Traditional and theatrical gestures of creativity run apace for spring-summer 2025, paying a delightful homage to the 1930s.
THERE WAS both sun and rush hour to contend with on the second day of Milan shows, but the Antonio Marras faithful, including Olivia Palermo and Kelly Rutherford, all made it to see their guy. Today he further developed the study in form and layering he began years back. It’s a clear move forward for a designer who can get zoned out by his counterparts and overlooked by those who don’t consider theatrics their cup of fashion tea.
Looking at the past—namely, the 1930s—Marras applied his fresh notions throughout. First to his classics, softening up the volumes and seams of sculptural suits and dresses with billowing details, and then pushing into new territory with three-dimensional inserts of lace and embroidery. The effect was both modern and, yes, kind of bourgeois.
Taking Anna Maria Pierangeli as the pinnacle of Marras’ inspiration: born in Cagliari and then moving to Rome, she was discovered by Vittorio de Sica and the director Léonide Moguy, who later moved to Hollywood. “The show is inspired by her, and by her incredible destiny,” detail the notes, explaining the fascinating dichotomy between Sardinia, the land of Pierangeli’s childhood and Beverly Hills, her new home.
Marras’s AW24 outing, shown in February, included some beautiful dresses that would appeal to the youngster’s set. There were more here, comprising polished shirt dresses that looked cinched against the skin, coquettishly jet and sequins, bows, ruffles in a muted palette and silhouettes that were recognisable but equally unusual.
A standout lightweight silk piece is draped like a couture gown, jeans are treated like leather which, in turn, prints like fabric. Knitwear looks to raffia and becomes a home for exquisite embroidery, while sweatshirts are a space for inlays of all the materials in the collection or a blank sheet of paper on which to draw, applying the American university coats of arms.
The showstopper? Well, the dance show! Which featured a wealth of dancers against the backdrop of a band playing live tracks, creating a rock atmosphere that symbolises a rebellious era that has never faded and of which we come from. Marras is a designers designer who tends to reassess and refit his pieces every season, dicing up references from the past and projecting them into the spirit of the times we’re in.
It’s a meaningful practice that makes for compelling craft: the lineup explodes in shimmering colours such as sage greens, brilliant pale blues, intense burgundies and fluorescent yellows, that mingle in a tale of tropical prints, hibiscus flowers and anthurium. The elegance and dynamics of the performance are another of Marras’ references, as is the pulsating energy of his broad vision – though the beauty of his offerings is that you don’t need to know the why to be besotted.
by Chidozie Obasi