For Spring, Andrea Pompilio has stuck to his signature eclecticism, but, perhaps, with a bit more of a social observation broken in. He was thinking of Rimini, on Italy’s Adriatic Coast, in both a nostalgic manner and as it is now, where “the young and the old are sort of both on full display.” (Though this collection definitely skewed younger and more contemporary.) He was also considering his own experience of waiting in line at a gas station, en route to said beach town, and watching the attendants in their uniforms. This memory resulted in a pleasingly color-balanced gray/cobalt/black jacket, with the initials AP stylized and italicized on the chest.
“I think to do something that’s very nice, or beautiful, becomes easy. I like the idea of taking something that might not look so good outright, but then figuring out a way for it to work,” said the designer. This zone, or overlap, is Pompilio’s forte—consider for Spring a knitted vest, featuring a reinterpretation of an ’80s-era tourism ad, over roomy trousers made of the kind of canvas used to stretch beach chairs. A rather opulent oddness, made more so by a suspender cord retooled as a belt. Striped or palm tree–printed short shorts also had this eccentricity apparent, and a bit of a throwback touch, too—the sort of breezy, carefree garment any style-conscious guy now thinks of when it comes to Italian summers, courtesy of Call Me by Your Name. And if a full look may sometimes veer too mixed or too astray, the trick to Pompilio’s output is that, de-styled, the pieces make for fine solo numbers. The mash-ups, rather, are his way of saying we shouldn’t collectively take all of this fashion stuff so damn seriously. And that’s a nice point to walk away with.
