“It’s no coincidence the last show was titled Flux,” said Marco De Vincenzo during a pre-fall preview. “Etro’s codes never sit still. There’s no true seasonality; the elements seem to flow into a composition that feels familiar yet new and intriguing.”
After the bold color riot he staged for spring, De Vincenzo moved into a darker autumnal mood here. He imagined a warm, enveloping environment, in both atmosphere and hue, with browns dissolving into deep forest greens and the occasional flicker of brightness. Some garments were softly dégradé, as if the prints muted into streaks of color, or into abstract floral wallpapers. The lookbook’s set echoed this feeling, recalling the hush of a country interior, its soft tones eventually slipping into inky black.
The first look was a crash course in Etro-logy: a striped poplin shirt upgraded with jacquard, worn under a brocade corset flaunting the house’s flair for textile drama, with wide tartan trousers nodding to its masculine roots. Coats carried the off-duty ease of loungewear, while structure was mostly saved for sharply tailored, masculine-leaning jackets. Elsewhere, the collection loosened up: plenty of flou, airy floral dresses tiered and ruched, overprinted trenches lined with tartan, hand-embroidered knits stitched with threads and beads, and jeans boasting sumptuous velvet intarsia.
A series of body-conscious evening dresses introduced a note of daring, and sumptuous tapestry capes in animalier prints felt like something the Marchesa Casati herself might have worn. “Her spirit just came up while we were designing those patch-worked blanket coats,” said De Vincenzo. A dark, decadent eccentric, she once famously roamed Venice with cheetahs in tow and a snake worn as a necklace.
