Growing up in the small seaside town of Alghero, in Sardinia, Antonio Marras spent many afternoons at the local movie theater. He became an obsessive film lover, and movies have subsequently fueled his prolific imagination and nurtured a fascination for visual narrative. Being a tailor’s son with an ingrained fondness for fashion, it came naturally to him to turn frocks and fineries into cinematic tales, the more epic and romantic the better.
One of the stories that left a strong impression on the young Marras was The Beguiled, the 1971 gothic drama directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. Sofia Coppola just remade that quite perverse story, scoring a best director’s award at the Cannes Film Festival along the way. Yet Marras referred only to the original version, which for him held a sentimental flavor: “Clint Eastwood was at his handsomest self; at that time I was just transfixed,” he said. So for Spring he decided to eat his madeleine and tell the adventures of a soldier at war somewhere far from his beloved Sardinia and his mamma (he’s clearly an Italian soldier), and longing for his fiancée, who, by the way, just happens to be the nostalgic girl already depicted in Marras’s women’s Resort collection.
Marras’s soldier has a more fashion-conscious streak than Eastwood did in that movie. “He drags about a large travel bag with lots of memorabilia, scraps of cloth, passementeries, trimmings, old buttons. He sits and waits and remembers; to fend off melancholia, he starts making clothes for himself, haphazardly patching decorations and embroideries on sweaters, jackets, and pants made of crinkled fabrics,” narrated Marras. For a DIY soldier, he actually looked quite handsomely turned out.
The Spring collection had a retro feel, with slightly oversize suits; worn with waistcoats and ruched shirts, they exuded a nostalgic elegance. Denim single-breasted jackets with 3-D appliqués were tucked into roomy trousers, and allover floral prints had a feminine flair, in evidence on generous silk shirts or ensembles. Macramé patches were scattered on zippered bombers, fitted formal blazers, and safari jackets. As single pieces, they could add a poetic, gentle flair to the most streamlined masculine wardrobe—which is, of course, the antithesis of everything Antonio Marras stands for.
