Massimiliano Giornetti said his second women s collection for Salvatore Ferragamo was inspired by Jacques Deray s late-sixties movie La Piscine. "But I didn t want nostalgia," he said, "just the vibration of that moment. I want to go back to that free-spirit, bohemian, gypsy attitude." If that sounds like dangerous territory for a label best known for its loafers and bow-topped ballet flats, it wasn t.
Giornetti inherently gets the Ferragamo DNA, after working on the men s side of things for ten years. The show he put on for Spring offered a measured, sophisticated take on of-the-moment trends—peasant dresses, macramé and crochet, transparency, and YSL-isms like safari jackets included. Giornetti is also making the case for Ferragamo as a suit resource. Narrow jackets and cuffed, slightly flared trousers in spicy shades of cotton canvas had a chic durability. That was the charm of this collection—how good he made real clothes for real life look.
But it wasn t all work and no play. Giornetti s knit bikinis may not be safe for the surf, which crashed and splashed on the soundtrack, but alone or topped with one of his liquid-y, sheer cover-ups, they ll look great next to la piscine.
