Metamodern Woman
For Autumn Winter 2020 Salvatore Ferragamo explores the increasingly diverse and flexible nature of contemporary female identity. During the early 20th century, Carl Jung proposed that society’s collective unconscious recognised seven archetypes of women. In the early 21st century a woman is no longer defined by such categories – she is self-defining. Feminine identify is a fluid, self-authored free space that’s ripe for nonconformist experiment and play.
Creative Director Paul Andrew says: The notion of fitting into a set “type” feels increasingly obsolete today, both for women and men. I think the identities we choose to wear today are not fixed through a single filter – they are a shifting kaleidoscope, a collage of characteristics and qualities.
Key to this collection was considering some of the many women we idolise. We found a book by Fulvia Ferragamo in which she collected botanical images for inspiration: we used this across the collection in print, knitwear and also embroidered onto shirting. We also considered a multifaceted range of female heroes from Virginia Woolf to Nancy Pelosi via Michelle Obama and Nina Simone, and worked to reflect their intelligence, bravery and beauty in the collection.
Ferragamo’s foundation is footwear: this collection is an exercise in toe-to-head dressing. The shoes range from a reworked archival heeled sandal (made with off-cuts of Ferragamo nappa), multiple versions of the new Viva shoe (flat slingbacks to powerful block heel thigh-highs), and a tough, articulated sole workboot. Crocodile boots are made of upcycled skins.
Bags included an expanded expression of our versatile Trifolio and Studio models plus a cleanly minimal day bag in vegetable tanned nappa. Hand-woven leather strapping decorates bags, shoes and coats to signal both the craft of the Ferragamo artisan, and the intertwined multiplicity of female identity and the genres of womenswear through which they are expressed.
Moods include
Powerful: chain fringed skirt and dress, floor-length cloaks, bold shearling, an inbuilt scarf/throw detail that runs across suiting and a floral trench, strikingly-silhouetted sculptural pockets.
Soft: cashmere topcoats, gauzy botanical printed skirts and shirts, slit hem cashmere skirts, cashmere tights. Structured: seersucker tailoring, pinstriped suit and bustier skirt, formal shirting with embroideries, black evening suit with inbuilt scarf/throw, boot to bustier looks in oxblood leather and black shantung.
Romantic: a dress garlanded with signature Vara grosgrain, ribbed chenille dresses, sky blue silk dress with wrapped ankle hem, sheer knit teal dress.
Pragmatic: culottes, knits, and shirting looks, leather work pants, liner jacket coat in elevated chevron quilting.
Paul Andrew said: “Clothes can sometimes define you. Worn with freedom they can also redefine you as tools for evolution, self-expression and transformation.”
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020, Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO FW 2020
Fri, February 28 2020 » Fashion Blog
Salvatore Ferragamo © Copyright 2020
Metamodern
Marking Salvatore Ferragamo’s return to Milan’s menswear schedule our Creative Director Paul Andrew embarks upon a playful exploration of the increasingly diverse and fluid and free nature of contemporary masculine identities.
Paul Andrew explains: “In this first Ferragamo show of the new decade I want to use the language of fashion to ask: what does masculinity look like in 2020? To find answers we began with six ‘alpha’ male archetypes – Businessman, Biker, Racing Driver, Sailor, Soldier and Surfer. Then we fabricated their attire applying traditional Ferragamo artisanship guided by a determinedly non-conformist attitude. The agenda is to retain the aesthetic of uniform while subverting the once-rigid assumptions it enforced. To do this we use luxuriously tactile and fluid materials blend together our six masculine categories.
Clothes can define you: worn with thought and freedom they can also redefine you by serving as tools for experiment, evolution and transformation. This power held by clothing is something I see is much more relished in womenswear: today I wanted to create clothes and accessories for change in a very masculine context. A man today is not obliged to assume a single, set role: he can be a multitude, and he can change his worn identity any time he wishes. That’s a freedom we want to explore in the 2020s.”
