Collections —Woman / Prêt-à-Porter

“I like to think of a woman who has a girlish quality to her, who can be childlike in discovering lost expressions of refinement. A woman who brings direct opposites to the world… to attain that confusedly free order which today for me is modern elegance. An elegance involving properness, neatness, severity too. Bold and clear. With the will to make everything personal, exquisitely her own…”

Gianfranco Ferré

Ideas, words, images at liberty…

A new study of widths calling forth the beauty of classic redingotes, lodens, postilion coats on the one hand, the romanticism of voluptuous softnesses on the other. An allure often coming from the design of simple elements: squares with cuts or holes effecting unusual volumes, dark blue melton revealing raw edges, emphatic rectangular skirts creating asymmetric tails on one side. A sharp slimness of line emerging all the stronger in the dark blue vicuña chesterfield over duchesse jeans in the same color, sumptuous dandy dressing-gowns over gray flannel trousers and supremely Ferré white shirts. Long leather skirts with black nappa painter’s smock making for a high-style evening, but also sable-ribbon pullovers heightening the importance of the moment… even if time and place no longer need factoring in when choosing what to wear. Languid dresses in morning-suit mode featuring low-cut necklines and fox decors. Myriads of taffeta ruches enhancing the most improbable of crinolines… vaguely rumpled. Neutral dark blue, gray, black, camel accentuating the precious tone of lines… alternating with bursts of color part of the opulence of materials. A figure coming on ever sharp and sleek, in respect of the absolute quality of fabrics. Thin lining cloth taking on a new dimension – mixed with satin, sewn perfectly and doubled in black velvet – for a rare coat. Mannish shoes in brocade or velvet, leather boots, leather gaiters on pumps… all bordering on canonization of rituals. The lightest taffeta, with mohair stripes, underlining the structure of shirts… Hungarian army coats guarding utterly feminine dresses in fluid pastel georgette. And then the shadowy magnificence of dévoré velvet, cut, embroidered, printed… and of plain velvet doubled in ultralight nappa. Luxurious linings with pieces of sable…

“…for me new elegance is a romantic order-disorder… stand-up collars, skimming softnesses…”

Gianfranco Ferré