio Berardi's weapon of choice is the sexy dress, but he has made clothes that wouldn't read as a walk of shame during the morning hours. Still, backstage after the show, the first thing the designer mentioned was daywear as his biggest news. "I wanted a collection of clothes from day to evening," he said. "Not just cocktail and evening."There was certainly a softer, more casual quality to skinny, cropped wool trousers worn with soft-shouldered boyfriend jackets, even with a stud-covered hem or cut in an exquisite lime jacquard. But Berardi's directive to himself was überluxury. "I want everything to feel like,Oh my god, I want a piece," he said. In some cases, that was achieved by adding layers to his deft tailoring, like the standaway motorcycle collars and lapels on slim coats and jackets and the fat, folded and stacked pleats on miniskirts. Though for no-brainer, luxury appeal, you'd probably go for the chic white shearling car coat rather than the overworked one with bullion beaded sleeves. Another beauty: a navy cashmere coat with a fox top and a trim of sheared mink.The new inroads to day bled into evening. A navy double-faced silk and lace top with cuffed pants is a nice alternative when va-va-voom just doesn't feel right. Unfortunately, Berardi's after-eight wear was uneven. A great idea like recasting his bustier paneled dress in organza and tarnished silver bullion was like a shining beacon amid clunky experiments with an over-dyed Lurex. It's too bad, because Berardi is talented enough to achieve greatness with such an outré fabric.Luxury is also feeling good in your clothes. Ill-conceived footwear has tripped up this designer before, and today again it was painful to watch as models were hobbled by their beautiful, strappy Mary Janes—an unnecessary and seemingly avoidable distraction.
19 February 2011
Our review will be posted shortly; in the meantime, please enjoy these pictures.
23 January 2011
"I wanted the romance back, but in the confines of what I do," Antonio Berardi said backstage before his show. Yes, it's been a good, long run for the titanium-edged, body-con look, and Berardi's been one of the go-to designers for it. But even girls who did short-short and tight-tight with unblinking dedication are feeling for something a bit softer. In other words: a ripe moment for this designer to shift gears.This precise and elegant collection was actually a broader realization of the volume he started to experiment with for Resort. He carried over that season's full fifties skirt in sweet dresses puzzle-pieced from various silks (faille, triple-layer organza, washed satin), but left the hems raw to cut the sweetness. Berardi's girl is neither prissy nor showy. That's the reason he limited embellishment to little fabric bells—not a sequin or bead in sight. New for Spring were fluid, wide ankle-cropped culottes almost skirtlike in their proportions. Worn with a sheer tuxedo blouse or languid, boxy jacket, they had an audience full of women with access to a vast market of great pants positively covetous.Spring's starting point was an image of a Victorian-era fencing dress ("Just a stunning thing," he said), and it guided the idea of movement and the fuller silhouette. That new shape was rendered especially beautifully in the last two ballet-slipper pink chiffon gowns dripping with those little flowerlike fabric bells. Berardi didn't entirely abandon his body-con-loving customer, but this was a well-argued case for her to diversify.
18 September 2010
The Antonio Berardi woman is usually a femme fatale, fitted or zipped into the kind of dress that promises to turn every girl into an Italian bombshell—or Christina Hendricks. For his pre-collection, the designer also offered some knitted tank dresses that raised the body-con thermostat. But he expanded his periphery to include experiments with new volumes, especially a pleated bubble (though it still came attached to a fitted tank top) and skirts with a slight flare. There was a slight clunk to the bubble, which also came through in a jacket sleeve set under a shoulder pad, or a jacket body that was folded into itself (although that could be considered a topicalInception-like effect).More pleasing was the virginal Catholicism of a dress that was composed from layers of white handkerchief cotton and lace with lace hankies sewn on top. It illuminated a hard/soft dichotomy in the collection, as in a shirt/jacket hybrid where the top half of the piece was sheer lace and chiffon and the bottom half was a solid crepe peplum. Same thing with the colors—the rigor of black and white, the flyaway ice-creaminess of fuchsia, mango, peppermint. The overall feel was that Berardi was toying with contrasting ideas that he will resolve more fully in his Spring collection. In the meantime, a spirit of perverse whimsy dictated that his yellow chiffon caftan summoned from the graveyard of camp the specter of Elizabeth Taylor inBoom!
