Luchino Magliano’s inaugural present was held at Pitti Uomo 5 years in the past. Fashions walked round a heap of pink roses, a type of totem signaling the potent romanticism that also imbues the designer’s ethos and aesthetic. Immediately’s present in Florence marked a homecoming for the designer; it was staged within the huge Nelson Mandela Discussion board, a preferred venue for concert events, sports activities, and occasions, which Magliano by some means managed to immerse in his trademark darkish, moody environment.

This time, the heap of roses was changed by a special totem: a grand staircase that acted as a reference to camp, cinematic glamour, and as a type of political metaphor between excessive and low, prime and backside, hellish abysses of social despair and heavenly altitudes of privilege. As Magliano put it, “the ladder is a tool of pressure, but additionally embeds the thought of the queer kermesse.”

The monumental architectural staircase of Rome’s Campidoglio filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky in his 1983 film Nostalghia featured on the present’s moodboard—nostalgia meant not as a passive sentiment of longing, however slightly because the burning need for one thing misplaced that prompts emotional depth. It’s a sense that has reverberated in Magliano’s observe from day one, along with a cocky sense of nerve. It’s a passionate, defiant internal posture that he shares with the late feminist lesbian poet Patrizia Cavalli, whose stylish portrait sporting a boyish outsized turtleneck was additionally plastered on the moodboard, along with pictures of Italian actress Anna Magnani and the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven.

It wasn’t a coincidence that each one the references have been feminine. “It has to do with the way in which we interpret the idea of ‘basic’ as an overextended female type,” stated Magliano. “Being at Pitti means reflecting on the thought of basic, and our take is female, a type of new impartial that belongs to homosexual identities and to the queer tradition. As designers, I strongly imagine we’ve got the accountability of addressing the binary discourse, of liberating the wardrobe from binary stereotypes.”

Fluidity, a way of undoneness, melton particulars nearly dissolving inside clothes; volumes collapsing with voluptuous contentment, colours as elusive and foggy as these present in Giorgio Morandi’s eerily serene nature morte work—the gathering was a joyous sabotage of acquainted staples and shapes, unfolding at a relaxed, but intense tempo. “We interpret the classics taking chaos into consideration,” he defined.

Collaborations with custodians of radical Italian savior faire put Magliano’s iconoclastic spirit to the check. Workshops with the Neapolitan grasp tailors at Kiton offered a few slouchy-chic hand-crafted fits, whereas hat maker Borsalino was referred to as in to create just a few quirky hats. “Worlds apparently allergic to at least one one other can carry a few progressive cultural and visible trade,” philosophized the designer.

The 2 male references Magliano addressed have been Giorgio Armani and Leonardo da Vinci. “Armani is the one designer who has performed a constant tackle the non-binary wardrobe, treating the masculine and the female as overlapping components mixing with one another with supreme ease—we discover it totally pertinent and obligatory at this time,” he defined. As for Da Vinci, he’s a queer icon, as he divided his personal life between a feminine and a masculine companion. Magliano launched a graphic that learn, “Leonardo, she’s considered one of us.” “It isn’t a provocation, however a gesture of liberation,” he stated. “I needed to liberate him/her from the binary weight of historical past.”