Luxury house FERRAGAMO unveiled its Fall Winter 2023 Collection, that reimagines the 1950 Hollywood style through the lenses of clean-cut modernity, on February 25th, during the recently finished Milan Fashion Week. The collection examines the brand’s connections with Hollywood, and fuses 1950’s hyper-feminine beauty with an alien futurism. Mid-century silhouettes are explored with the linear precision, a ball skirt is reinterpreted with optic white nylon; a cocoon cut adopted from fifties couture is applied to a cropped technical bomber and shirting. Double faced tailoring brings a sharp, cinematic clarity or, shrunken and nipped at the waist, updates tradition through the ease of its stretch wool gabardine. Classic sensibility is disturbed with slashes: sharply-sliced suiting, or leathers which unzip to reveal flashes of colour. The collection also features the codes of bikers’ wardrobe.
FALL WINTER 2023.24 WOMENSWEAR COLLECTIONS
It’s how Ferragamo started, making shoes for films in the 1930s, and that grew into building relationships with movie stars like Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. I was interested in using their glamour and beauty, and their way of dressing, as a reference, but looking at how we could make it feel modern
for today. – Maximilian Davis
“Exotic prints taken from the archives are scanned and manipulated before appearing screen-printed onto shearling, or leather and ponyskin accessories, with a slight distortion ‘to make them feel like heirloom pieces, taken from the past but brought into the future.’ The ornate language of an archival shoe, originally manufactured in 1956 in 18 carat gold, is revived through key details: its angular shape informing the kick-heel of stilettoes, its twisted rope appearing as a top-handle strap. A handbag silhouette from SS98 is reworked in new proportions and with new hardware; the Wanda bag appears in myriad new incarnations.
The graceful evolution of scarf dressing, a key code of Ferragamo, appears in a contrast to strict silhouettes. ‘I wanted to introduce the more romantic side of the fifties, and the two elements appear to contrast so directly – the ethereality against the rigour – that they somehow go hand-in-hand,’ explains Davis. The emergence of that languid elegance, expressed in bat-wing sleeves and Renaissance draped details, presents a counterpoint to the high-octane, fetishistic glamour of shimmering lamé minidresses and patent leather that emerges through the close of the collection. ‘This is my take on what people from the 50s would think of the future: alienated metallics and high shine,’ says Davis.” – from Ferragamo
