The Pucci Experience: While practically synonymous with beach vacations, Emilio Pucci also has roots in the mountains—a fact that the Florentine house will bring to life in St. Louis. Moritz this winter.
A fashion “experience” is planned for Dec. 8-10 in the glamorous Swiss ski destination, WWD has learned.
“The main idea is to emphasize Pucci’s position for winter,” said artistic director Camille Miceli, who unveiled her first designs for the iconic Italian brand last April on Capri, the jet-set island where founder Emilio Pucci opened his initial boutique in 1951.
Pucci, who died in 1992, was known for his athletic prowess and was a member of the Italian Olympic ski team in 1932. In fact, he was “discovered” as a designer while skiing and by chance met fashion photographer Toni Frissell , who asked him to photograph his ski outfit. As legend has it, when she discovered he had personally designed the collection, she asked him to make some ski wear for women, which later appeared in Harper’s Bazaar and a career was born.
He began designing jersey skiwear in 1947 and opened his house in 1949, which quickly became famous for its colorful and graphic motifs.
Miceli is still shaping the program for St. Moritz, but it’s sure to create plenty of Instagram moments, as it did in Capri, where models sat on towels doing synchronized leg lifts and guests attended yoga classes, lunches and dance parties.
A seasoned creative who was creative director of accessories at Louis Vuitton before joining Pucci last September, Miceli said she prefers to “show things in a different way and surprise people. We are a resort brand and lifestyle: We show clothes in context.”
Pucci also unveils collections on the “See Now, Buy Now” calendar, with scheduled monthly discount deliveries. The company, controlled by French luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, recently relaunched itself as a resort-focused brand, with Miceli characterizing its clothes as easy-to-wear, easy-to-wear packed and versatile enough to take a woman from “morning to evening”.
She said that the collection to be unveiled in St. Moritz will include party dresses and gift items, given that it’s just in time for the holiday season, along with ski and resort elements.
Miceli noted that St. Moritz, while located in Switzerland, has a strong Italian flavor, given its proximity to Milan, Como and Bergamo. – Miles Socha
These wool gabardine ski suits by Emilio Pucci appeared in WWD on September 15, 1960.
Fairchild Archives
London view: Kering-owned British luxury brand Alexander McQueen continues to show outside the fashion week system and will return to London this fall to unveil its spring 2023 collection.
Alexander McQueen’s spring 2023 collection will be shown after Paris Fashion Week on October 11, following the brand’s mushroom-inspired autumn 2022 collection shown in New York in March.
This will be the second time the brand will host a show in London since the COVID-19 pandemic. The brand showcased its Spring 2022 collection on the roof of an East London car park last October.
Sarah Burton, the brand’s creative director, said at the time The decision to show in London was the result of the merger.
Before the pandemic, the brand usually showed during Paris Fashion Week.
“We listened to the rhythm of our studio and how we worked as a team, it made sense to do it here, to be here and to do the show at this time,” she said.
The brand has also experimented with video and print releases for new products and collections.
Alexander McQueen tapped award-winning visual artist Sophie Muller in a short film that brings to life pieces from the brand’s spring 2022 collection, when pieces from the collection hit stores earlier this year.
For the pre-fall 2022 season, the brand published a 160-page magazine documenting the creative process of 12 artists who were invited by Burton to express their working practices, each inspired by a look from the women’s collection.
The company has also made strides in the sustainability space. Last year, it became the first luxury label to work with Vestiaire Collective on the platform’s Brand Approved program, which allows McQueen customers to sell their clothing to Vestiaire in exchange for credit to be spent in McQueen boutiques.
The company has also donated countless fabrics to universities and organizations, and has worked with designers who encourage customers to wear vintage pieces. In 2020, Harry Styles wore a McQueen fabric look made by a University of Westminster student.
Last year, the brand threw its weight behind A Team Arts Education, a community youth organization in East London working to help young people get into the arts and create pathways to design careers. Over the next year, Alexander McQueen said it will financially support A Team Arts Education and further extend the existing workshops and classes it started as part of a pilot program last year. – Tianwei Zhang
Naturally beautiful: British fashion label Mother of Pearl, worn by celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Saoirse Ronan, is launching a sustainable summer capsule, ‘Naturally Beautiful’, featuring some of the brand’s styles made with the brand’s fiber-based wood and biodegradable Tencel.
The launch of the collection coincides with Tencel’s 30th anniversary.
The collection is accompanied by a series of images shot by Mary McCartney and is inspired by her book The White Horse, which captured the beauty of her white stallion Alejandro. In the shoot, the models wore pieces from the capsule and posed with some of Hampton Court’s latest horses.
As part of the anniversary, a series of prints of those images in three different sizes, ranging from 195 to 395 pounds, will be available for purchase in a limited number of 100 on the Mother of Pearl website.
Mary McCartney captures the sustainable Mother of Pearl capsule with Tencel.
With kindness
Amy Powney, creative director of Mother of Pearl and brand ambassador for Tencel, said “McCartney’s book ‘The White Horse’ has been an inspiration for me and I wanted to capture that same intimate and spontaneous essence in a campaign.”
She added that for every print sold, 100 per cent of the profits would be used to raise money for McCartney’s chosen charity, Mind, which provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem, such as and for their horse project “Real Horse. Power.”
McCartney, who was chosen to photograph Queen Elizabeth II in 2015, said Powney and Mother of Pearl are leading the way in “combining amazing aesthetics in design with real attention and sustainability”.
“She takes on this challenge and, in my opinion, is a trailblazer that others should look to for inspiration,” McCartney said of Powney. – TZ
