Redemption (Q8996)
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Redemption is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Redemption |
Redemption is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
For the last few seasons Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti has dedicated his Redemption collections to genres of music, including most recently metal and hippie rock. For this show he kept with that theme but made a radical leap in his choice of creative soundtrack. Entitled “A Night at the Opera” (a passing Queen reference), the collection was shown as French soprano Nathalie Manfrino wonderfully sang two Puccini arias. One of them, “Un bel dì vedremo,” is fromMadame Butterfly, the opera upon which Moratti riffed for much of this collection. Black silk dresses featured bows, obi belts, kimono details, and cherry blossom jacquards. They were, as always, cut to amplify.This season Moratti made a significant step forward by presenting his menswear debut. Within the context of the show, he explained, the looks reflected not only a production on stage, but an audience off it. His first ever men’s outfit, a grungy faux-fur coat over an oaty Prince of Wales check waistcoat and pant, was something you could imagine him mooching around Milan in. The range widened nicely into a duffle coat, a caban, velvet evening jackets and the like shot through with decadent Redemption details; these included the transparent scales pressed over the tailored outerwear in Abraham Moon fabrics and a startling Lurex turtleneck. We also saw several tailored looks for women including a fine camel coat, a trench with the brand name written in duct tape on the back, and some convincing variants onle smoking. Moratti didn’t mention the sustainable sourcing behind his collection this season, but it is worth repeating that this is a designer who combines a post-Cavalli eye with a post-Hamnett practice; as a combination, that’s quite hot.
1 March 2020
“Sustainability Is the New Black” read the slogan on the organic (black) cotton T-shirts left on every bench. TheS-word is a subject au courant—literally vital—but Redemption founder and designer Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti is no bandwagon jumper: He’s been talking about sustainable practices and pivoting to a fair and socially responsible manufacturing chain for years.Today’s collection was entitled “The Summer of Love,” and it riffed (very loosely) on the kids of 1968. As Moratti noted: “That generation helped make the world a better place, fighting for human rights, racial equality, and reproductive rights, and against the war in Vietnam. There is a big parallel between then and now. But what we are seeing in New York is different, too, the call to action is coming from the younger generation. I think they are our only hope, and they are right. We don’t have a plan B, so we have to change now.”So, what has Moratti changed? This was his third year of using only vegan, biodegradable “leather.” Plus, the cotton was organic, the denim was recycled, the lycra was made from reclaimed fishing net, and the silk was, he said, certified to have considerably less negative environmental impact than “normal” silk. What hadn’t changed was Moratti’s unabashedly Roberto Cavalli 2.0 aesthetic. This time around it came tempered with wide-kick flares in “leather” or washed denim, and soft paisley shirting belted and pussy-bowed with men’s ties. There was a military-style shirt jacket with gold frogging and a gold sequin-dripping star at the shoulder. For Redemption, these were relatively pared-down and blissed-out pieces in keeping with the soundtrack of Richie Havens, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, and Buffalo Springfield. Elsewhere, it was business as usual with plenty of floating diaphanous animalia, tiger-zebra-mash-up striped jacquard hot pants and shirting, and a wide selection of white or black jersey dresses made to wind around the body as suggestively as possible. There were casualties: one trip (nicely recovered) thanks to a soft floral-printed, long-at-the-front, full-and-ruffled-at-the-back white skirt, while one of those jersey dresses in black lacked the heft to contain a breast. As we watched, we heard the great Buffalo Springfield lyric: “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong / Young people speaking their minds / Are getting so much resistance from behind.
”Backstage, Moratti had been proposed this notion: Should we not just shut down fashion altogether for the sake of the environment and today’s young people speaking their minds? “Well, I could say something controversial and say yes—which is something I believe in my actions and how I dress—but I also say no. This is an industry that is the second-largest employer in the world, and we can change our methods and help shape the world and the lives of everyone in the industry to be better and fairer.”
