BEAUTY: Clothing--Antonio Marras

Although former Kenzo designer Antonio Marras has been showing his women's collections at his charming showroom for several seasons, he showed his first men's collection there for Fall-Winter '14-'15. Maras' father was a fabric vendor and the inspiration for this collection was his father's surviving fabric archive. "I started looking into his archive to find fabrics I like," Marras explained, "and then remade them." Beyond remaking them, he hybridized them into new textures, the most startling being a jacket that transforms from felt to wool to shearling (I recall Frankie Morello doing this for their F-W '12-'13 collection, making wool bleed into leather! See it here.). How on earth is that done? He also hybridized a few traditional elements of men's wear into new silhouettes as well. Motorcycle jackets get new limbs from suits, sweaters are cropped under sport coats, and suits are pieced together from different flannels.

But thematically, the show was a spectacle: the presentation space was lined with dozens and dozens of tailors at actual, working sewing machines. Like Kean Etro just did, Marras created a respectful homage to tailors and those who work--or have worked--in the garment industry, like his father. In fact, graphic portrait images of his father from the 1950s adorned a variety of shirts and pullovers. Sweet and touching.

http://www.antoniomarras.it/