The past month has brought myriad creative director debuts at the heads of fashion’s greatest houses. There is one, however, that you didn’t know about until now. Well, that’s a bit of a sly reframing of what’s happening – there’s no blockbuster show to speak of, for one thing, but that doesn’t dull the excitement around this fanfare-worthy return of a true fashion great.
Frida Giannini – best known for her agenda-setting, 12-year stint at the helm of Gucci – has joined forces with Liberty, one of London’s most storied luxury shopping spots. The result? Hypernova 150, a collection of exquisitely crafted ready-to-wear and accessories, launched to celebrate the department store’s 150th year in business.
Hypernova 150 marks the first full body of fashion work she’s authored under her own name since departing the Kering-owned megabrand in 2014 – though, granted, her tenure remains a perennial reference point, as the “Flora” gown in Demna’s inaugural offering for the house proved. Still, Giannini – a designer so associated with an Italianate perspective on luxury – may seem an intriguing choice for a partnership with Liberty, an ostensibly British-as-bangers-and-mash institution. There is, however, in fact, far more common ground between the two than you might at first think.
For starters, Giannini harbours a longstanding love for London, having lived there while working under Tom Ford at Gucci, who maintained – and still maintains – a base in the city. “I was 27 years old!” she recalls, perched on a cream sofa in a suite in Claridge’s, another lavish London institution. “It was the perfect time to be living here. And I fell in love with it. It has an energy that other cities in Europe don t have – the mix of people, buildings, history…”
“This sense of contrast that’s inherent to Britain is really at the heart of the concept of the collection I designed with Liberty,” she continues. “The idea of it as a place that gave the world the Queen, but also Zandra Rhodes, Biba, the Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren.”
There are arguably few places in the city that so directly embody this unique sense of clash as Liberty – a mock-Tudor emporium housing one of the most directionally eclectic offerings of luxury wares in town, perched at the top of Carnaby Street, a historical heartland of the swinging spirit Giannini was first taken in by. “It is such a particular universe, situated in the midst of such a different atmosphere,” Giannini says of the store.
It isn’t just Liberty’s metaphoric value that has long drawn her through its doors, though. “To me, Liberty was always the final destination when I was in London,” she says. “I’d always buy my stationery there!” And beyond its deeply British roots, it also lays claim to a global history. “What really fascinated me about the store is its wealth of history and storytelling, which extends all the way back to the vision of its founder, Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty,” Giannini says, sharing insights into how the esteemed merchant introduced British audiences to silks and velvets imported from Japan, and even established himself as a key distributor of Art Nouveau fabrics across Europe. “He was a pioneer, a visionary – he really anticipated everything about craftsmanship, about fabrics.”
The collection that Giannini has developed in partnership with the store is a distillation of these myriad influences – Swinging Sixties flair underpinned by exacting craftsmanship; kitschy British naval codes tempered by a sincere elegance. Titled Hypernova – named for a celestial “explosion that is ten times stronger than the supernova,” the designer notes, a generative force that “creates new stars” – Giannini’s intention for this anniversary collection was “to create something that really respected the brand, but that also felt very emblematic of the UK.”
This, naturally, led her to the universal emblem of these isles, The Union Jack, which serves as a key motif throughout the collection – “exploded” (more in a celebration of its energy and spirit, rather than as an act of Guy Fawkes dissent) across leather accessories, cashmere scarves and silk linings in Liberty’s signature royal purple and gold hues. Beyond this direct visual invocation of Britishness, this sensibility also translates to the silk pyjamas in bold pr
ints; louche trousers and kimono coats in devoré velvets in British tricolour tones; and the collection’s flagship: the Nelson coat, a slim admiral’s overcoat of perpendicular cut, executed in felted navy cashmere with gilt buttons and gold leather piping. “When I first saw the coat at the factory in Como, I cried in front of all the suppliers,” she laughs. “I think it s the best coat I’ve done in my career.”
Altogether, the ensemble is a collection imbued with an eclecticism that recalls the Portobello Market magpies and tastefully oddball aristos (though, granted, the two are often the same). There’s a congruent eccentricity to the way stately outerwear slips over printed, lounge-y separates – how prim suede pochettes are finished with lairy, vintage-feeling hardware – that feels believably British, but also globally relevant.
While it’s perhaps a less graphically outré offering than you might expect from a link-up between Giannini and Liberty, there’s still plenty on offer for longstanding fans of the designer’s work, leaning into familiar signatures – burgundy velvet peacoats; sumptuous, grained leather bags on hefty brass chains with custom-designed Liberty logo buckles, and lashings of boho fringe.
Her comeback will, of course, be welcomed across the industry – but there’s no one more primed for it than Giannini herself. Her absence from fashion’s forefront has not, she confides, been entirely of her own choosing, but – at least in part – rather a consequence of tragic circumstances. “I’ve been called upon by many other companies since Gucci, but there were…” she pauses, wistfully. “I don’t know, strange stars – black stars, even, surrounding me,” the most significant of which was the long-term illness of her late mother. “I was her caregiver until her last day for almost three years, during which, of course, I couldn’t take on any commitments.”
A visit from the Liberty team towards the end of this period, though, reinflamed a desire to return to the studio. “They came to Rome to visit me, and I was really thrilled about this project, but at the time I couldn’t say yes,” she says. “I was thinking, ‘What a shame, this is something that I really love to do.’” As it turns out, though, the stars were aligned, with the collaboration eventually coming to pass when life circumstances had settled enough for Giannini.
Hypernova 150, then, is as much a collection about personal renewal and celebration as it is a celebration of a store’s proud history – and the cultural context of which it is a product. It invokes the past, sure, but as a means to map out a more exciting future – filled with starrier skies. “This is my passion – it’s something that I cannot live without,” Giannini says. “But I actually don’t have expectations around it. I, of course, hope that people love it, but ultimately, I really wanted to project a bit of optimism at a time when there isn’t that much.”