Salvatore Ferragamo is now FERRAGAMO. The Italian fashion house’s show was one of the most eagerly awaited of the latest edition of Milan fashion week, and rightly so, as it was to mark the debut of its new creative director, Maximilian Davis.
The palace of the former Archbishop’s Seminary in Milan, all decorated in red, already announced that a new era of the brand was about to begin and that Ferragamo’s phoenix-like rebirth was only a matter of time: “I wanted to pay homage to the beginnings of Salvatore by bringing in the culture of Hollywood, but of the new Hollywood,” explains Davis. “His ease and his sensuality; his twilight and his dawn.”
Maximilian researches the house’s archives, reimagines them, and mixes contemporary clarity with the purity of Florentine drapery as only he knows how and as we are accustomed to with his proposals and previous works, resulting in truly elegant things. Elegance is one of the features that has characterized the Spring/Summer 23 collection and is materialized through transparent fabrics, liquid silk, and layers of organza, but appears cemented by suede sandals drawn from Renaissance reality, and the tangible charm of polished accessories.
The languid, beachy glamour of the new Hollywood is subverted with flashes of fetishism: shiny leathers, second-skin fits, and micro shorts. Everyday essentials – tank tops, polo necks – seem almost perverse in their simplicity. Lightweight knitwear is knitted wide to reveal the skin underneath, or so thin as to appear translucent. Even evening wear is imbued with nonchalance.
Tailoring twists the classically masculine tropes of eighties executives into a modern wardrobe: perfectly proportioned, louche refinement formed by fabrics often reserved for womenswear. The dinner jacket is imbued with a new energy: shirts cut from silk organza and cotton poplin; collars and sleeves are eliminated. The Wanda bag, first introduced in 1988 and named after Salvatore’s wife, is reinterpreted in sleek new proportions, while a prismatic shoulder bag brings a sense of minimalist modernity.
A palette is drawn from the colors of Rachel Harrison’s Sunset series, gradient prints, and hand-dyed fabrics; from optical white to deep indigo, butter-soft yellow, and sky blue. A new Pantone red formally encodes the brand’s iconic hue, visible dominantly throughout the collection and in the runway space, coloring the sand that covers the floor. “The sand relates to Ferragamo, to Hollywood, to the ocean, but also to me and my own DNA,” Davis explains. “To what the sea means to Caribbean culture: a place where you can reflect and feel at ease. I wanted to show that perspective, but now through the lens of Ferragamo.”
Take a look at the collection below:
