“It’s all hand finished!”

That’s what said one of the more expert tailors of the city while caressing with great care the endless length of the rim to be adjusted, bottom part of a cashmere coat so soft to the touch that fully captured her skilled sensitivity.

Even if Marta is pretty used to our ‘never-seen items’, with some pride I’ll say her: ‘Yes, it’s a Daniela Gregis’ coat, she works like that!’

Actually it’s not usual for the items of the designer from Bergamo to arrive to the tailor’s shop. Fit and proportions are so comfortable that they never need adjustments, and instead of removing even a single inch from her precious fabrics, it’s more usual to use the eyelets applied to the sides to fix a rim, and adjust the length with new creativity.

But that ice melange coat could not risk to be stepped on up and down the bridges in Venice, during the morning runs, or just put on the shoulder during the daily working routine of its lucky owner.

Daniela Gregis’ items have an amazing peculiarity: you can wear them, even considering their precious compositions, in everyday life.

When you’re in a hurry or when you’re fully distracted, they will never embarrass you! They’re interchangeable, they can be worn inside out, back to front or, for coats in general, even upside down. This is due to their construction which is designed from the very beginning, with patterns and fabrics, doubled or alternate, changing according to how they are worn. Thanks to all accurate and full finishing, Gregis’ clothes still keep a constant balance in all solutions, even the most unexpected.

In an apparently joyful attitude, her last collection, called Tintinba – evocative onomatopoeic sound of fragile instruments which, when in contact, can change into elementary and casual melodies – the Gregis’ creations offer infinite hypotheses and chromatic proposals, in fabrics and shapes, not sketched at all.

Harmonies can be composed with a unique complicity between colour themes and its best material creation: velvet, cashmere, silk, cotton, gauze, and so on. Each fibre assumes a pictorial and expressive responsibility becoming the interpreter of dominant seasonal feelings: the indefinite blue of winter skies, hot tones of strong chestnuts, cold notes of future and desired seasonal frosts.

That awareness can be found in textures and woven outlines in different colours, in the hugs of indifferent movements of stiff velvet and calm cashmere gauze, in the wrinkles of washed fabrics, from houndstooth to tone-on-tone patterns, to flawless and wide melange coils, from definitive silk, grabbed to rounded stitching, until stretched wool.

A show that starts little by little, because the creation is slow and fatiguing, and the season – we all know it – is the longest one…

We have already had the opportunity to meet Shu Moriyama before, and those who visited our store in Padua in the last years could know his work, his textile and styling know-how originating from his experience at the unique ateliers of Yohji Yamamoto, whom he cooperated with before launching his own collection, under his own name.

As a generous participant in this transitioning moment in our working experience, Shu shows us his S/S 2021 suggestions.

With a typical Japanese approach, the horizon from which he gets his own inspiration is far away from the influences of western fashion, more focused on commercial inputs and linked to seasonal trends bringing to fast obsolescence. Shu’s view melts with trees, flowers and fruits, in an effort of abstraction which gives origin to the pleats of his comfortable crinkled fabrics, with small dots recalling petals, some times tone on tone, some others more showy.

The wide spaces of Normandy, his land of adoption, are the background where his delicate clothes take form, designed with hidden elegance, more to put people at ease than to surprise in an impressive way. Poetry is not showed off, but it’s outlined with soft tones in fabric shades, in the embrace of shawl collars, in drop sleeves usually narrower at the bottom, in the chance of wearing many coats upside down, changing the final look.

Dresses, jackets, coats, skirts, and trousers, are all designed with comfort and pragmatism in mind, thanks to the elasticity of a polyester that keeps the crinkled effect in time and warrants excellent fit performance, and, more simply, to very easy maintenance, since they can be washed in washing machine with no ironing.

An alternative – less explicit and identifiable – to the more popular plated fabric of Issey Miyake, with a more reserved and calm accent, the one of Shu Moriyama, a visionary artisan to the utmost extremes for France and fashion.

Find the collection on our website!

Many thanks to Shu Moriyama for pictures and drawings and to Sari for the photograph shooting.

Whilst the so-called Japanese school is more inclined to look at the artistic potential of clothing, Chitose brings it back to its original function of items that must adapt and be compatible with the various needs of everyday life. This absolutely concrete and practical dimension underlines the spaces and times of our social life and tries to find a solution for different circumstances. For this purpose, Chitose employs the classic formal schemes of ordinary, mainly Western clothing, but does not renounce the process of dividing it up and putting it back together, by applying the poetic delicacy that he acquired in his work environment.

In this original mixture of East and West, sheath dresses can be found, along with trench coats, blazers and also an explicit tribute to Chanel, that at the same time is a celebration of an eternal feminine, of an original elegance.

Without being trapped by boring and regular monotony, Sacai breaks the rhythm by introducing carefully chosen devices that systematically betray what our eyes were expecting: rough juxtapositions of fabrics; simple points of junctions between different prints and materials; unexpected gatherings or layers that are camouflaged by the apparent predictability of the forms.

In the delicate balance between innovation and repetition, what prevails is an impeccable, refined and essential female silhouette.