A few hours before Trussardi debuted its first collection by GmbH design duo Serhat Işık and Benjamin A. Huseby, swashbuckling thigh boots were being ferried to the roof for spray-painting.
Squint a little at the run-of-show pinned to a board two flights down and you might think you are looking at avatars from some dystopian video game melding the medieval and the futuristic.
Suffice it to say, it’s a new day at the historic Milanese brand, founded 111 years ago, and now bristling with the underground energy and edgy tailoring that Berlin-based Işık and Huseby bring to the table.
Like the late founder Nicola Trussardi, who staged fashion shows in the Piazza Duomo and was always closely connected to Milan, the two designers said they closely studied what is being worn on the city’s streets today. The ubiquitous lightweight puffer jackets and skinny jeans revulsed them, and so they challenged themselves to create versions to their liking: the former transformed into a puckered blouson or a swallowtail coat; the latter erupting into flares, sprouting utility pockets and a waistband reminiscent of a castle’s battlement. Both seemed a little forced, but their proposed narrative for the brand — an interplay between fantasy and reality, history and the present — has promise.
The superhero shoulders echoed the power dressing gathering steam this season, as models whisked through the under-construction Trussardi boutique. Here was another show testing one’s physical endurance, the bone-shuddering music played loud enough to ripple the silvery panels lining the runway. One guest spotted ceiling plaster loosened by the sub bass; several plugged their ears.
The designers acknowledged the protective allure of their gloomy, mostly black Trussardi clothes, from the hoods worn by men and women — also a commentary on hijab prohibitions — to the imposing caftans that closed the show, trains dragging behind the models.
Wraparound mirrored sunglasses with the brand’s new ouroboros logo at the temples were undeniably cool.
