Antonio Marras took to the sea for Spring and came back to dry land with the best collection he's showed for years. Maybe it was the discipline of the color scheme, maybe it was the personal resonance of the theme…ours was not to reason why, ours was simply to enjoy the passing parade, and the music provided by a surf/mariachi quartet, each of them playing in his own little boat floating on a sea of books. A drowned library—a poetic, cinematic image that was one of Marras' most memorable (and he's created some doozies).
The collection combined memories of the fishermen in Alghero in Sardinia, where Marras grew up, with his fanboy feeling for Montgomery Clift as the sailor Prew, adrift on a naval base in From Here to Eternity. Breton stripes, kerchiefs, and berets covered the Alghero waterfront, a boxy linen-weave suit and bird-of-paradise prints evoked Honolulu in the 1940s, the world of From Here… A T-shirt graphic depicted Clift's face surreally encaged in a lighthouse, which was perhaps Marras' way of acknowledging that the actor was notoriously trapped in his own personal torment. (You can jump to conclusions like this with Marras. Promise, you can.)
Literal references dispensed with, the designer used his bottomless appetite for embellishment with admirable restraint this time round. The showiest pieces were cut from Japanese cotton printed with squirming tentacles and overlaid with patches of lace for depth and texture. Overlaid but not overworked, which is where Marras can sometimes go. Otherwise, there was a crispness, an almost military precision, to the navy tailoring and a series of blousons, peacoats, and field jackets. Marras mixed in some womenswear to show how his proposal jumped genders. It looked pretty good, too. And worth more than a footnote were Alberto Fasciani's shoes.
