Beneath Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s reserved demeanor lies a rebellious edge. “Fashion feels too flat, too conventional right now. There’s a reluctance to challenge or be challenged,” he remarked backstage. For spring, he drew inspiration from the images of the “modettes” in the 1960s, captured by queer Swiss photographer Karl Heinz Weinberger. With their subversive individuality, they resonated with Dell’Acqua’s ongoing quest to break free from “fashion’s predictable conventions.”
As a pragmatic designer, his rebellious spirit took on a gentle and wearable form. This season, his blend of “opposites attracts”—high and low, couture and casual, sequins and canvas, bourgeois and grunge—was distilled into an edited collection with lots of covetable pieces. Modern and unfussy, yet with dashes of spark, it had charm, without feeling overworked. Dell’Acqua is a master of nonchalance.
The opening look set the tone and hit a current trend: a sporty, oversized parka with a leopard-print hood layered over a cocktail dress adorned with shimmering embroidered sequined florets, paired with a football team scarf and clear high-heeled mules. This juxtaposition of styles, seen on several other runways this season, points to the apparently haphazard mix of signifiers that increasingly shapes today’s fashion codes—a meticulously curated form of stylish chaos.
Dell’Acqua typically gravitates toward a palette of muted nudes and beiges, contrasted with black. However, this time he embraced vibrant hues, showcasing a bold yellow anorak paired with a soft pink pencil skirt and lipstick-red accents, as well as a hot-pink duchesse opera coat with a couture edge layered over a sequined sheath. Despite these flashes of color, the finale—a sheer black ensemble that left little to the imagination—was a clear nod to Dell’Acqua’s erotic sensibility. After all, a leopard never changes its spots.