26 September 2019
Today’s va-va-voom Redemption couture show opened with Vivaldi’sFour Seasonsand a pink minidress sculpted into a rose studded with crystal dewdrops. While this music has always been a common choice for the runway, the difference here was that it was being played on an electric guitar (kudos to Jacqueline Mannering). “I wanted to bridge the apparent gap—because for me there isn’t [a gap]—between classical Baroque music and heavy-metal music,” said founder Gabriele Moratti. Outfitted in a Guns N’ Roses concert tee and ripped jeans, he explained that he was envisioning a modern woman walking through a Venetian palazzo or a grand Parisian setting. Of course, given all the gowns, she should also be walking a red carpet.In the couture tradition, the Italian label proposed a selection of tailoring and flou, much of it ’80s leaning. The former was shown mainly in lustrous giraffe spots that might register well onstage; the latter in sexy draping that might end up on a Bond girl. Extravagance is subjective, but Moratti’s comment, “I don’t have a more-is-more aesthetic,” was debatable in the presence of ruffled capes, Swarovski-encrusted bodices, outsize bows in iridescent satin, and swelling trains of silk chiffon—most looks a composite of several elements at once. Still, women who derive confidence from such glam-rock pageantry would probably say his vision speaks to them. “I’m transferring my passions to her, which are photography, music, art, cinema,” he said. “I try to think of a woman who is not one-dimensional.” Just like the asymmetric LBD that revealed ruffles sculpted into a giant rose from behind.
30 June 2019
A showroom visit with Redemption founder Gabriele Moratti always devolves into a history lesson of sorts—or, more aptly, a manifesto on recent history and current events. The label’s founder is, understandably, fairly hopped up about the state of the world (see his Mayor Pete T-shirts), but he’s determined to make a difference in the conversation.If Redemption has a serious following, it’s largely due to the success of the theory that, as Moratti puts it, “one good solid red carpet is worth a thousand advertising pages.” To wit, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Gabrielle Union have all recently made high-profile outings.This Resort and the upcoming couture collection are particularly close to Moratti’s heart because their inspirations are rooted in heavy metal, one of his favorite music genres. “It’s a message I want to give, because it’s what I’m going through,” he offered, segueing into a digression on World War I, Trump, North Korea, Justice Kavanaugh, and Metallica. “I think and hope the night is darkest before the dawn,” he said.On the other side of dark, Moratti is focusing on a wave of youth, music, the force of protest against a system, and positive change. The message of this collection is “We can do something to change the world.” That might be through shifting entirely to vegan leather and diving deep into research on how to make it without plastic (from mushrooms and wine byproducts). It might be by keeping production 100 percent local, in Italy. And it is definitely by checking the boxes on what works well for the Coachella set (short shorts, low boots, flowy printed chiffon top; long dress with prairie belt), while working in more tailored pieces alongside glammed-up ’80s-inspired eveningwear.Though Redemption is not yet profitable enough to fulfill Moratti’s dream of allocating 50 percent of it profits for charity, he is clearly committed to seeing his vision through. Maybe the opening of a new 5,000-square-foot flagship in New York this fall will help push things further in the right direction.
25 June 2019
Entitled Heavy Metal Dystopia, Number 2—hot on the knee-highs of last season’s dystopia—this was a show that blended badass performative womenswear with good intentions. As previously chronicled, Bebe Moratti is a charitable and conscious soul who thinks the world’s a mess on many levels and who gives a significant proportion of his profits to various good causes. In an unusual move, this show started with a designer statement projected on the backdrop which read: “This show reflects upon a time when the rebellious power of rock ’n’ roll was harnessed to promote social change. A time when rock stars stood firmly alongside activists to fight injustice and rocked the world into a better place. We believe fashion can also be an agent of change.”And he is absolutely right: In this show alone, Bella Hadid changed, like, three times. Her last look, and the final on the runway, appeared fiendishly tricky to achieve and consisted of a silver sequined minidress grafted into a bias-cut, satin-lapelled black tailcoat. This was also the summation of the key heavy metal reference that ran through this collection: Alice Cooper and his “vaudevillian” (as Moratti rightly put it) way with a tailcoat.Megadeth’s “Peace Sells” and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” played as Moratti riffed hard on that starting point via red sequin and crystal and red-on-black animalia-pattern tailcoats. Like last season, there were plenty of short-as-hell,un peuYSL minidresses with dramatically oversize bows or shoulders. More meaningfully Moratti-esque were the leather day-to-night looks that mixed crystal-set leather pants with animalia-patched leather bikers. All of that leather, with the exception of some of the boots, was vegan, and what fur there was, was faux. As Moratti observed: “It’s very rock star—but she’s a responsible rock star.”
