It isn’t easy to keep pace with the head-spinning narrative Efisio Rocco Marras packs into just a few racks of clothes, a penchant unsurprisingly inherited from his father, Antonio. For Resort, the I'm Isola Marras collection’s genesis apparently revealed itself in Efisio’s Sardinian aunt Tetenne’s kitchen, where a checkered tablecloth was perennially laid out on the table. Tripping on that madeleine, the young designer grounded his visuals on a grid pattern, which he proceeded to disrupt by drawing a cartoonish, oversize ear of corn motif. From there, he juggled and layered a medley of themes, his inspiration traveling from his native Sardinia, eventually landing in The Virgin Suicides’ territory of the U.S. Midwest.
As incongruous as it may sound, this pastiche somehow gelled in a quite cohesive lineup of street style–inspired pieces, twisted with an inventive decorative streak and an amusing touch of romance, as seen on tiered and flounced checkered cotton skirts and virginal eyelet dresses. The young Marras certainly doesn’t lack energy, which was well on display in oversize knitted sweatshirts rendered in neon-colored blown-up cow prints. Bold yellow-coated patches were splashed onto dark denim dungarees or onto high-waisted, straight-leg jeans. A short biker jacket tattooed with a Japanese pond filled with swimming koi and lotus flowers was slightly more sedate, worn over an ingenue’s floral-printed ruffled minidress. Yet the irreverent Marras’s sense of humor could be tamed just up to a point. Grant Wood’s famous painting, American Gothic, was given the tongue-in-cheek treatment: The severe-looking lady in the black apron was transformed into a sexy vixen wrapped in a leopard-printed leotard, while the gaunt farmer’s pitchfork became a selfie stick, held by a macho type in a T-shirt.
