The feeling of lightness that has pervaded Milan Fashion Week continued at Emilio Pucci. Under the stewardship of a new design team, first installed for resort 2021, the label has shirked the quirkiness of its Massimo Giorgetti days and the sex appeal of Peter Dundas’s reign. Instead the brand is emphasizing a purity of print and form—ideas, they relay, that were at the core of founder Emilio Pucci’s original vision.
In a palette of summer sorbettos, the spring 2021 collection is a distillation of Pucci’s signature prints and ’60s silhouettes into a simple statement of intent. The Canzone del Mare pattern, one of Emilio Pucci’s earliest, drawn from the Capri seaside, was imagined in delicate embroideries on sheer silks and organzas. The brand’s more recognizable—at least to a global audience—swirls were produced in the palest, tenderest hues. Silhouettes were minimal—nodding to the sleekness of Pucci’s ’60s heyday—and there were plenty of solid-color pieces too. The team stressed Emilio’s reputation for monochrome looks. The goal was not to dampen the Pucci vibrancy but to reform it for our contemporary moment.
Pucci’s new rotating designer system, in which creatives like Tomo Koizumi and Christelle Kocher Pucci-fy their signatures in capsule collections, helps demonstrate the brand’s potential in the modern world. But the main collection has come far as well. In its peculiar simplicity, it presents a vision that feels right for this bizarre new world: a small dose of escapism and comfort.
