Niccolò Pasqualetti is not one prone to categorizations, but forced to sum up his move to Pitti Uomo to show his spring collection as the fair’s guest designer, one could say it was a menswear debut.
In reality the show — paraded on the rooftop of Florence’s leading theater Cavea del Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with its installation of stone and metal sculptures creating a maze-like pathway for models to snake through — was both less and more than that.
Pasqualetti said in a preview that he just seized the opportunity offered by the fair to expand his fashion vocabulary, turning his sight on codes he hadn’t tackled yet.
But Thursday’s show was also more than an exploration of wardrobe classics. It looked like an envelope-pushing study on form, seen, one must say, through the lens of archetypal men’s clothing — and menswear clichés.
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Without giving up his gender-defying ethos, Pasqualetti infused the collection with an alluring sense of undoneness and roughness, suggesting that his exploration is ongoing.
“All my collections start from an abstract point of view, distilling the attitude of a certain kind of person, which I don’t want to define, but maybe, someone that identifies themselves with a certain archetype,” the designer told WWD.
Here tailored blazers morphed into cape-like outerwear with kimono sleeves cut in different lengths or round-shaped jackets gathered in a swirl at the back and held in place by two holes accommodating the shoulder tips. Sartorial pants came with detachable zippered overskirts, sometime fanning at the back, and were split open around the calf or came with snap buttons holding together the bottom part.
In juxtaposing workwear references, Pasqualetti ticked the trend box of this season’s Pitti Uomo, with fatigue pants in denim and cotton brushed as if speckled with paint, or utilitarian gabardine sleeveless pea coats revealing subtly sensual mesh tops dotted in crystals.
The offbeat touches of swimwear — including bikinis on men — peeking from under sturdy car coats and overalls refreshingly oozed vulnerability, without ever stripping an ounce of masculine charge from the looks.