27 July 2010
Antonio Berardi is on the side of women rather than girls. He's known for cutting a shapely dress; he's great at curvaceous paneling and emphasizing a bosom; and he uses excellent fabrics. For Fall, he worked aMad Men-ish knee-length hourglass silhouette, with a strong salute toward the Saint Laurent seventies: sheer tops, fur chubbies, and all.Those choices meant the bulk of Berardi's collection didn't seem totally up to speed with fashion's headlong dash to reinvent itself. Invoking YSL is one of the most overworked clichés in the book, and hobbling models with un-walkable stilettos on a slippery floor reduced the erotic intentions of those passages to near fiasco. It was the ones that got away—the pieces that somehow fell outside the show's themes—that seemed more cogent to the season's developing ideas. A jacket-coat-dress hybrid tailored in gray menswear fabric and the sinuous long red-velvet dresses, one with a deep cowl back revealing sparkle embroidery on nude, were standouts.
21 February 2010
While snowstorms and bitter temperatures persist in both Europe and America, coming up with a lot of warm, high-collared, zippered-up jackets and coats was a smart move for Antonio Berardi. "With the weather we've been having this winter," he said, "buyers are in that mind frame." Not that his pieces look so bundled up: more a streamlined, slightly sporty system of layered, modern city tailoring. "I kind of based it on how a man would wear a three-piece suit, with a coat on top," Berardi said, pointing out trompe l'oeil vests attached to the inside of jackets.The collection's hit dress is a form-fitting hourglass with "bump" shoulders and a curved asymmetrical neckline with a zipper running around it, a shape he's turned out in white, fuchsia, and tweed as well as gray. "People are responding to the fact that, depending on the fabric, this is office-to-evening," he said. His additions of cropped leggings and Mongolian lamb gauntlets skew the look in an edgy direction, but, stripped down to its elements, this is a line with potentially wide cross-generational reach.
4 February 2010
"Berardi, English? I always had him down as an Italian," remarked a high-flying American editor who trooped into a church on North Audley Street to watch the homecoming parade of a designer who was actually born to Sicilian parents 40 years ago in Britain and educated at Central Saint Martins. Yet the editor was right to query Berardi's identity, because the show he put on did turn out to have more than a hint of the Italianate about it, both in style and production quality.In a good way, that was visible from the first look, a putty-colored skirtsuit opening to a nude, boned, crystal-embellished corset. After that, Berardi started adding elements of samurai armor and the kimono to the structure of shoulders, sleeves, and skirts while hammering home his love of a short, tight dress. Technically, Berardi can pull off some amazing feats with a bra-top body-dress (his best was in white with an external black balconette scooped under the breasts). Yet something in his presentation, which was less rigorously edited than others in London now habitually are, fell into repetition until it began to look like a Berardi best-selling-dresses catalog. That was a misstep, because he does have it in him to be more creative: What stood out in the final lineup was a single skirtsuit in menswear fabric with sheer panels inserted in the shoulders and along the flanks. Berardi should follow that up, offering some other way to be sexy than a dress with a three-inch skirt.
19 September 2009
If there's one thing that can be said about the Antonio Berardi woman, it's that she likes a leggy dress. Berardi was quick to intuit the feeling for miles-above-the-knee two seasons ago, and he appears to have achieved the near-impossible feat of inching it up even further for Cruise. Still, with scarcely more than a yard to play with in the distance between shoulder and thigh-top, what leeway can there be for newness? Berardi's solution is a move away from tourniquet-tight hourglass to a silhouette with a roomier, more covered top—half t-shirt, half cape, in some cases—and the cling shifted to the hip. "We played a little bit with volume for a less restricted approach," he says, "less precise, but more real." With all this abbreviation, it still takes deft moves to avoid trashiness, but there's something just classy enough in Berardi's choice of midnight blue textured paillettes and pastel animal print that lets him get away with it.
