Etro Paisley Tribe
Take a walk into a colorful winter with Etro Paisley Tribe, a fearless group of exploring women who lead the way to this season’s adventure playground. Bright, feisty, active and energized, these women congregate, celebrate, and share freely as if in an altitude festival. Whether on a remote mountain top, pensive retreat,
or bustling city street, the mood is buoyant and free, igniting a color explosion and pattern collision. Codes are unwound, rules are broken, and mystery cultures materialize around an air of spirituality, energy, and positivity.
The new look is rooted in a functional sportiness but has bursts of Etro’s traditional femininity and its mastery of mixing. Oversized outerwear, including giant tweed parkas and patchwork jacquard puffer jackets, creates cozy bulky upper halves with long plissè printed paisley dresses fluttering beneath.
The robe is reimagined this season as an almost regal wrap, with kimono sleeves, striped trims, and ribbon borders. Dresses are either goddess long or hyper cropped in wrapped or rouched drapings. The pant this season is quilted and printed, creating a Judo-like pajama.
The new mood synthesizes, as always, in the world of print. This season Veronica Etro has mixed worlds, plucking her family’s famous paisley and punching it with psychedelic colors. Winter’s traditional palette of pine, mud, bordeaux, and black is shot with hot pink, revived cobalt, emerald green, and acid yellow. Spinning mandalas, tie prints, and tree of life florals, are refracted into kaleidoscopes of new patterns. Bold stripes and accentuated angles break up the decorative veil, while a touch of leopard print adds a new exoticism.
The visual mélange is made sumptuous with Etro’s rich fabrics. Intricate brocades are trimmed with colorful ribbons or borders recalling the colorful ethnic saddles used on yaks. Jacquards are boldly slashed with opulent gold and trimmed in colorful micro threading that recalls Tibetan flags. Lotus flowers, dragons, and geometrics fly across these noble materials in the form of patches bearing messages and claiming identity. Tweeds, on overcoats, parkas and dresses, unfold like blankets while metal ribbon embroidery clusters on an armor-like dress. Knitwear, meanwhile, has been elevated to artistic status with its elaborate patterned jacquards on beefy cardigans and reversible kimono coats.
The extras allow for in nite personalizing, customizing, and keep the collection’s balance between folk and the street. Madras scarves, colorful thread, and metal charm necklaces wrap around the neck. Colored stones jingle at the neck and wrist while patchwork bras and beaded halter tops add a layer of utility on evening dresses. Bags are big enough to carry one’s necessities on adventure, but showered in luxe: a postman’s bag is reinvented in jacquard with velvet lacing while embroidered carpet bags come in messenger versions. The look is finished off with trek read footwear, sealing the funky nomad vibe: Himalayan-like colored felt or suede flat boots and heeled booties feature shearling linings and ribbons that wrap up.
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Tags: ETRO, ETRO FW 2017-18, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2017-18
#ETROSkyIsTheLimit
Overwhelming in their prominence, full of secrets and unknown inhabitants, harsh to those who wish to conquer them, mountains have long stood for the seduction of the sublime. Reaching towards the heavens, man’s aspiration towards the transcendental focusses on these tips of our earth as a locus of spirituality. Taking inspiration from both the mystical power and natural beauty of these peaks, the images and processes used in this collection evolved from Kean Etro’s fascination with mountains as the border between the realms of the temporal and fantastical. This autumn, Kean Etro asks you to join him on an ascent to the summit, with a menswear collection inspired by the myths and legends of the world’s mountains.
Materials this season are the product of free experimentation with a focus on rich tactile sensation. Lushly soft velvets have been subject to heavy printing, imbuing their garments with, in the case of a chevron printed hooded jacket, an exoskeleton-like quality. A similar process allows a oral coat and trouser ensemble a rough touch that almost undermines the classic luxury of the textile. Impossibly soft wool jumpers are dyed with Shibori-style Japanese tie-dye, resulting in patterns and lines that resemble Barnett Newman paintings. Sumptuous, long wool coats are printed with foliage motifs, which are created using an innovative earth-based colouring derived from clay – fully realising the passionate, imperfect naturalness of this collection.
As a counterweight to the more organic processes, nylon outerwear – pullovers, water-resistant parkas and trousers – have been photo printed with a mélange of images that are key to the narrative of the season. Cheeky bears, wise wolves and regal bucks – all mountain dwellers – make appearances on the backs, pockets and inner linings of the garments. They are trusted friends and familiar characters that have been present in the work of Kean Etro for many years. Feather motifs, in lurex lamé, swirl and ourish across sheer pullovers and tailored blazers, the result of a loose weaving technique purposefully designed to age with grace as they’re worn and moved in.
The silhouettes reach, in equal measure, towards technical innovation and traditional tailoring. Double breasted jackets and long, kimono-style coats are fastened with buckles, and shoulders are covered in ripstop waterproof fabric, a material typically found in parachutes. While loose, patch- worked nylon trousers are adorned with zippers or elastic drawstrings at the ankles and knees that allow volumes to be manipulated at will. Velvet dévoré has been fabricated with nylon to create a suiting that is exible and soft, yet impeccably tailored. Short padded vests, in the classic Etro paisley, receive the dévoré treatment as well. Highlander-inspired kilts in plaid and houndstooth were designed as a nod to the collection’s mountain-inspired theme.
Bright backpacks and high-tech hiking boots round out the collection, all a mix of fabrics found throughout the rest of the pieces – like matelassé quilting techniques on a shoe’s upper. Fabric typically used for neckties, woven tighter than normal to aid in water resistance, is used for the panels of a backpack, which is complete with small chanting bells to aid one’s ascent to the peak. Patchwork sleeping bags are worn as capes and are warm enough to fall asleep in under the stars on a mountain top. Fantastic paisley printed skis and snowboards are offered as the climax of the presentation. “The only kind a Sherpa or a monk would use,” assures Kean Etro.
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Tags: ETRO, ETRO FW 2017-18, FALL WINTER MEN 2017-18
