Cerruti 1881 Paris

 

CERRUTI 1881 

PARIS

SPRING-SUMMER 2015

Dawn in the desert.  A car journey from Palm Springs to L.A.  A Journey where direct routes are spurned, where time and space give way to instinct, to desire and passion, guided only by the horizon and the sense of freedom which will lead to a personal destination.

The new Cerruti 1881 Paris collection recounts this journey and captures the feeling of light-mindedness transforming it into something tangible.  Aldo Maria Camillo pursues the essence of the contemporary Cerruti style, outlining a man capable of combining rigour with softness, discipline with abandonment.  He recognizes emotive and aesthetic fluidity as a characteristic of the present day, offering an interpretation drenched in sensuality, subtle yet palpable.

Freedom:  weightlessness, the air, which slips between the body and the clothes, that disrupts rules and protocols and creates a peaceful yet inexorable clash between tailoring and sportswear.  Sophisticated ease, which is an intrinsic part of the DNA of the fashion house, is explored from a new angle, gently taking root in the present moment.

The silhouette is flowing:  airy and athletic, defined by voluminous dust coats, shirt-collar jackets, multi-materic bomber jackets and parkas, soft trousers that are gathered at the bottom, and tailored Bermuda shorts.  Even formal attire is worn with long shirts that soften and lighten the look;  suits made from delicate material slip over the body without constraining it.  Jackets become sleeveless waistcoats, lending absolute nonchalance to the look;  emphasizing the shoulders like sports tanks.

 Freedom:  to be open to cross-contamination.  Surfer meets city dweller:  the printed silk and voile scarves that look as though they’ve been retrieved from the back of an old shop in L.A., are inlaid and assembled onto patchworks in an eclectic libertarian fashion.  Palm jacquards run through jumpers, worn inside-out as a purely tactile and visual suggestion.  Hybrid shoes and utility sandals complete the search for a natural look.

The chromatic trajectory starts with natural tones – sand, sage, tobacco, wood – either plain or as a background for dark checks, charges up with flashes of lemon, red, electric blue and orange, and then tones down into dusty hues. Asphalt grey is the disruptive element to the whole look;   it suggests the norm, a reference point to be respected and reinterpreted.  The world of Cerruti is alwas about idiosyncratic and personal choices.

Materials are innovative yet they retain a classic spirit:  the fruit of extensive and daring research.  They are firm yet airy-mohair mixtures, gauzes made from tartan wools – a reinvention of archive patterns from the Cerruti wool mills – combination of wool and viscose, ultralight silks and nylons, technical wools, voile and cotton muslins.

The journey as an expression of a more personal elegance, full of elements left open to interpretation.  Because codes are there to guide, just like the highway leads faster to destination, but finding one’s own path is a question of attitude, and it makes you strong enough to take on a journey, even without a roadmap.