Collections —Woman / Accessories

Prêt-à-porter Collection

If she were an actress, she would be Barbara Sukowa. If she were a rock star, she would be Laurie Anderson. If she were a ballerina, she would be Carolyn Carlson. If she were a writer, she would be Lillian Hellman. If she were in love, she would be Fanny Ardant. A woman both strong-willed and independent. A firm step, looking ahead. Dark hair, perhaps, and face drawn in pen and ink. A deep-down irony, a decided desire to play the game, whatever it is, in the first person. Worrying, and why not? Yesterday she was so decided, even severe, in a smooth black dress, without an ornament. Today, when walking, the same dress was waving, revealing a flare, an unexpected cape, a row of buttons down the back. And who will fasten them? And the heavy mantle, almost a poncho, she has framed her shoulders by lifting a hem. What gesture is more feminine than bringing it together with her hands, lingering whilst arranging a fold? Faites vos jeux, bear in mind the subtle intelligence of the choice.

Because glamour is nothing else but the other side of intelligence.

“Every woman is enclosed in a dance of forms, squares, lozenges, rectangles, parallelograms of moods and sidereal delights, subtle harmonies and docile mysteries. They are made of lights and spaces, imperceptible labyrinths and particles which can alter according to how one looks at them”.

Anais Nin, The Diary

The colors: black, a multiform and disturbing base. Grey and beige, foggy, muffled, subdued. Continual and quivering spots, ruby red, emerald green cabochon, topaz yellow, sapphire. Precious stones. By affinity, the quieter the tones, the more the form is enveloping and the material soft.

The lines: a geometric design, but relative. Transformable around the body. A triangular cut which runs round the back and becomes a scarf. A rectangle which is put on the bias and crossed over. Asymmetry, symmetry. The sum gives balance. The spiral pants are taken up again in the roulé collar, the dress is circular. The capes are rounded, but one side becomes a scarf or a hood.

The contrasts: the same color is interpreted in four different materials, velvet, flannel, taffeta, leather, for the same articles. The back is soft, enlivened by capes and folds, the front bare. Quick-change sleeves: they open, they wave. Even the patches, the same old classic elbow-pads, are detached to suggest plasticity. The collars, huge, soft, often in leather. They are cut at the back so that they can be raised to wrap the face.

The evening effect: the short jacket, one side black, the other colored. The georgette T-shirt. Casanova’s shirt with straight or crossed-over plissé.

The stuffs: double mouflon, mouflon plus worsted, canvas, traditional drapery, flannel, cover-coat, diagonal crêpe, ultrasoft leather mixed with suede and pony, velvet, silk crêpon, satin.

Gianfranco Ferré says:

“I have gone ahead in my research, thinking of the sweetest and softest things in the forms, in the materials, in the colors. Things which would transform themselves around the body, which would be sweet and which would lend themselves to personal arrangements, without padding, linings or stiffness. I wanted to give women the possibility of daring or challenging”.