Francesco Risso, who has just departed Marni, is chatting to me from his car which was parked in some nondescript lot in Milan. Despite the major life change, he’s in very good spirits. The call location is typical Risso; as he has so richly and memorably demonstrated in his near-decade at the Italian label, he has always been taking us to places we least expected to go. That said, his very first ever collection for Marni, pre-fall 2017, arriving at the label after years of working for Miuccia Prada, was pretty much in the same realm as it was under the creative stewardship of its founder Consuelo Castiglioni; lots of ladylike florals, 1930s dresses, technicolor duffel coats, stripey tights and foulards, and a bit of geometric bijoux here and there. Risso and I chatted in late January 2017 in Paris where he was previewing that debut of his, and it was telling that one of his favorite things from Castiglioni-era Marni were the gargantuan furry gauntlets she did for fall 2009. He put them in his debut in a lurid Kermit green fur; perfect for some plushie cosplay.
Those gloves were quirky, humorous, witty, and leftfield—in essence, what would become the defining qualities of his Marni. ‘Oh, I can give you what you’re expecting, but let’s go on an adventure instead’ was his mantra—and then some. Over the course of his time at the label, Risso gave us: radically patchworked principessa cocktail dresses; mohair in stripes of every persuasion; clothing that looked like it had been dipped in plaster; cult-y, aciiiiiid, rave-in-a-field velvet jeans; paint sloshed tailoring; and, derelict chic ballgowns fit for a Mad Hatter’s tea party. It was artisanal fashion of the experimental and expressive variety, hardwired to the emotions of its mercurial creator.
The show backdrops could be just as unexpected. Risso presented his collections not only in Milan—most memorably spring 2022 in a barely-out-of-the-pandemic September 2021 when he outfitted the entire audience in the label and had his now good friend Dev Hynes on choral duties—but as a merry band traveling caravan which variously alighted in New York, Paris, and Tokyo; creative wanderlust turned actual wanderlust. That Risso could do all of this was because of the support of Renzo Rosso of OTB [Only The Brave], the parent group of Marni; as with the other designers who have been in Rosso’s stable—John Galliano at Maison Margiela, say, or Glenn Martens at Diesel—he was encouraged to be as daringly creative as possible.
It seems fitting that Risso and I are chatting about his departure from Marni, just as we did his arrival; a full-circle moment, coming at a time when the industry is being upended every which way. He’d something to say on that. And he’d plenty more to say on how much he loved his role at the label, and why he’d been so passionate about finding new ways to work while he was there. Risso tended to reject the star system that placed the designer at the very pinnacle of a brand. Oftentimes, I thought, he was looking to decenter himself; push everything forward artistically, yes, but acknowledge everyone in his community who was working with him, too. It was never about just him. I told that to the Pratt graduating class last year when I had to go pick up an award from the school on his behalf; he’d been mentoring the students, and teaching, he said to me, is something he’d like to do more of going forward. But that’s for the future, or at least one of his futures. For now, Risso is content to reflect on all that’s happened since Marni came into his life. And the reaction to his departure, the outpouring of good wishes in its wake, has touched him enormously. “The flood of affection has left me, yes, me, momentarily stunned,” Risso says. “And I’m not easily stunned.”
Francesco Risso: Mark, do you remember, you were the first to interview me? And you know, you made a beautiful comparison I have always been grateful for.
Mark Holgate: I did?!
You said I looked like a character out of a Pasolini movie, and that interview was an amazing calling card when I wanted to meet John Waters. I’m a huge idol of John’s, and funnily enough, the first time he and I talked he told me, ‘Oh I am reading this interview with you on my couch in Baltimore, and I am sitting in front of this painting of Pasolini’. He told me that he and Divine would sit in front of it! So I still have your quote as a great memory which brought me something incredible. John is incredible; one of my favorite directors, writers, and speakers and it’s always fun to listen to him. However, I would say he’s very cynical about fashion.
That’s something I never thought you could be. Honest about fashion, yes; cynical, no. So, Francesco, congratulations on your decade at Marni; what a thrilling, wonderful rollercoaster ride it was. Can you tell me a little bit about where your head is now, what you’re thinking and feeling, about your time with the label?
