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
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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
