ERMANNO SCERVINO MEN’S COLLECTION AND WOMEN’S PRECOLLECTIONS FALL WINTER 2013-14 – PITTI IMMAGINE UOMO

FALL WINTER 2013/14
MEN’S COLLECTION – WOMEN’S PRECOLLECTION AN EXCITING CREATIVE APPROACH

An exciting creative approach and a profoundly remodelled line of research that reconsiders, recomposes and reinvents the very roots of the expressive world of Ermanno Scervino. Two collections for the Florentine Maison – the woman’s Pre-collection F/W 2013-14 and the men’s F/W Collection – that intersect and counterpoise each other on a harmonious keynote, paced out by tonal references, hyper-contemporary suggestions and strong analogies. All these come together in a single major show, played out in the austere Mannerist space of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, the most authentic and emblematic soul of the City of the Lily. It is indeed precisely the Florentine lily, with all its proud symbolic impact and its timeless, stylised geometric elegance, that features on some of the items that Ermanno Scervino has conceived, underscoring the significance of this tribute to the infinite artistic riches, the beauty and the potent capacity of inspiration of the Tuscan capital where the Maison has its premises. Ermanno Scervino never tires of stressing the vital importance to his work of the direct comparison with the perfect landscape of the Tuscan countryside, with the pure, Humanist light that vibrantly sketches the contours of the stunning hills, the painterly horizons and lush fields. Over sixty appearances on the runway in a show that meshes two languages of different styles and lineage albeit in this specific case in the most staggeringly close dialogue.
For the coming F/W season the Scervino man looks unhesitatingly towards the very mould of the tradition of man’s tailoring. But he does so with a jaunty and extremely youthful elegance that blends austerity and humour in dynamic, ultra-slender shapes, with restrained, almost elusive revers for the jackets, figure-hugging styles that define the body, mellow rock reflexes on masterful grisailles, supported by slightly stretch neoprene weaves. Easy-going early 60s charm, with “Dolce Vita” nuances for the ties, with a hint of casual intellectual refinement. The play of opposites in unusual materials and textures: suede and shiny lacquered fabrics, flannel and bird’s eye weaves that dialogue naturally with precise sporty citations, that disturb and play uncompromising havoc with the aesthetic codes and canons of this new modernity. Blazers that mingle with masterful knitwear, created through precious sometimes manual processes, contrast knit mesh overlaid on raglan pullovers, the overcoat in supersoft black leather that looks like cloth and reveals a flagrantly technological core. Full total black velvet edged with a dandyish piping in grosgrain for evening, when the pure white, essential, composite and highly-structured shirt plays the lead role. Scervino’s colour palette is resolved in practically a trio of greys, declined in shades verging from lead to a light, impalpable and aerial tone and absolute black with precious veinings of blue light. A diktat that is contradicted here and there and enhanced only by the enlivening rhythm of burgundy. Amazing hats: felts evoking the aura of adventure, and comfortable distinctly masculine shoes, with rounded shapes and toes.
The Ermanno Scervino F/W 2013-14 Women’s Pre-collection is an authentic firework display. The quintessentially feminine language that has always characterised Scervino’s poetics here becomes essential, returns to its most intimate core and a distinctly pure emanation, to the potent joy of the design. The lines map the body, tracing its contours, at once soft and concise. Fourreau in black leather, in cognac suede, palazzo pyjamas opting for a male “must” such as grisaille, or garbing themselves in luminous ivory wool, giving life to a passe-partout timeless chic. Python dissolves to be magically recomposed in symmetrical ranks and ranks following the natural patterns, alternated with the impalpable lightness of organza. Leather is embellished with embroideries and floral and phytomorphic openwork, dramatic inserts, a hymn to sensuality. And then lace, delicate and suffused, masterfully tinged with secret dyes to create the incredible softness of a precious vintage effect. And once again here we have a staging of material opposites, combined with a colour range that from black to pure whites and grey stretches through to the distilled opalescent nuance of “ash pink”. Behind the relentless and prodigious creativity of Ermanno Scervino is a peerless universe of skilled hands, most of them female, an amazing and cohesive craft expertise that is heir to a secular practice, knowledge and aesthetics. A unique human and professional heritage that allows the dream to come true, that transforms the cipher of the creative expression, the basic idea, the genesis of an artistic temperament, into something tangible and real.