After pausing to give his wife, Patrizia, a fervently Italian squeeze (you’d get slapped for that anywhere else), Antonio Marras contemplated his board and said: “I start with the simple lines and the simple shapes. But in the end I think normality is too boring. I prefer eccentricity.” As do the Marras-ophiles who flocked backstage after this well-received show. You can see why. Season in, season out, he delivers variations on a template, though with Marras, sameness is a virtue that reflects a depth of imagination, not its absence. His vision is dense, delightful, and particular to him.
The Spring ’16 collection was touched by the work of the state-imprisoned Soviet-era Armenian director Sergei Parajanov. The fruit left on the front row was a nod to Parajanov’s 1969 film, The Color of Pomegranates; the broken-plate print on the first three looks reflected his work, while the richly dun palette, ornamented headpieces, and occasionally literal swerves into a broad-belted, full-skirted, folk-dress silhouette nodded to the culture Parajanov was persecuted for propagating. As was a carpet-backed set of 14 Styrofoam boulders twined to the ceiling, two of which were mysteriously elevated for a rush-to-the-cameras finale of models in refashioned vintage white shirts and dresses studded with stones and layered with embroidery.
The mass of the collection was Marras’s signature dervish concatenation of tiered apron dresses, full skirts, wide pants, and frock-coats splattered with broderie anglaise, embroidered patchwork, printed panels, beading, tweed, and sequined appliqués. There was a lovely fil coupe stamped with plated-print circles of tarnished gold, silver, and bronze. The shoes ran a gamut from fabulous wood-soled platform sandals to bullet-toed embellished sneakers. With very few exceptions, this was a collection that looked easy to wear but was hard not to stare at. As Marras put it: “I like a lot of things, together.”
