“For me, fashion is always about cheerful and beautiful,‘ said Marco de Vincenzo as he strolled through his gallery at Casa Galimberti, one of Milan’s most ornate art nouveau palaces. “But today, fashion needs to convey more important messages, and my own mission in fashion needs to go beyond mere creativity. ”
De Vincenzo, 44, a Sicilian designer who has emerged as one of the brightest new stars in Milan’s runway schedule last decade, is surrounded by the shelves of the collection latest for his eponymous brand. The garments are proof of his new-found sustainability imperative: At fashion week in February, instead of Newly produced clothes, he presents revamped vintage pieces to his own taste, including jackets, matching skirts, sweaters, and more with mesh sequins, metallic rivet fields, and accents shiny studs in a thrift store’s technically intensive transformation into one-of-a-kind pieces – some are running over $2,000. De Vincenzo said the collection, called Supérno, is one way to understand the potential of upcycling.
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Reward“Whatever I do next will involve this formula,” he said last month, gazing into the distance of Milan outside his window frame. “Perhaps I will soon be taking on a new role on a larger stage and I will be able to incorporate this principle if I lead a larger brand.”
Then, on June 1, de Vincenzo was appointed creative director of Etro, the Milanese fashion house known for its premium paisley prints and hippie charm made in Italy. Long a hit globally but run by family, the private equity group L Catterton founded by LVMH bought 60% of the brand last year, with plans to expand its growth internationally. As the brand’s first principal designer from outside the Etro family, de Vincenzo will oversee provide women’s clothingmen’s clothing and interiors, while maintaining its longstanding position as the leading designer of leather goods at Fendi.
“I hope to put the upgrade on the first runway collection in September or shortly after,” he said in a recent interview, his first since announcing the new role. his at Etro. “There is a lot more work to be done to understand what sustainability means when it comes to larger brands like this, but today they are at least accepting recycling to save money. capsule collection and special editions. ”
From the fanciful vintage style of his own line to his future endeavors at Etro, he sees a new form of luxury taking shape, with unique or small pieces created made from an inherently limited supply of alternative materials. Although Etro declined to comment on what kind of projects might happen under the designer’s new leadership, in the past, the fashion house, started as fabric and textile factory For decades, has created capsule collections from archival fabric.
For de Vincenzo, a new path was enlightened during his contemplative early years Coronavirus pandemic, when there were no runway shows to worry about, and his brand went on a two-year hiatus. In 2020, he bought back the shares that LVMH had held for many years, allowing a retreat from the high-speed, high-production, high-margin demand of the company. work with strong elegance Coporation, group. Later, when he entered the Marco de Vincenzo warehouse to pick up the goods, he was overwhelmed by the sight of 6,000 pieces of clothing that had never seen the light of day. “Such a waste of ideas, resources, money and time,” he lamented. “I know how much work the artisans put into these.”
He returns with the high-end clothing of the Supérno collection – clothes he personally got from charity shops, he then asked artisans to embroider and embellish, to create the iconic twists on their original aristocratic forms. But only a few longtime partners agree to carry out niche projects. One of them has been CIM, a factory north of Milan that produces fabrics with rhinestones, studs and spikes of all kinds, in partnership with fashion houses such as Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Armani and Prada. (“The couture of clothing,” as one riveter there put it.)
De Vincenzo’s vintage garments must be machined on mannequins, where artisans map out rhinestones and chalk the positions of studs before attaching them one by one – a time consuming method much more than the usual cloth covering on the table. And each Supérno piece is one of a kind: a predominantly black coat with spikes growing along the collar and cuffs; a dignified headmistress dress with silver bubbles of the Space Age adorning the bodice and pleats; a short-sleeved figure skater cardigan studded with rows of multifaceted crystals. “Industrial production,” said de Vincenzo, “is no problem here.”
The Supérno collection received rave reviews when it debuted in Milan, but store shoppers shunned it, fearing that the one-time purchase defied trading protocol, So the fall clothes will be sold on his exclusive website, says the designer. But investors have already expressed interest, and he will take on his eponymous brand and a mission to reuse it, perhaps at a slower pace, as he joins Etro and continues to design. accessories at Fendi.
Some of the biggest fashion brands have responded to the call for sustainability with efforts like special Miu Miu remakes. classic dress and sew together patchwork Levi’s, Marni jackets from second-hand tailoring and Coach handbags from 1970s storage purses. And de Vincenzo points out that Fendi has had the best. considerable effort was made to use leftover leather and fur that had previously been scrapped and to support craftsmanship against industrialization, which he called “another important aspect of sustainability.” steady”. However, with a few exceptions, these are small-scale projects from large-scale brands.
The fashion industry consists of countless actors – business leaders, factories, investors, designers, retailers, everyone in clothing – who will have to agree to produce and buy less, and take more of what they we’ve got to combat the wave of overproduction that’s still programmed into the overall supply chain.
“How much information was written during the lockdown about slowing down and being more dedicated?” de Vincenzo asked. “But the old rhythms and expectations are proving to be too deeply rooted.”
However, talking to the designer as he embarks on leading a global luxury brand is to encounter a messenger of hope. His own line of elevation, like all sustainability projects, is imperfect. Its glitz surfaces from CIM – in quartz, metal and polymers – are not sustainably manufactured or easily recycled, and will have a long life in landfill. “There are always compromises that have to be made,” replied de Vincenzo. “If I seek 100% perfection, I will probably never get it. With Supérno, I tried to stop producing new garments. Each of us needs to consider what we can do. ”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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