First of all, I am filled with gratitude for all the years I had with Marni. I was so young when I arrived; I grew up there. And for me, gratitude is maybe one of the most celebratory states of mind. It’s been good for me to contemplate, to dive in, to my time there, very emotional. Yet we’re living in a very particular time; a very, very strange, confusing, and I believe tough time. And I had this desire to somehow reconnect with myself, and be able to stand on my own two feet. It felt like the perfect time, because of all the phases and challenges of the last few years in the world, starting with Covid in 2020.
It came from empathizing about the state [the world] is in. I really needed a moment of reflection and a moment in which I would love to shake up even more how I will work in the future. How do you say it? That it can’t just be the same old, same old? I want to work with a different kind of approach, to re-set my head completely, even if the Marni world has been so fulfilling for me.
But in this particular time of suffering and difficulties, maybe there are ways fashion should be looked at as a little less exclusive, a little less closed off; to be empathetic to what’s going on. And I’m ready for that new challenge.
Well, it does feel like we’re in a world where we wake up every day having to figure it out anew!
Exactly. I’m thinking that too, and it’s not because I am disappointed in my time at Marni. Not at all. I just want to question the old paradigm. I am 40 and I didn’t want to get to 50 thinking that I haven’t tried to do that. It’s not that I still don’t want to do spectacular shows, or make the most incredible things with artistic expression, because one of the main reasons I do what I do is to make people happy. The system we created at Marni, the people who walked in the shows, the people that were making the music for them, they all informed my work and it became us literally traveling around in a caravan. I am just feeling that happiness is too ephemeral [right now]. I don’t want it to be like that. I am hugely passionate about things from history, things which have permanence, and legacy. I was reading an amazing interview with Valentino’s partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, and he was talking about all of the changes, and how it doesn’t necessarily mean you will ever create a legacy. I was very inspired by that.
In terms of your legacy at Marni, you were very open to being collaborative, Francesco.
I’ve always been like that. I have two moons tattooed on my hands, which was the most painful thing I’ve ever done in my life, to remind myself of symbiotic vision. And maybe it’s because, I don’t know, I had a crazy family that I escaped from when I was really young. So out of that has come a strong desire for unity and this need to live and share and experience things together. I never wanted to exist in any ivory tower. I always want to get dirty, and to do the job and I want to do it with people. I don’t think that the existence of a brand has to necessarily exist through the uber existence of a celebrity designer. The product should speak. Ideas should speak. There are so many things that should come first before you do.
As you look back over your time at Marni, who has been particularly important to you?
FR: Renzo [Rosso, owner of Marni parent company OTB] is of course pivotal. He led me to this incredible place. Renzo believed in me—on and on and on. I want to name him first because he let me create this jewel with such freedom. He saw something in me, and I am so thankful as I ve learned so much from him. Eliana, my right arm. Lawrence [Steele, Risso’s former partner], who’s actually here with me right now. And of course, Paloma [Elsesser]; one day she wrote to me and she told me I would love to walk in your show, and I said yes, please come, run here! All the lessons she gave me in life, as a human being: we need more Palomas in fashion, for sure. And Dev [Hynes]: I will treasure some moments with him that are going to be with me till I am dead!
He has been my cello godfather, composing music from my words, and the addition of that musical dimension gave Marni a sound language which brought so much emotion. I mean, he has become like a brother to me.
You were also so supportive of young designers; you collaborated on a video with Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour, and have befriended Charles Jeffrey. Lots of designers who are established speak about their admiration for up and coming designers…
...but they won’t meet them [laughs]! To be serious, I have relationships with many, many other designers, and I think we are all fans of each other, I guess. I am a bit older than Hillary and Charles, but we have all shaped our identities while we were working our way forward. There’s something very similar about how we operate. And I have always been so willing to help, and if I can, why not? What’s the problem? I just saw Charles’s show in London, which was so much fun, and it was the act of liberation I needed at that moment. I think about music, and how many musicians have helped each other. Fashion had a long, long run before it became more modern and wanted to be collaborative. Sometimes fashion wants to be more secluded so it gives a sense of mystery, but it can end up giving [laughs] mean girl vibes!
