The weight of Pringle of Scotland's long history caused creative director Massimo Nicosia to feel some pressure this season, he revealed backstage before the show. To get into the mood, he headed out on a kind of grand tour, starting in Rome and ending in Edinburgh, via Florence, Venice, Antwerp, and so on. On the way he collected techniques and materials, old and new. "I don't approach knit as a knitwear designer," Nicosia said. "I'm investigating and designing from other areas, and today we can use revolutionary techniques as well as ancient ones."
As in previous seasons, Nicosia used 3-D print, this time mixed with cashmere interlacing on a white jumper. He also turned knitwear into tailoring, in pieces like the black coat that opened the show. A black argyle sweater turned out to be trompe l'oeil, shaved and carved mink. There is a clear trend today for adding fur or leather to almost anything to make items more luxurious, and there's no question there's a customer for it (just visit Hôtel Costes during any of the fashion weeks). But doing so runs the risk of coming across a bit gratuitous. While a shaved-mink argyle knit does sound remarkable, you might stop to ponder it and ask yourself, "Why?"—but maybe that's not a fashionable question these days.
Nicosia is a designer who's confident in pushing boundaries when it comes to what knitwear is and can be, and you can't help but stand in awe of what's being accomplished at Pringle of Scotland these days. There was, for example, the tapestry Nicosia found in Edinburgh ("though perhaps it is Flemish rather than Scottish," he said), which he reworked into a camouflage pattern and a knitted digital print. He also used old looms to make a woven knit, and created a pleated effect on a white top and a chain mail knit layer on one of the jumpers. It was all very impressive, a virtuoso performance, and yet you wondered if it wasn't the big, chunky cardigans—especially the salt-and-pepper one—that looked the most desirable.
