As a fashion house, Etro has been built on fashion’s founding matter: fabrics. Taking the matter into his own hands, Marco De Vincenzo builds his first men’s collection for the house around matter, as both an homage to the Etro roots and as a way to connect with his own personal past.
The Etro house and Marco’s household overlap and mingle, and a broad sense of domesticity comes through, on the backdrop of stacks of fabrics culled from the Etro archives, arranged to frame the show.
The creative path originates in the sense of reassurance offered by a jacquard velvet blanket, which Marco cherished as a child and whose pattern is reproduced onto broad woollen coats and jackets.
Tactility is key, with jacquard and weaving overtaking print. Pieces are put together and assembled to stimulate both sight and touch, with 3D crochet fruit growing on jumpers, melton patches defining jacket collars, and psychedelic swirls liquefying on fuzzy pullovers. Domestic camouflage is the thing: upholstery fabrics are cut into blousons, long shirts and overalls recall curtains, and dress shirts resemble tablecloth.
Teddy shorts and tops provide further homely cosiness. Hidden from sight, patterned linings are a private pleasure that further augments the play of motifs and textures, with tartan – an early Etro success – in a leading role. Tailored pieces are slim and elongated. At night, little flowers bloom over smoking lapels and cummerbunds.
The idea of merging the public and the private, the homely and the social, carries over in the accessories: felt aladdin clogs with thick soles, studded clog sneakers, jacquard velvet shoppers and oversized laser-cut totes suited for daily usage or room furnishing.