28 February 2019
Rock is one of Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti’s great passions, and it’s always the core inspiration for his Redemption collections. While prepping for Pre-Fall, a great deal of Black Sabbath was on his playlist. Not necessarily an optimistic message, but who can blame him? Times aren’t calling for a lighthearted approach, and Moratti’s conscience is nagging at him. “I miss the positive, progressive social messages that rock used to convey,” he said. “Musicians like Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe—their music was radical; they fought for the right causes. Today’s pop music has no gravitas, no social message. It’s just part of a world where an American president used to be a reality show star.”Moratti believes that fashion can convey a positive message as much as music. “They’re both powerful tools to reach huge audiences,” he explained. His company is committed to sustainability and good causes; 50 percent of net revenue is apparently donated to support selected charity foundations. As for the clothes, they had a distinctive ’80s flavor; Redemption goes for a confident Parisian take on rock glam. Silhouettes were figure hugging and sleek, with slinky draped minidresses in stretchy jersey showing plenty of leg. Tailoring was offered in strong-shouldered, powerfully cut suits, the blazer often worn alone on bare skin, as in a double-breasted, leopard-print example, or over tweed ultra-miniskirts tightly wrapped with black leather buckled belts. “It’s an aristo-metal look,” said Moratti. Indeed.While there wasn’t much range in the offering, the message was definitely reinforced loud and clear, showing admirable conviction. Animalier-print leggings worn with a jacquard lamé sweater with bell sleeves; sleek sequined tuxedos; shorter-than-short, body-con minidresses draped in multiple iterations—they all looked perfectly believable for a confident, heavy metal–loving girl-about-town. One with a social conscience.
25 January 2019
An ongoing motif in Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti’s Redemption collections of late has been his T-shirts that pillory and protest in the direction of the president. This season, he presented two of them: The first was an adapted cover of the Megadeth albumPeace Sells... but Who's Buying?in which POTUS was pictured in front of Congress with a “For Sale” sign, and the second showed Trump in a straitjacket on an adapted cover of Iron Maiden’sPiece of Mind.The soundtrack was Iron Maiden (“The Trooper”) and Metallica (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”), and the clothes stayed true to the genre. So why a heavy metal collection? Apart from the fact that Bebe loves metal—he said that, despite the raucous power of the sound, the genre is inherently pacifist—the designer added, “It ties into this moment, about how some politicians are using so much violence in their rhetoric . . . and [the collection] is all black because it reflects everything that is happening in the world right now.”Personally, I could have done with the occasional aside in color and tone, but as a collection of provocative rock-chick chic, this played out fine. Claw scars were etched in Swarovski on the flank of a leather minidress, a sheer vest top, a Le Smoking jacket, and black denim. Frayed rips on denim were delineated in more Swarovski. Five ballerinas in black, crystal-etched tutus played manic air guitar and pirouetted as the models marched by in excellent mid-cut Cuban-heel boots and silver micro-sequin leopard-relief minidresses. There was a fair dose of vintage Yves Saint Laurent in the undercurrent of a collection that delivered its message loud and clear.
27 September 2018
Condolences to Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti, whose father Gian Marco passed away at 81 last Monday. This was big news in Italy—I caught it via the news bulletin shown on the Rome express train—where the Moratti family is a big noise in petrochemicals and politics (Bebe’s mom, Letizia, was formerly Milan’s mayor).Even before this sad event, Moratti had been wrestling with his notion of Redemption. On a visit to his studio four weeks ago, he had barely finished showing Pre-Fall and was only beginning to work on this one. Although the collection sells well, as a senior retailer attested at the show, the pace of today’s commercial cycle is a grind. Preshow, Moratti said he was planning to spend more time on fewer collections.The soundtrack was Aznavour and Piaf and many elements in this collection were hat tips (not least, the hats) to Yves Saint Laurent. Moratti characterized it as “a love letter to this city that gives me the most inspiration.” With the exception of this season’s anti-Trump tee (“Impeach”), some houndstooth spray-paint screen print on fur, and some red biker pants, this was far less daywear and far less grunge than Moratti has gone recently.Yet there was tangible attitude in the clothes: printed sequin houndstooth pants with matching boots and some wide-legged, tapered, high-belted black leather pants were elevated and emphatic. Halter-neck high-hemmed ruffle dresses and strapless sheath minis with floor-length ruffle trains in printed fil coupe were evocatively provocative. Dungarees in dévoré velvet leopard with a matching trench were don’t-need-to-workwear.Moratti’s brand delivers sleekly uncomplicated luxury-glamor in a compellingly clear contemporary voice.
4 March 2018