At Tod's, that's it, ready-to-wear is finally on the right track.
Since its creation in 2013, the feminine wardrobe of the Diego Della Valle brand seemed above all to serve to show the quality of the house's leather craftsmen and to artificially create a silhouette to at the end focus on the best-selling Gommino moccasins. launched in 1978. But the arrival, a little over a year ago, of the talented 42-year-old designer, Walter Chiapponi, changed the situation, despite the current context.
On Friday, the Italian presented his third collection, the most successful.
For this fall-winter 2021-2022, he manages to create a more feminine and relaxed Tod's signature, while integrating the house's leatherwork vocabulary - T logo, spiked sole, iconic bags… - yet difficult to use in an aesthetic " fashion".
The utilitarian aesthetic of the mackintosh and the very haute couture detail of the bow at the front.
Tods
This great connoisseur of the history of clothing rubs shoulders with the now common practice of mixing the sportswear spirit and the codes of haute couture, with a jubilant sensibility.
“I like the idea of rethinking Milanese elegance with a touch of irony, like the down jacket,“ piumino ”in Italian, reinterpreted in very supple leather in a balloon shape inherited from the 1950s. Or pencil skirts inspired by the trench coat, in stabilo colors, and trench coats extracted from their utilitarian function thanks to refined kimono details ”,
explains the designer, who also revisits the Oboe bag, with hobo lines, in quilted leather in pastel shades.
It gives body to the Tod's style by injecting masculine pieces such as flared velor trousers and chunky rubber sole moccasins with punk-chic accents.
A rich and accessible universe that does not give in to youthism or to the concept at all costs.
The 2020s loop
“The only beautiful things are those that don't concern us. Nothing is more dangerous than being too modern; you are likely to age quite suddenly. ”
Oscar Wilde's words prelude to the note of intent of next winter's Sportmax collection.
This is followed by a long list of references to past styles: a Greek statue from Antiquity, a femme fatale from the 1940s, a hippie from the
sixties
, the genres of Grace Jones and Annie Lennox, a techno fan of the 1990s… Either archetypes (or stereotypes) of so-called freed women.
All under the tutelage of the Roaring Twenties, marked both by dark moments and by the visceral need to party, and which find in the current 20s an echo, or rather the hope of an echo.
Grace Jones is one of the female figures invoked for this Sportmax collection.
Daniele Venturelli / Getty Images for Sportmax
Curiously, this excess of inspiration gives rise to a hyper-desirable silhouette, where we identify the
sleek
line
of minimalism, the
tie and dye
and the second skin dresses in transparent mesh for trance goa evenings, or even parachute dresses in technical material. which rub shoulders with more classic officer coats, all accessorized by the boyish marabou feathers.
The parade ends with stroboscopic images of a slightly psychedelic club that cannot be dated.
But which refer to next winter, so close, so far and uncertain, which one wants to believe could sign the revival of dance, celebration and an exalted femininity.
