The lockdown has apparently unlocked the Renaissance man inside Pierpaolo Piccioli. He’s adding photography to his résumé of creative skills, which the confinement, spent in his hometown of Nettuno, Italy, seems to have amplified. “I never stopped working,” he said during a Zoom call. “I profoundly love what I do; this is my passion, something fundamental for me—it isn’t just work.” The resort collection is the byproduct of the time spent alone drawing and painting, while remaining connected with his team. Going full circle in the creative process, he decided to lens the collection himself, enlisting his longtime friend, the model Mariacarla Boscono. “I wanted to convey spontaneity and truth, even imperfection—but it’s the feel of human imperfection you long for right now,” he explained. “The collection was born out of flat drawings—paper and pencil, no styling, no mood board, just researching on paper shapes that linger in your head. A pure fashion process, as it should be done.”
The human quality of creativity is paramount to Piccioli’s practice. He has imbued the rarefied world of couture with emotional values—exposing and revealing its craft and handmade processes, and shining a light on his team of seamstresses and artisans as essential players behind his fabulous creations. This center still firmly holds. “I wanted [to communicate] something even more personal, very close to myself. Conveying a sense of intimacy, a sentiment of individual connection, of emotion. I decided to photograph the collection myself because it seemed more coherent in this moment to send out a message with no filters, no manipulation, no other interpretation or mediation. I didn’t want the usual glamour of a fashion shoot,” he continued. “What I was interested in focusing on was what I’ve missed most in this confinement— the simple feeling of human connection, of shared love and friendship. This is what I wanted to bring about in my images.”
Not surprisingly, simplicity is the collection’s key word. “It’s a radical simplicity though,” reflected Piccioli. “I wanted to be even more radical, in that the simplicity I’ve tried to achieve in shapes, volumes, and construction comes at the end of a process of resolved complexities. It’s a study and a project on cut, proportions, balance. Reducing and subtracting to reach the core, something essential and pure—but not more banal. Simple, not simplified.” There’s an ease and a fluidity of movement, a feel for freedom and effortlessness exuding from the lean silhouettes of caftans, elongated shift dresses, capes, and separates. Defined by strong, solid colors inspired by Rothko’s chromatically powerful palette, pure shapes were infused with a vibrant, joyful flair. A few prints inspired by 18th-century tapestries were rendered as inconspicuous abstract strokes of color, as if they were just traces of memories, or shadows of the decorative motifs’ former selves.
The reductionist approach, while consistently enforced in the construction of the clothes, was loosened up a notch for the accessory line, Atelier. The house’s couture signifiers—feminine bows, ruffles and frills, flounces, flower petals—were translated on everyday staples like straw hats, huge shopping bags, and flat beach sandals. It was a clever way of highlighting identity without overtly reverting to logos: “I can’t bear the idea of exclusivity,” Piccioli clarified. “What I like is uniqueness.”
And what’s more unique than a dear friend you’ve known and loved for years? “Mariacarla and I, we go back a long way,” he said. A spontaneous energy radiates from the images, shot by Piccioli in the natural surroundings of his home: a lake where he goes swimming; a sulfur mine where Pier Paolo Pasolini shot some scenes from his 1964 movie Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo. There’s a palpable sense of intimacy and of a familiar bond between photographer and model. Again, individuality and humanity are the pivots around which the collection, which was designed to appeal to both genders, came alive. “The approach is rather crossover conceptually,” Piccioli said. Lucas El Bali was the male model who joined Boscono for the shoot.
Piccioli has been exploring the gender equality theme for quite some time, giving it full exposure in his fall collection presented in Paris before the lockdown. With social movements dramatically reframing the conversation around justice and human rights, one wonders what the place of fashion is. What’s its relevance today, which role can it play? “As a designer, I feel I have not only a creative responsibility, but an ethical one,” he said. “Fashion has to convey shared values and not stereotypes, and an idea of community. Young customers buying a T-shirt they like are also buying the values that T-shirt represents. They have to appreciate the human value behind that T-shirt. Today, creativity has to communicate a more human message—as designers, our duty is to convey an idea of beauty which is deeply related to the times we’re living in. If we deny the social moment, it’s like doing just half of what’s expected of our work. I’m not interested in fashion as just marketing—what I’m interested in is fashion as a creative expression of a deep sense of humanity. I believe that fashion is still relevant. It’s an industry that provides jobs for so many people—and I feel truly responsible for this ethical aspect. On the other hand, I believe fashion has to make us dream, engaging us with its emotional narrative,” he reflected. “But there must be awareness of what’s behind it and of the values it represents. Dreams and lightness, yes—but superficiality, no.”
