When her Italian fabric mills shut down in March, Marina Moscone could have thrown in the towel and skipped the resort season altogether. How could she make a full collection without those gorgeous custom textiles? Instead, she took matters into her own resourceful hands and bought a wooden loom, set it up in her apartment, and got to work. She experimented with a variety of weaving techniques and used leftover cashmere, silk, cotton, and wool yarns to weave dresses and tunics from start to finish. It was a slow, entirely hand-made process that filled most of her days. When she completed a woven panel, she then knitted it into others to become a single, seamless piece; even on a grainy Zoom call, the quality was remarkable. For some looks, she let the yarns unravel from tight weaves into a fringe, and on others, she spliced in bias-cut panels of silk, like a color-blocked ivory and coral sheath.
Those dresses were beautiful regardless of current events, but they also captured many of the emotions and limitations we’ve felt over the past few months. They’re some of the only garments we’ve seen (albeit virtually) that accurately reflect the times they were created in. Every loop of yarn reveals the designer’s hand, and in spite of the painstaking craftsmanship, there’s a casualness that feels right for the moment. Moscone’s instincts for humble, “nurturing” materials and low-key shapes will align with her customers’ needs, but the sleek silhouettes avoided the hygge or “elevated loungewear” tropes we’ve seen so much of.
Her signature curvy tailoring has a different attitude than those all-woven items; the most interesting looks combined the two. A sculpted black blazer came with a red woven panel—sort of an abbreviated belt—that buttoned into the front or could be removed entirely. Of the two evening dresses she made, the creamy quilted one stood out, cut from leftover satin that Moscone had hand-felted to create the texture. It merged her dual passions for sumptuous materials and handwork, and its squared-off seams inspired her team to cannily name it the “armor dress.”
