The freedom of doing what you really like on your own terms is a luxury not many fashion designers can afford. We all know that today’s fashion world order doesn’t make life easy for those who decide to fly solo, but the rewards are surely worth the effort. At least that’s how it seems looking at Antonio Berardi’s professional trajectory. His company recently went independent, and a refreshed energy has been activated, clearly perceptible in his work.
After relocating to Milan, he opened a showroom that also works as a made-to-measure atelier. Fashion shows have been reduced to a more intimate format. Berardi enjoys the freedom of collaborating with creative friends and artists with a strong point of view. His collections’ lookbooks are treated with the same artsy attitude that editorial projects require. For Pre-Fall he entrusted the lookbook to 27-year-old London-based Swedish photographer and women’s right activist Arvida Byström, whose art practice centers on gender politics. She photographed herself in a series of self-portraits, modeling the collection’s looks.
Byström’s fierce personality and her liberated confidence in celebrating female sexuality clearly fascinated Berardi. He’s drawn to intense, assertive women. “I grew up with feminine role models in my family, unknowingly subversive, and often overlooked, but they were pioneers,” he wrote in the press notes. “I’m lucky to work with women who are trailblazers in every sense. Feminine to the last, but who at close inspection are actually the alpha males of our species.”
While in his fashion shows the celebration of powerful femininity is often indulged through a majestic sculptural theatricality, in the Pre-Fall collection he softened his message with a more youthful spirit. Yet his masterful tailoring technique still did the talking. Berardi’s suits are cut with sharp precision; here, they were proposed in heritage checks or silk and corduroy, the blazers either feminine and fitted at the waist, or masculine and slightly oversize, worn with elliptically cut matching miniskirts. Trapeze opera coats in black silk duchesse or in bright green curly wool had a couture flair, counterbalanced by the sensuous fluidity of short dresses in floral-print crepe de Chine with black Chantilly lace inserts. Berardi’s penchant for immaculate, chiseled shapes was highlighted in short bustier dresses and in high-waisted tutus paired with matching brassieres in sumptuous emerald green brocade. Even a bona fide activist like Byström seemed to enjoy their seductive, hyperfeminine flair. Looking beautiful can actually be rather subversive.