22 July 2009
Antonio Berardi was a pretty well kept secret until Gwyneth Paltrow surprised everyone by wearing his trompe l'oeil corset dress to one of her premieres last year. That stirred curiosity about an Italian-British designer who, tortoiselike, has been steadily moving along years after many of the hares from his nineties generation have streaked into obscurity. The collection Berardi showed for Fall rewarded a second look: The quality has ramped up, he's added furs, and generally found a niche in which classy young women will now discover something genuinely interesting to wear.He clinched all that at the outset with pale, soft, paillette-smothered dresses. Backed onto chiffon, they had movement and looked right dressed down with thick ribbed tights and suede shoe-boots. Berardi has also developed a rounded, raised shoulder that looked fresh on cropped jackets, coats, and a great little black dress (the structure, he admitted later, was gleaned from his knowledge of corsetry—it's cut from the same foam as molded bras). Thanks to collaborations with Saga furs and Crystallized Swarovski Elements, Berardi has also managed to add an extra level of luxe to his signature pieces. He patched fox and lynx onto knit in innovative ways, so that a trompe l'oeil gilet came with blue-sequined sweater sleeves, and jackets turned to show a back view featuring chunks of geometric crystal embroidered onto gray jersey. It was a small, concise statement from a designer who has found his voice—and there is more where that came from. Though he showed mostly evening on this runway, Berardi's pre-collection is full of great utilitarian outerwear and tailoring, too.
9 March 2009
When Gwyneth Paltrow wore a white body-con dress with a sensational inset black lace trompe l'oeil girdle to the Paris premiere ofTwo Loverslast fall, it was a coup that worked two ways—sharply underscoring the actress' new image as a modern glamazon while throwing reflected glory back on Antonio Berardi. His pre-fall collection was a further surprise. It had more body-con dresses, in molded cashmere form, but it was also grounded in a full, substantial lineup of edgy but pragmatic outdoor pieces: full-skirted highwayman trenches, narrow chesterfields, and nipped-waist goatskin coats. Berardi is applying his European point of view—Italian sensuality, but immersed in a London design ethic (he came out of Central Saint Martins, works in Italy, and has a British accent)—to fur now, too. He described his cropped, big-shouldered treatments of fox and lynx, one inset with panels of metal and crystal embroidery, as "a bit punk, a bit seventies Ziggy." Put together with long shearling gloves and leggings, they worked well.
9 February 2009
Born in the U.K. to a Sicilian dad, Antonio Berardi currently lives in London and shows in Paris. Cosmopolitan as he is, it's his Roman Catholic upbringing that he frequently returns to—childhood memories are potent stuff. At the beginning of what was for him a well-balanced show, it seemed like the designer would be content to touch on trends such as transparency, neon colors, and a Stefano Pilati-ish silhouette, and only lightly tweak them with religious references. A hot pink dress, for example, fell like a priest's robes from the model's shoulders. A strapless number with a ruffle spanning the torso and descending to the hem came in cardinal red. And yet another dress, this one sleeveless and fitted, turned to reveal angel's wings along the shoulders.Later, Berardi addressed the Catholic Madonna-whore complex full-on with looks in either Communion white or black. As innocent and untouchable as his downy dresses with their scroll-like embroideries were meant to be, they were cut in the same severe hourglass shape that Berardi used for a black openwork lace number that afforded a prime view of the briefs New York lingerie maker Jean Yu designed for the show. In other words, it was all sexy as hell—and yet it didn't feel like Berardi was straining for effect.
28 September 2008
"It's very austere," said Antonio Berardi. "That's what people seem to want from me." He opened with the kind of strict, sexy tailoring—in black, naturally—that he's been doing since the last time "austere" was a buzzword. Jackets and coats with fine boning fit like a glove in front, but their backs were left free; an hourglass sheath clung to every curve, all 360 degrees. Also in the plus column was an interlude of thirties-style bias-cut gowns.But Berardi only got his formula half right.Where he went wrong was with the furs, piecing together gray mink to resemble a human spine and dying an enormous coat a too-vivid shade of yellow. The finale gowns were a bit of a puzzle, too. Stretch-mesh minidresses embroidered all over like armor were Berardi at his body-conscious best, so why did he add billowy capes as big as parachutes?Backstage, he boasted that after increasing prices on his pre-fall collection, sales had gone up 50 percent. But the runway-only looks that made up a percentage of today's show won't do anything for his burgeoning bottom line.
