BEAUTY: Clothing--Etro SS'18

This year at Milano Moda Uomo, Kean Etro decided to forego a runway show and present a lookbook and clothing on mannequins and shelves at the Etro atelier on Via Spartaco. Much like his showing for last season, Winter '17-'18 collection, which relied upon 60s psychedelia and the book MOUNT ANALOGUE by René Daumal (it served as one of the source materials for Alejandro Jodorowsky's cult film "The Holy Mountain" previously here), we are back at a similar place for Spring Summer '18: Indian Summer. But not only India Indian (elephant motifs show up in this collection) but also Indian as in South American Indian, with visual references to Huichol shamanism (witness a tree frog with a South American shaman headdress). In fact, Kean Etro (who took over the men's wear branch of the brand his father Gimmo Etro started in 1968--the year, by no coincidence, of The Summer of Love!) shared some books that inspired this most recent, far-out manifestation of the Etro brand: THE MAHABHARATA, Robert M Pirsig’s LILA, a chakra manual, the histories of a Piedmont hippy commune from the late 60’s, and Ignazio Maria Gallino’s broader history of the Italian countercultural press.

The beaded, embellished jackets are fantastic as are the great paisley espadrilles (crossed with a desert boot!) but the real stars of each Etro collection are the prints in rich, earthy, heady colors.

http://www.etro.com