Shoes
Following the Ferragamo ‘toe to head’ philosophy, this collection is based upon a foundation of footwear. These include bench made boots whose leather uppers are combined with the fabric of the garment worn above, featuring triple-stacked cuoio leather soles with square Gancini stud accessories. Large profile ‘biker’ and ‘army’ boots feature a high-flex V-lug (inspired by 1949 archival Ferragamo shoe) with a hybrid lace up/Chelsea boot upper.
Accessories
The ‘Tornabuoni’ group evolves into a holdall and camera bag. Duffle bags in lightweight upholstery, hand- woven wide weave totes with matching belts and the new square Gancini stud buckle. Leather trimmed sunglasses.
Clothes
This collection abounds with sensualised, elevated and rethought masculine ‘uniform’ classics from its six archetype genres: these are then mixed into outfits that defy categorisation – hero pieces for anti-heroes.
The opening look, for instance, features a peacoat (Sailor) in Scottish herringbone tweed (Businessman) with a double pleat at the front drawn from 1980’s Japanese beachwear and worn over double faced silk wool leggings (Surfer). Elsewhere a leather fire suit (Racing driver) is worn under a rib knit sweater (Sailor) and a surfer’s kangaroo pocketed vest. “Camouflage” print pieces (Military) in oxblood and olive are in fact palm prints (Surfer) which are worn against leather flight jacket (Soldier). Front-fold velcro-belt pants (Surfer), grain calfskin leathers (Biker) are also part of our mix-but-not-match multitude.
The collection abounds with these swirling cocktails of reference and expression.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2020, Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO FW 2020
Tue, January 21 2020 » Fashion Blog
Family–the glue that binds us together– and the house traditions of craft and artisanship form the twin foundations of a Salvatore Ferragamo collection that is light, bright and designed for joyful living in the 2020’s.
Paul Andrew explains: “It started with a photo on my mother’s mantelpiece of my brother and I on summer holiday in Italy when we were kids in the 1980s. We are wearing clashing Bermuda prints and smiles. I wanted to bring that feeling of fun and sun-drenched innocence into a modern context with a collection that is physically very light and knowingly bourgeois but which also has tangible depth, substance and care in its construction.”
The house icon Vara shoe, designed by Fiamma Ferragamo, daughter of house-founder Salvatore, in 1979 is lovingly reinvented as the Viva: mono-colour in a sophisticated spectrum of tones, the famous grosgrain bow is enlarged and expressed in leather – as is the original shoe’s hardware accessory – on a pump that comes either cinched in the back or with a solidly crafted upper.
New prints featuring Ammannati’s 16th Century Fountain of Neptune in Florence – recently restored thanks to funding from the Ferragamo family – play against oversized tulip prints on backless short dungarees, scarf-caps, long easy silk devore dresses, men’s shirting and swimwear.
Bubble skirts, cinched-ankle trousers, racerback tailored waistcoats and wide-legged dungarees are all affectionate Italian-flavoured 80s revivals, often expressed in leather and presented in a colour story designed to echo the tradition of Murano glassmaking. 3D printed jewellery in clear resin is shot through with sinuous twist of colour. Trenches and dungarees are cut open at the back to let the skin breathe: leather fronted trousers and shirts are backed in cotton to conjure a striking contrast.
Artisanal achievements include a Raschel knit dress and top striped in fringed ribbons of crepe de chine, and a hand crocheted tank-dress made in the hills above Florence. A light fringe-edged skirt of woven silk features a sash panel. Men’s tailoring is breezily split-seamed.
The new Ferragamo triple pocket expandable handbag comes in leather-lined linen canvas, hand woven leather mesh, ostrich and waxed calfskin and is presented in a new shoulder slung size.
