Some people just can't relax. You wonder if Paul Surridge is one of them. The Z Zegna designer, who presented his sophomore collection this week, mentioned backstage he was thinking of kicking back. "The silhouette is about leisure, about being on holiday, free from the restraints of corporate identity," he said. "Looking at sportswear to create an ideal utopia, a holiday feeling."
So he said. Still, even with the looser silhouettes Surridge said were a nod to the sixties and the Kennedys' Camelot, there was a cool chill that hung over this intriguing collection. Sixties colors like avocado, coral, and lemon brightened up knits and gave a subtle sheen to Solaro suit fabrics, but with a cold kind of light. Surridge mentioned Dan Flavin as an inspiration. His synthetic illumination hit the mark (and, it would seem, influenced the show's set).
The new, boxy suit shape, with its high-cut, four-button jackets, and lopped-off sleeves, took cues from casual shirting, but had a kind of severity, too. So did the elbow-length wide sleeves on shirts and jackets and the wide Bermuda shorts. With their eyes hidden behind polarized sunglasses, these holidaymakers looked like the factory-fresh products of some assembly line of the future, the sort of resonance that reminds you that Utopia and Dystopia are neighboring states. Surridge is an admitted acolyte of Cardin, and a proponent of the supermodern (his word). This felt, to its credit, exactly that.
