Milan — Filippo Grazioli smiles easily as he talks about his spring collection for Missoni and poses for photographs at the brand’s showroom in Milan for an exclusive look.
His cheerful and friendly disposition is reflected in his cheerful and youthful designs – no doubt in line with his task to renew the brand.
After a menswear debut last June, Grazioli will hold his first womenswear show for Missoni on Friday at Milan’s Bocconi University, with a set inspired by artists who often use light as a material, such as Kimsooja from South Korea or the American James Turrell.
Light is indeed a major focus for Grazioli’s collection, with colors refracted like a prism. Grazioli worked mainly with black and white, primary yellow, purple and cyan, which according to him “are the foundations for any kind of nuance”. Sequins and studs added sparkle to some looks, such as a magenta skirt with shiny metal buttons on the side.
The designer is very respectful of Missoni’s history, but after his tour collection presented in June, Grazioli felt he could be bolder and “have more fun” with the spring lineup.
For example, keeping in mind the connection with the past, but translating it for the future, he introduced several transparencies. “I was influenced by the fact that [founders] Rosita and Ottavio Missoni were banned from showing in Florence after the collection they presented in 1967 [as part of the Sala Bianca designers] it was considered very scandalous”, recalls Grazioli. The incident was caused by Missoni’s decision to present the collection with braless models because they came in the wrong color and the exposed breasts underneath the clothes caused a stir at the time.
Fast forward to the present day, it is clear that no one will be up in arms and in any case the collection is never vulgar, and the transparencies quite sophisticated.
Ottavio Missoni was born in Dubrovnik and, perhaps also influenced by his summer holidays in Croatia, along whose coast the patriarch and his wife sailed, Grazioli revisited the past by renewing Rosita’s use of the bust – lit by flames and zigzag of the brand. models.
However, the designer restrained the use of Missoni codes and patterns, juxtaposing them with color block details or overlaying them as a single element on a dress and updating them in new weights and techniques – the brand’s craftsmanship is always visible.
Innovation also came from knotted and draped fabrics that added movement to body-hugging dresses, and sexy fringed skirts.
Whether short or tall, the silhouette was vertical, tailored and “body conscious,” Grazioli said, as one of his goals was to “enhance the female body.”
A graduate of Milan’s Istituto Europeo di Design, Grazioli, who joined Missoni in March, developed his career in Paris. During an internship at Staff International, he met Martin Margiela and continued to work with the designer on women’s collections until 2013. In 2015, after a stint as senior women’s designer at Hermès, he made another appointment personally important, meeting Riccardo Tisci and Riccardo Tisci and becoming director of collections at Givenchy. Grazioli then followed Tisci to become runway collection director at Burberry.
The change in creative direction at Missoni is part of the five-year plan laid out by chief executive Livio Proli, who joined the company from Giorgio Armani Group in 2020, after Italian fund FSI took a 41.2 percent stake in the family-owned company. Fashion house in 2018.