Paul Andrew says: “Precious but never heavy, these are clothes, shoes and bags to cherish far beyond a single season for many summers to come. They are built for long languid days of sun, salt, sand and ocean. I hope that for those who own them, in the years to come they will be a little like that photo on my mother’s mantelpiece: a well-worn reminder of happy times.”
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Tags: Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Wed, September 25 2019 » Fashion Blog
HOMECOMING
In the first men’s collection under the creative direction of Paul Andrew, Florence comes alive with the energy of a multicultural, multigenerational vision for the Ferragamo man. The city’s profound artistic, intellectual and economic traditions, the neighboring mills, factories and artisans, the famed Fountain of Neptune recently restored by Ferragamo — all serve as the rich ingredients of a new aesthetic direction, the style code for a new era. At once gloriously ancient and stunningly modern, Florence is the fire in the eye of Ferragamo, a place with which it is and shall always be synonymous.
Traditional menswear codes encounter more youthful notions of style in this collection, such that a lightweight technical parka takes the place of a classic blazer, the five-pocket jean is flared and in leather, the trouser is full throughout the leg and long, and the tailored jacket is rendered as utilitarian sportswear. Masculinity is communicated with a freedom no longer constrained by inflexible gender norms.
Colour, raw material and innovative craft hold information and convey culture in Paul Andrew’s Ferragamo. A broad palette of earth tones and natural shades is illuminated with saturated moments of candy pink, luminous green and deep night. Nappa leather bonded with cotton jersey, technical linen gabardine, ripstop cotton nylon, wool mohair, deerskin and sueded calfskin comprise an essential catalog of researched fabrics and skins across ready-to-wear and leather goods.
Inspired by archival shoe designs and local Tuscan artisans, intricate weaving techniques and raffia embroideries appear in passages of womenswear, connecting the men’s universe with the women’s, affirming the fundamental role of craftsmanship as the origin and beating heart of the house.
The marriage of high-craft and high-tech, a signature concept in Andrew‘s vision for Ferragamo, is articulated here in a split-platform espadrille, an interchangeable laced suede sandal-boot inspired by Salvatore’s 1951 ‘Kimo’ style, and a leather and rubber sneaker conceived with bench-made savoir faire. Bags and small leather goods project the luxury of impeccable skins and unadorned utility.
Envisioned by Paul Andrew, the Ferragamo man has lived and loved, won and lost, and has the wisdom and dimension that comes only with experience. His identity can be celebrated on the podium, but it does not rely upon showcase to exist. Indeed, he is uninterested in being discovered – he has already found himself.
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Tags: Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020
Fri, June 14 2019 » Fashion Blog
Tue, February 26 2019 » Fashion Blog
Salvatore Ferragamo© Copyright 2019
“GENERATION”
Family, the cultural continuity between generations, and power – all have been central to the spirit of Salvatore Ferragamo. It is a quiet power that distinguishes the house, a power Paul Andrew and Guillaume Meilland explore for Autumn/Winter 2019 and figure into the zeitgeist as an antidote to its pervasive unrest. The revelation comes in a kaleidoscopic display of identity and all its nuance: impossible to characterize in one attitude or gesture, their men and women refuse easy definitions and instinctively embrace a politics of togetherness.
Patchworks of suede, nappa, snake and lizard in women’s accessories and ready-to-wear speak to this prevailing notion of multiplicity and allude to Mr. Ferragamo’s ubiquitous multicolor patchwork wedge of 1942. The same symbolic tactic is echoed in archival scarf prints in modern patchwork on silk twill. Fringed cashmere blanket coats, sensual leather robes, sportswear in Japanese technical wool and hand-knit textured sweaters convey a natural, unstudied luxury. The Gancini monogram jacquard, a new signature, visually locates the collection in a place and time without needing to tiredly assert a heritage.
Tailored garments imagined with an outdoor sensibility frame the menswear proposal. Deerskin, corduroy and technical wool gabardine give jackets and outerwear presence and gravitas. Engineered shapes and utilitarian trims are essential features both of design and end-use. The new suit is three-button, soft shouldered, the lapel widened, in traditional British and Italian cloths.
