Francesca Ruffini owns an extensive collection of silk foulards: “My mother used to wear them all the time, with strands of pearls or as neckerchiefs paired with crisp white shirts,” she explained, highlighting the sentimental nature of her affection for such bourgeois and slightly ladylike “objects of desire.” For Spring, she worked her For Restless Sleepers collection around a kind of virtuoso play on patchwork foulards together in as many iterations as one could possibly conceive.
The imaginative Ruffini came up with a series of charming proposals, breaking free from the pajama template that has defined her label since the beginning. Printed silk squares were patched together in many creative ways: cut in half and then repeated, mirrorlike, on boxy shirts; used whole in different printed motifs, giving shape to roomy, sensual-as-nightgowns dusters with ruffled hems; pieced and assembled in asymmetrical, handkerchief-hemmed skirts. It looked like the most elegant cut-and-paste exercise.
Prints and colors are an integral part of Ruffini’s vision; the time spent researching patterns in textile archives is her favorite. This passion is at the heart of her work, and her taste for inventive, unexpected, and whimsical figurative solutions is rather unique. For Spring, the subjects ranged from her beloved jungle and wild animals (winged zebras, flying pink flamingos, palms, and exotic sunsets) to sophisticated geometric graphics, or else to an esoteric inspiration (tarot cards, insignia, bandanas, and mysterious blooming orchids). It made for a sensuous, maximalist visual mix. Yet what kept things in check, despite the sensory overload that such abundant imagination could induce, was the luscious simplicity of shapes and silhouettes. It’s a finely tuned balance; Ruffini knows how to play it with a sophisticated hand.
