It is the chic allure, with something deliberately wrong, of Italian women, and Milanese in particular, that inspires the Tod's collection for next winter designed by Walter Chiapponi and presented with a video set at the Massimo De Carlo gallery in Milan, which it is located on the main floor of Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, a 1930s Milanese project by Piero Portaluppi, the same architect as Villa Necchi, the historic home of the group's presentations.
A joyful celebration of femininity that combines streetwear elements with the world of high fashion and that starts with down jackets, cut and stitched up and reassembled to become something else.
"I transformed - says Chiapponi - the Tod's lifestyle into something exaggerated, feminine and sensual, with a couture touch, starting from wardrobe stereotypes such as balloon shirts with bows and I wanted to push beyond creativity" as in the tube skirts that they are a reworking of the trench coat or pumps with modernist shapes or in the handbag that has "a very playful approach to the ladylike attitude of a Milanese sciura".
The collection is pervaded by this spirit, also "to respond with elegance, glamor and great culture to what I see and do not like in fashion".
So the down jackets become cashmere hoods with eighteenth-century collars, the tight-fitting dresses start from a men's knitted polo shirt, the leather down jacket has balloon shapes from 50s couture and also becomes a robemanteau tight at the waist with pleats.
The small padded nylon sheath dress, with matching hat and candy pink moccasin, lights up on the shoulders thanks to the gold chain of the bag inspired by the upper of the shoes, a new jewel for a bourgeois lady but also as an "Italian neorealist actress because cinema - she says Chiapponi again - he is very much an inspiration in my strings, from Almodovar to Antonioni up to Lynch, here there are many different muses ".
And there is also a femininity expressed between eroticism and fragility, including leather skirts laced with bows, transparent batiste shirtdresses, sexy knitted dresses.
"There is a desire for sensuality - says Chiapponi - because it is humanity".
And there is a desire to make elegant what is sporty, such as the kimono-shaped trench coat, with slits that create flaps, presented with bows in the Dior or Balenciaga style of the 50s, or the oversized one doubled in Shetland with an evening ruff at the Scala.
"At Tod's - concludes the creative director - we are discovering the humanity of women and with this collection I celebrate bourgeois and eccentric chic".
(HANDLE).
