"Obsession is the best name ever for a perfume," Italo Zucchelli declared today as he revealed the secret in his new collection for Calvin Klein. He'd been thinking about the way artist Ed Ruscha uses words in his work, and he felt it was a good moment to do something similar. Presto! Sweatshirts appliquéd with Obsession, Escape, and Eternity, words Zucchelli loves, which just happen to be the monikers of Calvin's best-selling perfumes.
It could have come across as cheesy cross-promotion, but in the context of the show Zucchelli presented, the words took on some interesting personal shadings. Obsession, for instance: The collection was testament to Zucchelli's obsessive pursuit of a masculine ideal. Square of jaw and shoulder, his models were streamlined in head-to-toe black or charcoal or camel, the outfits layered—two bombers, three shirts—to lend them a monumental quality. Escape? Well, Zucchelli's men seemed slightly unreal, an elite squadron engineered for perfection somewhere in the future. Maybe that was because of the military feel in some of the massive outerwear, but it was also down to the deliberate modernism of the fabrics and treatments that Zucchelli is drawn to.
And Eternity? The designer modestly described his new collection as urban workwear, but it was also a consummate expression of the eternal verities luxe, calme et volupté.
