Naples: An Italian city of contrasts, known for grit and danger juxtaposed with beauty and elegance. Riccardo Tisci also knows its techno underbelly, having frequented rave parties like Angels of Love as a teenager in the Nineties.
He recently returned to the coastal metropolis to shoot the look book for Givenchy’s spring pre-collection and found the underground music scene more alive than ever. Only now, many of the fashion-obsessed kids are dressed head-to-toe in his designs for the French label.
It’s a source of pride for Tisci — whose have-not upbringing in Taranto and Como didn’t douse deep affection for his home country — and an indicator of his influence, which has infiltrated the coolest corners of many cities. His energetic collection contains plenty for the clubbers: Logo knee socks and rave masks, platform boots, mesh minidresses and jogging pants striped in red.
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But this was a diverse offering as Tisci seeks to entice elegant ladies, urban youths and fashion fanatics with his mélange of couture refinement and streetwise daring. The mix echoes Naples, where fashion tastes skew “towards the dark, but with the romanticism as well,” the designer said. Case in point: A dreamy cream coat with a long tulle overlay sheltering Mapplethorpe-esque black leather overalls.
Flipping through the look book — where elegant, more mature types posed in a former convent, clubbers in a dodgy neighborhood where laundry hangs between apartments, and punk-tinged types in the shadow of Aldo Rossi’s brutalist port skyscraper — Tisci pointed to a new “money print.” Essentially a greenback transformed with Givenchy iconography, the camouflagelike pattern came in a sleek blouson for uptown types, and in a zippered jacket and leggings for those below Avenue A. Other details repeated across archetypes: Cascading ruffles came trimmed in pearls for lunchtime blouses and skirts, and stiffened on mini skirts teamed with a raw-edged logo sweater.
While there was plenty of news in the collection — looser jeans for him and her, crimped tulle overskirts and leather-shouldered worker jackets, Tisci’s post-bomber obsession — the designer also revisited themes of yore, including graphic bands, star motifs and Egyptian prints from the fall runway, the latter worked in camp shirts and leggings for men, or as a taut, zippered jacket for her.
Tisci recognizes it is a challenging moment for luxury and fashion, and his answer is to exalt and hammer home the codes he has been building. “Even young generations of women, in a moment of crisis, want to buy something that they recognize,” he said. “So identity is the key.”