The House of Emilio Pucci has emerged from the lockdown with a fresh start. Resort was designed by a newly appointed design team, but the reset actually began last season, when it was announced that going forward the LVMH-owned label will be guest-edited by different creatives, following a flexible schedule with no fixed frequency. The first designer was Christelle Kocher, who in her fall collection, presented just before the outbreak, found common ground in the sporty approach she shares with the late Marchese Pucci. The experiment looked promising.
Rotating star designers can surely give caché and cool to the Florentine label, but customers need to find a consistent, desirable, and most of all recognizable Pucci collection in the stores all year round. Hence a pragmatic move had to follow the fall’s solo performance; the new design team has been entrusted, as the press notes say, to “reinterpret the Pucci identity for today.” Not an easy task, as fashion is undergoing a sort of identity crisis, shaken by not only the recent pandemic, but by social unrest, issues of diversity and inclusivity, and a set of rules apparently ready to be rewritten. Clients’ needs and desires are also rather enigmatic and difficult to anticipate. Challenged by such unstable circumstances, designers and labels are trying to strengthen the focus on the values they represent (if indeed they have any). New, younger customers have to be given not only an authentic reason to buy, but the feel of belonging to a community.
In this context, the resort collection, seen in person in the showroom, read as a sort of palate-cleanser, putting Pucci’s classic codes center stage in a simple, unfussy way. What the label stands for is a lifestyle of high-spirited good times and joie de vivre: a chic, uncomplicated, upbeat look where gorgeous colors and unique, collectible prints do the talking, while shapes are kept almost elemental, easy to wear and to travel with. It sounds like a simple recipe, but simplicity is apparently much more elusive to achieve than complication—especially in fashion.
In keeping with the post-pandemic principles of reduction and eradicating waste, the offer was streamlined and edited, and the design sensibility was considerate, light-handed, and feminine. Delicate pastel colors—dusty pink, primrose yellow, powder blue—tied together a series of Pucci staples including caftans, silk twill pajamas, Capri pants and leggings, and the famous T-shirt dresses beloved by Marilyn Monroe. The archival prints paid homage to the label’s roots and were given a hand-drawn feel that looked fresh. Feathers sparsely applied to long, fluid shirtdresses for evening introduced a touch of chic glamour—an allure the house founder mastered with ease, as it was inherently appreciated by the jet set whose lifestyle he shared. Today’s Pucci has to find the key to trigger desire through a clear tone of voice on a very different, much more challenging world stage.