29 February 2008
"It's much more minimal than last season," Berardi promised before his show. "But there's still lots of work." Inspired by a child's kimono, he said, he built the collection around squares and circular shapes. On the literal side, that made for silk kimono coats and jumpsuits. More abstractly, there were thirties-style bias dresses in blood-orange silk that came with round-peephole backs or trailed by long ovoid capes, and strictly cut jackets with geometric-paneled lapels and skirts with short, kicky hems.The "work" he spoke of was evident in the bugle beading that made zigzag paths across dresses and tops—an artful play of matte and shine—and in the hammered chiffon that created subtle intarsias on the fronts and backs of tunics. The only missteps were a pair of sheer columns heavily embroidered with Swarovski crystals that dropped to the floor as the models tiptoed by, leaving a shimmering trail in their wake. (They tiptoed because of the unusual way Berardi's heel-less platform shoes were engineered.) But, fetish-y footwear aside, there were plenty of sexy-looking pieces here.
5 October 2007
Last season's angelic interlude seems to have left Antonio Berardi in the mood for sin. The power babes who strode his runway today wore charcoal-gray, superskinny, high-waisted pants with just a shade more structure than leggings, and sharp-shouldered jackets cropped to display curve-enhancing vests. High-tech fabrics circled the shoulders and stretched taut across the models' torsos like modern armor, almost bringing to mind a policeman's protective Kevlar gear. There were hints of Alaïa in the girdled waists, but Berardi also took the concept in a softer direction, accenting the hourglass shape of dresses with fagoting at strategic intervals near the bust and hips.But whereas the beginning of the show celebrated and intensified the female form, what followed went in a different direction and was a bit of a letdown by comparison. Milk-white dresses with biblike bodices made from built-up geometric layers of wool and spliced skirts molded to form wide bubble hems ignored and disguised the natural shapes beneath. The program notes referenced Brancusi, but the effect was more artificial, almost robotic—a theme reinforced by the poured-plastic back of another dress and the show's shiny patent half-moon necklaces. Bottom line: When Berardi tempered his tendency to overembellish and overwork things, he and his clothes were at their sexy best.
2 March 2007
Antonio Berardi said he had religion on his mind when he began working on his spring collection. But his is not an ascetic style. Born a Roman Catholic, Berardi loves a flourish. And although these clothes—thank heaven—were less ornately layered than last season's and significantly lighter in their overall effect, there were schoolgirl uniforms, vestments, and silver-plated priest collars aplenty, even a few waisted tunics and armor-like boleros with a touch of Joan of Arc to them. "There's a purity and innocence here," said the designer. "But there's pomp and circumstance, too."Glorified communion dresses—above-the-knee, A-line, and bibbed or yoked—came in organzas, tulles, and chiffons just translucent enough to betray cardinal-red lingerie sets beneath. The lantern sleeves of blackboard-gray shifts and miniature skirt suits, meanwhile, were filigreed with silver like a bishop's robes. Dropping the metaphor, he turned out a spot-on tent dress cut from embroidered metallic lace that stood out from the rest for its simple, welcome wearability. George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" played as the models came out for the finale processional, but holy wasn't the word for Berardi's show. He takes his faith leavened with a bit of sin—and more than enough ostentation.
6 October 2006
Antonio Berardi didn't get the memo about rigor and restraint. For fall—his second season in Paris—he sent out a collection of peaked-shoulder, nipped-waist jackets, pencil skirts, and clingy sheaths that was blatantly about sex. Many of the pieces came with their inner workings exposed: A bustier peeked out above the bodice of an hourglass flannel dress, and corsetry details were inset on the back of a fitted coat. And those were just the beginning of the often overwrought decorations. A cloud of black rosettes—like a corsage on steroids—clung to one arm of a dress, an evening gown's worth of crystals lined the edge of a cobalt cardigan in a heavy-gauge cashmere; that same daytime yarn—this time in acid yellow—was knit into a strapless minidress.Of course, it's not Berardi's fault that the fashion pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and there's certainly still an audience for his brand of overt sexiness. However, many of the items he showed today—the sheer hose studded along the back seams, not to mention the role-playing props such as secretary glasses and nurse caps—would be better left in the bedroom.