You know who comes to mind? Vivienne Westwood. She was such a mysterious designer and quite provocative. At times you’d be scared to go close to her, but she would actually help you, and be so nice. I don’t know; I think we just have to learn to be different. All the people who are my age, quite successful people, won t drink the Kool-Aid; they don’t believe in these systems any more. Let’s take me and Charles; we might just want to paint some jackets for nothing, maybe just do them for our friends. Why not? It nurtures design. And that takes time. We have to learn skills again. Knowing how to make things; that’s beautiful and it intrigues me, rather than knowing how many more stitches there are on a bag as a gimmicky trick on Instagram, trust me. And that’s why I have landed back into education, because there’s still a lot of groundwork to do there.
What would be your advice to students now? I know you mentored a class at Pratt last year, and I think you also met with students at the Royal Academy in Antwerp…
I enjoyed that so much [being in Antwerp]. I was impressed by the school, how it is rooted in craft, and by the first-year students and how they master only one argument and then shovel it to death [laughs]. As for advice, what would I say? That there are amazing places out there in the world. It might be a time that’s unforgiving to everyone because business is more important than the actual making, as we have created huge machines and those machines need to be sustained. You have to work very hard, work very, very hard, because there are so many students, so many brands, so much stuff; we need things that can break through. I am intrigued by education. One of my dreams, maybe in the future, is to build some academies. That’s one of my missions. I will be brutally honest [with the students] in the same way my teachers were with me. High quality is what’s needed for thinking, for making. There’s too much wasted energy out there.
Can you tell me a little about how showing your Marni changed over the years? You started out doing shows in Milan, as you’d expect, then you set out on the road…
New York and Tokyo; they were such special moments. And listen, the main reason I was able to go on the road was Renzo [Rosso] and I have to thank him again, because he allowed me to basically tour for two years and more, even if I was missed in Milan. The first thing I said to my team, and to Dev, and to Rachel [Chandler, the model casting director Risso worked with], and Carlos [Nazario, the stylist] was that bringing Marni to people on the other side of the world was about connecting with them.
The one thing I love more than anything is learning, learning, learning. It’s very easy to close yourself off in a bubble of crystal soap and just float along. And that’s absolutely not for me. I wanted to see people, for them to understand Marni, to believe in it, to believe in what we are believing in. So let’s go and see. It was almost like you’ve sung one song your whole life in the UK, and then suddenly you go sing it in America. It was important to do it our way: our clients were our models, the audience was from the city, and people from the schools and the [local] stores. It was a very different dynamic. I mean, yes, New York was like a tornado of celebrities, which I am super grateful for. But in the end, the main purpose [of the traveling shows] was to cast from the city streets, to cast people who can truly live the brand. I still see those moments as a sort of dreamscape, but the main purpose was to bring Marni to the people and to open up the world, not to close down.
I sadly wasn’t at your spring 2022 show, but so many of my colleagues who did go —Virginia Smith, Nicole Phelps—loved it, not just because of the clothes but the fact that they were all dressed by you in Marni, and the Dev Hynes led choir; this whole emotional experience of togetherness.
FR: Dev and I were laughing about that show when I saw him yesterday. That was the first time he and I worked together, the first time we met. I was thinking about it as an arena with musicians, and the audience would be dressed in Marni, and there was a connection between the things that everybody was wearing and the clothes that were in the show, to create this feeling of union. The idea came during the pandemic, and once we were all back in the office I said, OK, guys, let’s cover everything in canvas and let’s paint because I need to get physical; the reality of the job we do at Marni [making together] feels like it had been muted for such a long time. So we painted together for 10 days but nothing was coming; actually, they were the most incredible paintings, but literally we just kept looking at them and [were like] no, no, no!
Then I was thinking about how our stripes had become such an icon in the fashion world [with the mohair knitwear] and I thought, maybe we just have to paint stripes. We painted stripes on everyone’s clothes —the collection, the clothes to be worn by those coming to the show. This is something I am seeing now in my head, Mark; we had set up at least 11 big changing rooms in this huge room, had seamstresses in them, and there was a cello quartet playing while we were preparing.
I would run around from one changing room to the other to meet and greet and sometimes assist with a fitting. And that was the show to me, because it was really about making clothes, but also making people feel pleasure. I only realized after it how emotional it all was; that people were crying, hugging each other. Coming out of the pandemic, we all needed a bit of charm. Fashion happens, to me, [when there is] a strong sense of humanity. And I love that clothes are objects which come from memory, from history, from emotions.
I know this might be tough, Francesco, but which three Marni collections of yours particularly stand out for you?
