Busy assistants, models in the middle of fittings, makeup artists and hairdressers in preparation, the American stylist Carlos Nazario who composes silhouettes while scratching his head… Everything indicates that we are on the eve of a fashion show. At the end of September 2023, avenue d’Iéna, in Paris, on the floors of the OTB group, parent company of the Italian brand Marni, checkered coats, striped jackets or pleated knit sweaters in pop shades are used one last time – at the hem, at the buttonhole – or waiting on the racks.
If this atmosphere seems familiar, only twenty-four hours before the presentation of the spring-summer 2024 collection, the decor is surprising. The floor, walls and ceiling were covered with cardboard on which flowers, birds and flights of colors were painted, making the space a sort of box lined with a Marc Chagall-style fresco. “It’s part of our practice. Before tackling the parade, we painted for two days to build a world in this white attic. says Francesco Risso, artistic director of Marni.
The organizer of this colorful universe loves this type of” warming up “, as physical preparation before the performance. To lead his teams into a future collection, he has made a habit, since his appointment in 2016, of setting up this type of workshop, more common in an artistic residency than in the ready-to-wear studio of a globalized brand.
Paint freely; cover an old studio with a canvas on which everyone can draw; do research on the philosophical, sociological or etymological roots of a word and then make a presentation… “These efforts can exhaust us, but we emerge very bonded. This is essential, because one of the joys of working at Marni is doing everything together,” explains the creator.
A quest for joy
Francesco Risso, 42, is a funny character. In a fashion and luxury landscape reluctant to take stylistic risks, in these times of inflation and geopolitical tensions, it stands out. The Italian uses collages, scribble prints, cartoonish details (XXL polka dots, voluminous trapeze coat, scarf or mittens with animal heads, etc.). It capitalizes relatively little on the celebrities who usually obsess marketing departments and does not only parade size 34 or 36 models.
“A guru”, ” a mage “, ” a wizard “, ” a wizard “, frivolous and enlightened, is how those who fell under the spell of his patchwork, colorful and sometimes deliberately disharmonious fashion describe him. Its followers are almost as numerous as its detractors, impervious to a style that they consider to be cobbled together and unbecoming. Francesco Risso, for his part, pleads for audacity and smites reluctance. “This is the contemporary paradox: we live in a world where people claim to be liberal and turn out to be extremely conservative, he grimaces. When you enter a store, you may wonder what this skirt or these funny pants are. What matters is that you ask yourself questions. »
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