4 March 2006
Shrinking violets, seek your spring wardrobe elsewhere. The last thing Antonio Berardi's brazen young things want to do is melt into the background. With their wild tresses flowing and their skirts climbing ever skyward, these girls make tossing propriety to the wind an Olympic sport.But it's all in good fun. Berardi designed his spring line in spun-sugar colors: lavender, pale yellow, sky blue and apricot, tempered with some ivory, white and black to keep the insulin levels in check. Using attention-grabbing fabrics like gleaming charmeuse and breezy gossamer silks, he cut skintight dresses, short-short skirts and pants tight enough for a rock star. Those trends have gotten plenty of airtime in the spring collections, though, and Berardi didn't bring much news to the table. Where he really shows his hand is with jackets: He cinches in the waists, blows out the shoulders to Thierry Mugler-esque proportions and piles on embellishments like beading or bits of lace. Berardi may not be the go-to guy for the working women of the world, but he'll always have the It girls.
28 September 2002
Antonio Berardi is a young designer with a British-Italian background and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design credentials. After briefly showing as a recent graduate in the late Nineties, he vanished from the London fashion scene only to reappear in Milan. No wonder the Italians embraced his hybrid sensibility: he loves girls in eveningwear dressed to the max and never holds back.Berardi's southern Italian roots show in his affinity for decoration, and his London upbringing in his taste for tougher, punk-influenced styling. For Fall 2002, he used patterned leather made to look like fabric, in swing-skirted dresses with corseted torsos emphasized with multiple studded belts. Berardi revved up white tailoring and black jersey with bondage straps bristling with silver hardware, and wasn't afraid to send out a pant suit in bubble-gum pink lace and leather. With his asymmetric chiffon dresses and loudly patterned lace-and-bead-encrusted boots, the designer's bravado performance was very much in the vein of John Galliano's work at Dior. For next season, he has signed a deal with Gibo which offers him the chance to develop a more personal signature.
2 March 2002
Antonio Berardi reclaimed his Italian roots with a carefully staged backdrop that included a little Vespa motor scooter, an ice-cream stand and festively strewn lights.Traditionally crafted leather and heavily worked lace—two of Berardi's favorite materials—were key to his collection. His see-through skintight trousers, razored jackets and ultraslim pants were sexy as ever (especially with the just-stumbled-out-of-bed Rapunzel hairdos on Berardi's models); textured denim jackets and jeans offered a slightly more sedate option. Die-hard fans will go for Berardi's lingerie-like party slips, which can go from the dance floor to the bedroom in the blink of an eye.How to close such a high-powered presentation? Consider a stunning flapper-inspired silver paillette dress with a floral motif—a brave alternative to the understated simplicity that is so often championed on more conventional runways.
29 September 2001
It's an undisputed fact that Antonio Berardi knows how to cut a mean, lean pair of trousers and an ultrasexy dress. One wishes, however, that the designer would direct his energies in more controlled ways.Berardi's show felt like a wild fireworks display. Fitted jackets were reversed to button in the back, lacy white lingerie tops morphed into flared rockabilly skirts and enormous shearling coats were savagely sliced. As if all this weren't enough, Berardi threw in distressed jeans lavished with buttons, whale-bone corsets, layered sheer slips, and hot-pink and acid-yellow gowns drowning in ruffles.Some of these looks will guarantee a night of fun out on the town, but others, like the shaved-fur cargo Bermuda shorts, should never have made it past the drawing board.
2 March 2001
Antonio Berardi is known for his sharp tailoring skills and overtly sexual aesthetic, which makes this a good moment for the Italian-born, London-trained designer. His blazers were fitted, clipped at the waist and paired with straight, sleek trousers; a beige suede pantsuit had an extra flap of material that draped on one side of the jacket when it was buttoned.But it was the dresses that stood out the most—from a black chemise with a wide, triple-buckle belt, to a scoop-necked chartreuse number with a ruched waist, and a black, one-shouldered gathered dress with a deflated balloon bottom. To indulge his racier side, Berardi also showed tan microshorts, a teensy bikini and dominatrix-inspired brassieres attached to fitted, corsetlike tops.
1 October 2000
Antonio Berardi's runway positively oozed with raw energy as he presented one of the most unapolegetically sexy collections so far. Necklines plunged, skimpy leather dresses clung to the body for dear life and flowing, floor-length evening gowns in shocking pink, orange and yellow were simultaneously old-world and unflinchingly modern. Berardi once again proved his skill at combining deft tailoring (as in his white, sharp tuxedo suits) with extravagant sensuality (silky cocktail dresses never looked better). As if that weren't enough, this time around he threw in Murano glass, vertigo-inducing ankle-cuff stilettos, Lalique jewelry and edgy headpieces by Stephen Jones.
25 September 1999