“Courtney opens the door and she’s wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt and silk-satin d’Orsay pumps…
Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d’Orsay pumps Courtney has on.”
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, 1991
A contrast, a change, an idea of Krizia subtly drawn from the archives but reinterpreted for the twenty-first century. For Fall/Winter 2018 Krizia both celebrates its inimitable heritage, and invents.
The 1980s are the starting point, the height of Krizia’s original influence on international fashion. It inspires both silhouettes, and an idea of power, of aggressive, hard glamour – but also a punk attitude, a mood of subversion. Conventions of luxury are challenged, a flavour of punk paradoxically iterated with fine Italian craftsmanship.
All the time, an interplay of opposite elements energises. Materials from the past are given new shapes, while technical materials are allowed classic forms. The idea of moving onwards results in silhouettes curved subtly forwards, giving animation to shapes.
Kimono volumes lend diversity, oversized versus streamlined and fitted. Blouson jackets and cocoon coats lie against slim-line skirts and trousers; knits are generous but fitted to the hip. Mannish coats are split high on the body and drawn in sharply at the waist, lending a feminine proportion Fabrics are luxurious, but unexpected – silk is mixed with technical fibres in tailoring; eelskin is used for its striking linear patternations.
Krizia’s signature animalier are present, always – revived as inspiration, but never directly reproduced. Now they creep through a jungle of graphic pattern, the collection’s new key motif. Optic designs – flowers, chevrons, graphic stripes, grids – are given three-dimensions through mohair jacquards, flock prints on technical mikado, chintzed macramè lace, or matelassé finishes. In knit, they form a new pattern for intarsia designs, laying flat and rib knit together and further embellished with industrial-inspired embroidery with a hard punk edge.
Krizia glamour emerges via metallic knits and sheer mohair, elegance leant a new easiness, a modern comfort, a contemporaneous lightness. Plissé dresses and separates have a lightness and further embroidered with industrial crystal. A similar play with glamour comes in the form of make-believe furs, a hybrid of fur coat and down jacket in lamb, a classic silhouette made new.
The palette pops with injections of bright shades – red, bright yellow, orange and glistening metallics – contrasting against sharp monochrome. Jewellery is confident, in colorful plexiglass or metallic watch chain mesh manipulated to defy gravity, used to decorate and as practical additions, with silhouettes often transformed through jewellery clips in plexiglass that reengineer proportions. They are bold, uncompromising. Quintessentially Krizia.