Why did Francesco Risso invite Ye (formerly known as Kanye West and now almost as synonymous with anti-Semitic comments and erratic behavior as she is a musician) to his fall Marni show?
It was an SMH moment before the show when guests walked in and saw the rapper and his wife Bianca Censori sitting in the venue, which was decorated like a cave lined with crumpled white paper. Photographers and Instagram influencers swarmed them for content.
“He has been a dear friend for a long time. He’s a customer too, so he just walked in,” Risso said backstage.
Renzo Rosso, owner of Marni and head of Italian fashion group OTB, echoed the sentiment and also dismissed any inference of controversy.
After the show, a line of sullen guards barred journalists from the backstage area while facilitating entry for West, Censori and their large entourage.
It was a tense, revealing moment that distracted us from one of Risso's best collections for Marni yet, and one of the most original fashion statements seen yet this Milan season, largely mired in retreads of the years 90.
The cave-shaped environment made one think of “The Flintstones” emulating a mid-century haute couture salon.
Risso gave elemental forms—cocoons, trapezoids, and tabards—considerable drama by employing stiff fabrics, furry surfaces, and hand paint that at times evoked the wondrous, dreamy mood of Vincent van Gogh's “The Starry Night.”
Risso has made rawness a new code for Marni, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and here he did not disguise the fur and shaggy hair of sheepskins, poorly assembled into rough but cool coats, or molded around the head, giving the mind the lawyer wigs. As a counterpoint, he paraded elegant leather capes and buttonless men's suits with glassy, futuristic enthusiasm.
In preparing this collection, Risso said he wallpapered his studio, including the windows, as well as the vaulted space for the show, “to lose all the reference points” and create a blank slate. His crudely typed collection notes went further: “We have returned to an almost animal state.”
The designer said he also banned images in his studio “because we are overstimulated by images all the time. And we don't have time to reflect on them.”
Maybe he should have paid attention to the media furor surrounding his celebrity guest?
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