Francesco Risso is pretty out there. The show notes for his spring collection — titled “Mattress Recipe” and with ingredients including “caramelized magnanimity” and “flambé ferocity (“Serve hot, like an unexpected slap.”) — said it all while amusingly saying nothing. Walking into the venue felt like mattress shopping; everyone was seated on bed. It was worth waking up for.
Risso’s delightful daffiness translated into the clothes, a collection for stylish, arty wackadoos. A year into his tenure at the Marni, he’s found a way to move the oddball charm Consuelo Castiglioni built somewhere new. His vision is certainly more raw and experimental than hers, but he didn’t bulldoze the house.
Spring sprung from an artist’s studio. Risso played with the concept of painters and sculptors getting their hands dirty. The first looks alluded to sculpted busts and raw white canvases crudely cut and draped into dresses and skirts. Cacophonous, bright prints were collages of classical Greco-Roman statues and portraits given the Warhol treatment. Everything read like a work in progress, deliberately messy and unfinished yet infused with a strange sensuality, despite a plethora of clunky shapes.
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Flesh-toned leather shells with knit backs were stitched and pinched around the breasts. A crimson dress was haphazardly draped in suggestive lines. A white dress that looked fashioned from torn bed sheets was cut out around the hips and trimmed in mixed beads and chains. To finish off the look, there was big sculptural jewelry in bronze and silver, oversize, angular cat-eye shades, frame bags that jutted open, and pointy-toe flats with studs hammered around the toes. These are clothes for women with creative inclinations, the type that Risso seems to know enjoy the process as much the finished product.