Shoes not only importantly anchor the collection looks; they are the fundamental ingredients of the Ferragamo formula. Sculptural heels appear in bright suedes, nipped-point toe stilettos in satin with hand encrusted rhinestone straps, and pull-on boots in butter calfskin. Nubuck trekking boots and a twist on the classic loafer for men further emphasize the tension between classic and rugged. Handbags in everyday styles are rendered soft and deconstructed in suede and tumbled deerskin or assume singularity as small, handheld objects.
A new creative horizon at Ferragamo begins to come into focus, with a renewed commitment to crafting innovative products for a generation that sees luxury everywhere and nowhere, and for whom inclusion and authenticity rise as beacons of possibility, hope.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2019-20, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO FW 2019-20
Mon, February 25 2019 » Fashion Blog
Ferragamo Autumn Winter 2018 marks a new chapter for the historic fashion house. Paul Andrew presents his inaugural collection as women’s creative director, joining Guillaume Meilland as design director for men’s.
This collection finds motivation in the frayed edges of modern decadence: a party once thought endless in the twilight hours jolting to reality at the first light of dawn. A new construct of dressing emerges: familiar forms are stripped back, loosened and elongated with ease and elevated functionality. Traditional silhouettes are expertly dissolved for a contemporary take on formal codes. Materials are unrivaled: from plush leathers to Italian wool fabrics, to heavy silk twill and soft cottons.
Broad strokes of colour were the starting point; merlot reds and mustard yellows mix expertly with parakeet green and deep vatican blue between hints of nude and blush. Footwear, the keystone of ferragamo’s storied history, is the seed of a collection that was purposefully visualized from the ground up.
The women’s collection channels the refined ease of Ferragamo’s legacy lit up with vigorous freshness. Leather is the fundamental material, in calfskin coats with impossibly soft cashmere lining and pull-on knee-high boots innabuk andostrich. Trousers in buttery nappa leather and wool-silk blends are exactingly cropped to pull focus downward to the shoe.
Knits are designed to complement leather pieces: from cashmere sweater dresses to ponchos. Shirt-dresses are fabricated from the material of silk foulards sourced from the archive. Galvanized block heels molded in three heights — whose metallic glazing was finished in automobile factories — have been sourced from archival 1930s-era Ferragamo styles. Merino shearling knee-high boots are dyed green and red like 70s shag pile carpeting and lined internally with lusciously soft calfskin.
Menswear is an elevated take on the utilitarian: authentic pieces have been restudied and revised with innovative construction. Shirting in silk twill, wool, leather and shearling — featuring hand-stitched finishing by master tailors — forms the anchor of the collection, echoing the womenswear pieces. Layering brings fluidity to a winter wardrobe.
Cotton bonded rain coats are updated in a relaxed, streamlined silhouette; inside, printed silk lining introduces a sly hint of hidden pattern. An english donkey jacket, lengthened and oversized from the original, is designed in double wool- cashmere with leather shoulders.
The all-new ‘the studio bag’ in crocodile, ostrich, shearling and soft calf is in great company next to petite camera bags and roomy overnighters with printed lining taken from cravat fabrics. The doppio gancini, Ferragamo’s iconic logo, is represented in ornamental hardware: oversized on triple-cuoio soled men’s shoes and at the waist as women’s belts.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2018-19, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2018-19, Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO FW 2018-19
Wed, February 28 2018 » Fashion Blog
Individuality. Distinctiveness. The Ferragamo Spring/Summer 2018 collection by Fulvio Rigoni celebrates women, exalting their multi-faceted styles, personalities and beauty. Inspired by the uniqueness of the women who wore Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. Greta Garbo, Carmen Miranda, Brigitte Bardot, Eva Peron and Marilyn Monroe, to whom the legendary shoemaker contributed in defining their elegance and allure.
