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133

Collections —Woman / Prêt-à-Porter

Fall / Winter — 1998

Press Release

“A magical fancy for reality, vibrant urge for poetry, flights of fantasy in everyday life… A jacket is for me no longer a jacket, to borrow Gertrude Stein’s phrasing on the rose. Rather, it is an eclectic shape with roots in knitwear and the supple ease of stretch. There’s only one traditional suit, I believe, in the collection… Dimensions follow no standard criterion, order. I did an extralong jumpsuit that folds over to create a natural draping. But I also designed short dresses that hug the body (even when the fabric is a full-textured flannel) expressly to attain a snug-and-warm effect. And yet all is graceful, airy, thanks to the impalpable hues and metallic nuances. At once antique and absolutely innovative… Almost as if I had sketched the image of a Dante Gabriele Rossetti page (attendant), a solemn screen-version Joan of Arc: Renée Falconetti, Ingrid Bergman, Jean Seberg… Every manner is natural, however, every attitude free and easy. No place for couture postures here. For the cut is fluid, elementary, almost futuristic. And the body moves with true agility in magical, plastic materials that evoke a dream. An impression of sweetness and strength…”

Gianfranco Ferré

CHARMS… Playing with shadows, volumes, textures – to transfigure (not represent) reality – black takes on a liquid effect: tiny pleats seem stuck to the body with pitch and then left to waver freely. Black becomes duller than sand paper or turns multifaceted from the endless galouça scales…

ALLUSIONS… Tricot chips form a sheer silvery cardigan over bare skin in a siren/warrior mode. Torn impalpable white shirts in silk and mohair yarns, evanescent silver prints. Pure sinuous dresses, robelike in velvet and metallized lace, interrupted by razor-sharp cuts…

ILLUSIONS… A cardigan with double alpaca collar, fluffier than fur. Fantastic spotty ponyskin, an almost impossible combination of forces. Shoes in cloth and scales, slender pumps with metal patches – a flash at every step – shiny vinyl soles, feet tapered by light…

WONDERS… Barrel coats, sculptural bombers and jackets, variously padded at different points of the body. Pinstripe and cheviot fabrics brightened by the stylized note of a white shirt or the silvery splendor of a gray taffeta blouse. Accents of total black, mineral gray, cadmium red. Superlight jeans as thin as metal sheets: pewter, aluminum, platinum. Softened by lingerie of a metallic consistency, in gold and bronze…