“
Ancora?”
Ancora!
» The Gucci slogan
,
launched last September by its new artistic director Sabato de Sarno, is “again” on everyone's lips for this second show.
In Milan, the five letters of Kering's flagship appear in white on a burgundy background on
billboards
, the sides of buses and the backs of newspapers.
After the reign of Alessandro Michele from 2015 to 2022, whose boundless creativity almost destroyed the brand, it is the brand (originally a luggage house) which is making a comeback.
It's an issue that goes beyond fashion, an issue for the French group today in a difficult time and which needs to move up in luxury, to reactivate the desire for its ready-to-wear, certainly, but above all for its bags and shoes.
This is what the Calabrian designer is working to do for this winter season.
There is no radical concept, nor revolutionary silhouette, but pieces that are easy to understand, easy to sell.
The formula essentially involves coats cut from masculine fabrics but feminized by embroidery, strong colors, and dresses with lingerie details - we find this same approach to the wardrobe as during his fourteen years at Valentino with Pierpaolo Piccioli .
We can perfectly imagine these young women walking down the street to go to a party.
It's the bourgeois wardrobe with
sixties
and
seventies
accents , revisited for a new generation.
Pea coats sewn with large pellets and forest velvet nighties, chartreuse green woolen coats and yellow sequinned minidresses, safari jackets in glossy brown leather and thatched trench coats, quilted knit cardigans embroidered with garland-style fringes …
Gucci fall-winter 2024 collection. Gucci
These Gucci
girls
carry bags,
of course
, GG clutches, half-moons in nappa, doctor's bags in crocodile, round vanity bags in the same color scheme (burgundy and preppy moss green, tangerine, absinthe and shocking pink more wanton) .
They wear platform moccasins, and above all, above all, absolutely perfect boots with a discreet bit above the ankle.
We want to have our feet on the ground in these riders!
Sabato de Sarno says it no better in the text given to the guests: “
My dreams, like my fashion, always dialogue with reality.
Because I am not looking for another world to live in, but rather for ways to live in this world.
»
Tod's fall-winter 2024 collection. ALESSANDRO GAROFALO / REUTERS
Last December, Tod's announced the appointment of an unknown designer to the battalion at the head of its collections: Matteo Tamburini.
In his biography sent by the Diego Della Valle brand, two lines caught our attention: the 41-year-old Italian is from the Marche region, like Tod's, and he was previously the right-hand man of the talented Matthieu Blazy at Bottega Veneta
(see our Friday editions
).
This only boded well.
An appointment is made this Friday morning, at the Milanese tram depot where it is a question of making your way among the fans who are trying to see a announced K-pop star.
Inside, guests take their seats on (heated) benches arranged in the hangar.
From the back, a girl comes forward in a halo of light.
She takes her time.
She wears a double blue striped men's shirt, a belt with a sculpted metal buckle on pants with large turn-ups in tan wool cloth.
A carmine red bag at your fingertips.
Simple, chic and effective.
Other magnificent pants follow, a pleated model with a mottled wool sweater over a white shirt, another with a narrow leg worn with a twin-set of ultra-fine merino cardigans, or a collarless jacket and an overcoat shoulder.
The wide cuff of the pants passes several times.
It always falls perfectly on the famous spiked driving moccasin, in a fringed version, wonderfully cheering up this classic wardrobe tinged with references to the minimalism of the 1990s and the sophisticated elegance of the 1970s. Our neighbor tells us that “often
, chic nestles in the way the clothing hangs on the shoe
.”
This is all the more true (and relevant) here as the brand is originally a shoemaker.
Tod's fall-winter 2024 collection. Alberto Maddaloni
Tamburini therefore masters his subject from the outset.
It is not only pants, skirts (straight in leather or metallic mesh), dresses (knee-length, with draped collar and fringes in the back), and overcoats in stiff woolen cloth, are not in stay.
Backstage, with his cap and his keys slipped into the loop of his baggy jeans, the stylist explains calmly: “
It’s a wardrobe that is both sober and dynamic, for men and women who travel, on the move.
That's the whole story of Tod's.
This is a first chapter that we wrote with the greatest humility because the timing was very tight.
» Three months, indeed, is short!
As for the cuffs of the pants that impressed us so much?
“
The idea was to work with recognizable clothes, and to simply play with cuts and proportions.
The jackets are a bit baggy, masculine so we wanted narrower bottoms with a massive lapel to exaggerate the silhouette and the effect on the shoe.
» This parade was an excellent surprise!