Sardinia is the enduring subtext to Antonio Marras’s work. Born and bred in Alghero, a picturesque city on the island’s northwest coast, Marras still lives there with his family most of the time. Sardinia’s culture has an archaic, mythological quality; its indigenous language (don’t call it a dialect!) is a blend of Pre-Latin, Nuragic, Byzantine Greek, Catalan, Spanish, and Punic idiomatic elements, protected by UNESCO as one of Italy’s historical language minorities. No surprise that Sardinian sense of pride is quite pronounced.
“Lately, I’ve been reading Emilio Lussu,” said Marras, explaining the inspiration behind his men’s Fall collection. A Sardinian intellectual and political activist, Lussu was exiled in Paris during the Fascist regime with his wife Joyce Salvadori, an aristocrat and poet. Nostalgia for his homeland was a recurrent theme in his writings, in which he evoked the life of migrating Sardinian shepherds, a community of exceptional horseback hunters with acrobatic skills. “They were seen as magical semi-gods,” explained the designer.
And so for Fall, Marras imagined a British-Sardinian gentleman, fond of hunting with hounds in the wild countryside, but driven by nostalgia and a sense of home. “His style is a mash-up of memories.” A feel of rustic elegance was threaded through the collection, which was focused on outerwear. Peacoats and parkas were patchworked from an array of tweeds, jacquards, corduroy velvets, tartans, and felted wools. Worn inside-out exposing soigné linings, they had oversize, protective proportions; and though they looked sporty and functional, they conveyed the typical Marras flair for eccentric practicality. The British-Sardinian nobleman in question was obviously fond of a dapper touch of tailoring. Indulging in thick, knitted robe de chambre and parading sumptuous brocade tuxedo jackets, he didn't look much like a Sardinian shepherd, but semi-god? Definitely.
