If all goes according to plan, Canali should be approaching the end of its period of transition. Today’s presentation at the Palazzo Ximenes in Florence was cut from the traditional cloth of this 1934-founded tailoring brand. A band played peppy soft jazz in the garden while models in pith helmet–shaped white cotton hats lounged within a tableau vivant pretending to mix cocktails, play checkers, and discuss literature as they eyed Canali-branded bikes. The clothes were impeccable, The Talented Mr. Ripley neat, and subtly mixed the conventionally formal with the conventionally informal. Cream suede jackets sat over knitted polos over sharply tailored pants. Bermuda shorts were worn under jersey tailored jackets under a half-length, drawstring-cinched crispy cotton parka. The color story was a quietly complementary mélange of neutrals.
This season, however, the Canali story had a new, second phase. It begins in the lookbook attached to this review when the surface of the ground in the images changes from green to white. This was the first full expression of a new version of Canali with the label Black Edition, which will be unrolled formally at a presentation in Milan next Saturday night but is getting its first airing here. Decidedly less organic and more industrial than Canali’s core fare, this new line seemed titled at a markedly different demographic and region, but was carefully mustered. T-shirts and track jackets with laser-etched, newly fonted logos beneath mesh panels were highlights in a mostly monochrome suite of clothing and accessories that was also especially notable for its lack of a tailored shoulder. This is the brand’s tentative first step in a new direction, and it will be interesting to see where that leads.
