MARC AUDIBET AND MILA SCHÖN: INTELLIGENT ELEGANCE FW23-24
Grandeur and rigour. Clothing and decor. Planning and passion. Long-term vision and practical pragmatism. Imagination and realism. Temperament and discretion. Experimenting and streamlining. Fashion has the ability to penetrate and distil concepts from a variety of artistic and architectural inspirations. Creative designer Marc Audibet is the epitome of conceptual elegance and is therefore the natural choice to bring new life to the legacy of Mila Schön, with whom he shares so many subtle connections. «Just like me, Mila envisioned a wardrobe for an international, demanding, and refined clientele. Her models were the essence of simplicity, matched with rigorous and flattering cuts, uplifting the spirit and therefore freeing the body. Contemporary art inspired her to create modern, efficient clothing to bring out an intelligent form of beauty», remarks Audibet. Both strive to achieve comfort and offer new interpretations of elegance through the development of innovative materials and production processes. Marc invented stretch fibres in mono and doubled versions, Mila the mythical doubled fabric. A parallel path to uncover a form of design that enables a healthy and joyous relationship between a woman’s body and the clothes she wears. An elegance that comes across in every line: this is their common, indelible, contribution to fashion. Proof that good ideas, in design as elsewhere, stand up unyielding to time and seasons. Their research is nurtured by « reductionism », a term which is derived from Latin and entails breaking down a complex phenomenon into its building blocks. Working by subtraction, to reach the essence in the combination of lines and forms in sustaining a body in motion – a creation that tends towards the essential as opposed to the spectacular. The collection unfolds in a series of pieces that combine to form a clothing lexicon, adding new items of clothing to create season after season a new lemma. This is exemplified in the project that condenses the philosophy of the “new” Schön style: a handbag – named Shadow – designed with pure, calibrated lines, following the golden ratio and playing on streamlined ovals to provide an organic feel. All completed by dresses and capes in double, delicate cashmere, absolutely modern in their lack of reference to specific genres and therefore potentially suitable for everyone. The large carré – also double – drape around the body as in age-old science statuary, cardigan jackets of various lengths without buttons, and garments with a sporty allure, to mix and match freely. «A textile Lego set, cross-seasonal and with « evolutionary classic » logic», as Audibet describes it. The silhouette is tall, slender, purposely verticalized – for example, thoughtfully placed pockets on the dry and long trousers, straighten the posture, and elevate the head. The end result is more than a sum of individual clothes: the personality of the women who choose them will add a unique touch, further enhanced by the materials – crepe, silk, wool, or even linen, almost all in a double version with unusual combinations. Black dominates the colour palette, like a king. But revolutionary flashes disrupt this reign: flashes of purple, absinth green, coral pink, like in some of the abstract prints inspired by the cuts of Lucio Fontana, of whom Mila Schön was a friend and collector. A collection that is timeless but also very grounded in the present. As Brancusi used to say: «Simplicity is the sister of intelligence». Audibet has made this quote his guiding star. He views simplicity as the outcome of a meticulous and precise construction to achieve an aesthetic as far away as possible from extreme consumerism. Clothes and accessories made to last, that shape a new art of living a simply contemporary dimension. Archetypes, avoiding stereotypes
