Trussardi Spring Summer 2023, a story about remodelling the House of Trussardi with DNA is non-linear and chaotic with Benjamin A. Huseby & Serhat Işık as Creative Directors of Trusardi. This season is second collection their create for the historic Milanese House.
Magic and healing were once inseparable, and primarily in the hands of women.
Starting in the Early Modern Period, magic—seen as witchcraft—would become eradicated through the persecution of its practitioners during the witch trials. Healing would slowly become commodified into what we know as modern medicine, which from the Industrial Age was primarily practiced by men.
Alongside it, plant lore and our connection to nature was largely lost. In her seminal work ‘Caliban and The Witch’, scholar Silvia Federici writes: “The witch-hunt deepened the divisions between women and men, teaching men to fear the power of women, and destroyed a universe of practices, beliefs, and social subjects.”
She describes how in our aim to control nature, the irrationality of magic had to be supressed: “Above all, magic seemed a form of refusal of work, of insubordination, and an instrument of grassroots resistance to power. The world has to be ‘disenchanted’ in order to be dominated.”
How can we bring a sense of enchantment back to our world? And how can the distant past feel relevant for the present?
In our excavation work while remodelling the house of Trussardi, we view history as non-linear and chaotic. It’s a meeting of past and future, dreams and pragmatism, modernity and heritage, and even magic, reflected in the tarnished mirrors of the gilded and haunted rooms of Palazzo Clerici, where we are presenting our second collection for this historic Milanese house.
—Benjamin A. Huseby & Serhat Işık Creative Directors of Trusardi
COLLECTION NOTES OF TRUSSARDI SPRING SUMMER 2023
A Trussardi wardrobe includes staples of polo shirts, cotton-linen V-neck knits, jeans, jersey draped skirts, cotton shirting, a gossamer nylon long jacket, boxy and lithe linen suiting.
Dresses are cut from fluid, shimmered jersey with twisted necklines and cascading hemlines. Floor-length satin gowns are wrapped around the neck and draped with ruching, slits and volant.
Men’s evening satin trousers are paired with a long shawl-collared dining jacket. Faux embossed crocodile in lustrous chocolate is in a voluminous bomber jacket and ruched mini skirt, Bermuda shirts, and an overshirt and wide-leg pants for men.
A brushed buffalo-effect leather jacket has a rounded, oversized shape. Denim, a signature of the House’s story, is treated with couture finishes: detailed seams, cut-outs, and sculpting constructions. Crystal appliquéd three-dimensional beadings adorn the waist of a pair of fitted jeans, while denim shorts are reimagined, based on an opulent evening piece from the Trussardi archive.
Wedge heeled satin slippers feature greyhound oval-shaped hardware, other wedges have angled inverse metal heels. Chrome greyhound three-dimensional hardware appears to float in a circle around sandals and loafers.
A new hobo bag design, the Meroe, is in black, white or light blue leather and coated canvas combinations with silver greyhound ring hardware and a wide shoulder strap.
The Owena bag is reproposed in glossy patent. A drawstring pouch in yellow satin is inspired by an archive evening bag design from the 90s.
Opalescent and silver chokers and necklaces reveal the sinewy lines of the greyhound, the motif of the House since 1973. A ring spirals around the hand to become a filigree knuckleduster. A set of earrings cast in silver and galvanised with a mother of pearl finish imitate giant Baroque pearls.
APPENDIX
1. The neo-classical 17th century residence of the Clerici family, silk merchants and bankers hailing from Lake Como, reveals a gilded Baroque style room painted with frescos by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1741. On the ceiling, the Chariot of the Sun charts a course through the sky, surrounded by Greek gods. Allegories feature on the sides of the room representing the continents believed then to make up the world—Africa, America, Asia and Europe.
2. Silvia Federici (b. 1942 Parma) is an Italian scholar and professor, based in the US since 1967. Her most famous books are ‘Caliban and The Witch’ (2004), Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2018) Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (2018)
3. Baroque originates from the Portuguese barroco, meaning ‘flawed pearl’. Baroque was a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1740s. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant style.
4. Linen is one of the oldest fabrics, and was used in ancient Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Italy began producing linen in Lombardy at the end of the 19th century, mostly for the home; then tailoring fabrics from the 1930s when men’s linen suits became fashionable.
5. The opening track is ‘Cloudless’ by Cranes.
6. The finale track is ‘Coming’, by Jimmy Sommerville and David Motion, part of the original soundtrack for Sally Potter’s film ‘Orlando’, based on Virginia Woolf’s book about a poet who lives through centuries evading the constraints of both time, age and gender.
All images TRUSSARDI Spring Summer 2023 of TRUSSARDI