“No two women are the same – I wanted to celebrate women’s individuality and style, vivid colors – ever evolving femininity, ”states Fulvio Rigoni, Design Director for the Salvatore Ferragamo Women’s RTW Collections.
Similarly, the collection is hinged on great standalone pieces with assorted silhouettes, textures, prints and attitudes that lend themselves to be mixed-and-matched liberally, according to one’s personality. Drawing from a vast time frame – pencil silhouettes from the Twenties, fringes from the Thirties, Fifties’ full skirts, Seventies flares – each look is put together to tell a different story with femininity, quality and color as the common thread. Each one is infused with a surprise element, a modernist twist and highly-detailed touches that represent Ferragamo’s idea of “high tech, high craft.”
Quintessentially Ferragamo, the color palette features shots of geranium pink, emerald green, bright red and plum, tempered by pastels and white.
Textures play a key role. Tops and wide-legged pants with a mélange effect are made with crocheted chinè cotton; perforations are micro on suede and macro on hand-painted python for a semi-transparent look, at once unexpected and vivid.
Prints are exclusive and inventive. Striped graphic prints offer an unusual 3-D effect as if different fabrics were draped, layered and twisted while the florals include a maxi flower positioned on the side or a hazy, painterly all-overall motif, at times enriched with gauzy patterned overlays for an X-ray effect. They appear on dresses, tops and evening gowns, in varying lengths, often asymmetrical for a more fluid, relaxed and summery elegance.
High-skilled artisanship elevates the knitwear enriched with labor-intensive intarsia inserts.
The accessories add the finishing touch with small leather bags featuring gold and silver Gancini hardware evocative of costume jewelry like metal bracelet-looking handles, geometric totes and belt bags in rich choc brown. The footwear spans from embroidered stretch booties with Ferragamo’s signature “Flower” and “Cage” heel, to embellished flat sandals and cross-over mules.
Head-to-toe Individuality that crystalizes and respects the personality of each woman.
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Tags: Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO SS 2018, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2018
Sat, November 11 2017 » Fashion Blog
Salvatore Ferragamo © Copyright 2017
GUILLAUME MEILLAND DESIGN DIRECTOR, MEN’S READY-TO-WEAR
Guillaume Meilland pursued formal fashion studies in Paris in the 1990s, focusing on the rigor and precision of menswear design . Entering the luxury fashion industry in 2002, he collaborated on a number of prestigious menswear lines before in 2007 overseeing men’s sportswear design for Yves Saint Laurent. The following year he was named Senior Designer of Lanvin Menswear, a position he held for eight years before joining Salvatore Ferragamo in September 2016.
As Design Director of Men’s Ready-to-Wear, Ferragamo bestows Meilland with a unique history and ethos with which to further hone his vision for silhouette, construction, fabric and palette – in doing so, forging vibrant new codes in masculine dressing for the luxury Italian House, whether finest tailoring or sports-infused casualwear. “As a menswear designer,” says Meilland, “Ferragamo’s commitment to innovation and quality is particularly palpable; indeed, the notion of ‘Made In Italy’ feels like an exciting responsibility, and one I take very seriously as I integrate the experiences and ideas I’ve accumulated into this latest chapter for the House.”
Meilland continues: “No influence is more present for me than that of Salvatore Ferragamo himself. His restless pursuit of pioneering design, unrivalled craftsmanship and ‘the perfect fit’ feels more relevant today than ever before. As I discover quite how daring he was throughout his career, my greatest inspiration has been to imagine what forms, techniques, materials and philosophies Salvatore would be developing were he alive today. To honor his legacy feels like a wonderful challenge for someone whose own life has been steeped in both a deep respect for traditional craft and a passion for creating new sartorial expressions for the modern man.”
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2017-18, Salvatore Ferragamo, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO FW 2017-18
Mon, January 23 2017 » Fashion Blog
Tue, May 31 2016 » Fashion Blog