FR: Firstly, the tropical collection—Jesus, I wish I could remember the season; let me open Vogue Runway! Spring 2019: It was all in cotton. This was a very dear collection to me as I wanted to paint on it from the start to the end, and it just gave me so much energy. And in those years…it’s not necessarily easy for me to enjoy shows, I have had to learn. I enjoy the process but not so much everything around it. That’s one of the reasons I tend to hide! [With this show] we had people flying in from Mexico, we cast people from Mexico—it was incredible.
And then there was secondly Marnifesto [spring 2021]. I had been crying the whole time as, I don’t know, maybe this thing [during the pandemic] that we were apart; it was this thing about loving freedom, and how Marni had made me so free and happy, and I loved it. [That collection] set off a whole new way of thinking for me.
And I will always, thirdly, remember Tokyo [fall 2023] because that was at the beginning of another cycle, in a way. It was one of the first times [laughs] I had enjoyed one of my shows. We were in this amazing stadium, and at a certain point, I decided to go to the top row of the arena to get glimpses [of the runway]. I was so calm and so chill—almost unemotional—and I had to understand [that reaction]. That time was a big pillar in my life; the way I had taught Marni to make certain things, like tailoring. Sometimes we would laugh because we would remake a jacket 18 times, as I was getting obsessive with the tailoring. Everything [before] was very soft and rounded, no shoulders, nothing.
And what of the future, Francesco? What can you tell me about that?
I took the decision a long time ago [that he wouldn’t work under his own name]. If [in the future] you hear my name, it’s going to be associated with someone else. Yet, you know what? I am really craving to work, and I am going to fight for my own studio, which I’d like to build soon to be a real community, not the ones which are claimed [as communities] by fashion. I know from Marni that community is something you have to nurture, and while we did an amazing job, it’s difficult to sustain. I’d like to create a legacy through a sense of community, and I want to work with geniuses from all over the world, from the most unexpected places, and I want them to do whatever the fuck they want—and to be passionate about making. And what else? I am very up for any form of university; places where I can learn.
But I am not in a rush. And also, to be honest, how many people do you have to talk to this season [about change]? It’s a lot for one season!
What are your thoughts on all of the changes going on? How does it make you feel about fashion?
It feels very unstable [this moment]. It doesn’t feel inspiring, I have to be honest with you. I mean, of course, people are going to take their opportunities in the best ways. They’re all incredible designers doing incredible jobs. But all this big shaking, shaking…it’s a big reset, changing people, but by changing people, [are we really doing] a reset? [Fashion] doesn’t give me the necessity to feel, oh, I want to dress up, how fun! Actually, I want to be in a uniform and be completely unidentifiable and dress in the same thing every day. But how sad is that?! Maybe this is very personal to me, but I don’t think I am alone in this; I want to feel the desire again. I don’t have the desire to discover a new place, because there’s not a new place. You can find anything anywhere on planet earth.
I heard from my colleague Laird [Borrelli-Persson] that you recently sold your fashion archive. I guess that’s a cathartic act…
I built a clothing archive since I was 12 years old of every possible thing, from marine clothes, to Americana, to cowboy clothes, to 1920s. I would buy the first collections of Martin [Margiela] and Rei [Kawakubo, of Comme des Garcons]. I collected things just because I wanted to look at them.
Yet then they were just a big burden on my shoulders. So at a certain point, I was like, let’s sell it all. It was in a warehouse and I would go to it, open the door, look, and then shut it. I had done that so many times. And I thought, what the hell?! Why did I nurture all these passions and loves? My friends helped me take it to [events space] La Pelota in Milan, this beautiful place from the 1930s, and I was blown away when I saw it all, arranged in periods—the early Nicolas [Ghesquière, when at Balenciaga] that I used to wear, all these chunks of my life. It was incredibly emotional. People came from Brazil, from all over, and we made a lot of money [100, 000 euros] as part of the Super Cedar Sale for Lebanon.
That made me happy. But what made me really happy was that I now have a wardrobe that’s the size of a closet on a boat, which can only fit a certain number of things. And I am very proud of that. But I guess [the best thing] was the process of cleaning the dust from my shoulders. I don’t need things to be the best designer in the world. That’s my dream, of course, but whatever I do, I want to keep making things which I can live with, which express emotions, and that you can hold onto for years.
