ETRO FW24: "ETRO Act"

How many adventures did Ulysses experience in Homer’s Odyssey, emerging unscathed from stormy waves to find himself in unknown lands? How many elsewheres did he visit, and how many human types did he meet? In ancient theatre, emotions and characters were synthesized and solidified by masks, changed on stage with changing moods. Some are here, blown up as wrecks, glorified as archeological treasures - another journey without a map, among the sediments of history - or miniaturized as necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Pertinaciously and passionately in search of an elsewhere, always open to welcoming the diversity of humanity, this season Etro faces a Homeric journey. Marco De Vincenzo prefers the proof cards of ancient fabrics to travel plans while he interprets Etro’s past as a sedimentation in which to encounter, each time, something of himself, without an established plan other than the desire to express a point of view. The wind of the strait of his own Messina, the same one crossed by Ulysses between Scylla and Charybdis, ruffles the hair and agitates like waves the light layers, the skirts that envelop and climb up the body like scarves, the scarves that flicker like highlighter marks, and the impalpable fragilities protected by coats and jackets with a firm perpendicularity. Layers on which prints are placed - foils on felt, stencils on leather - while paisley becomes a large knitted stitch, but inside out, and thick upholstery fabrics are cut like small jackets. The jacquards on the body stockings - made with Wolford - bring patterns directly onto the body, making them a second skin - a zero degree – in a counterpoint between fragility and strength that unites the male and female worlds in a material and human metaphor, in a story of fabrics and types, as well as colors that stir and mix, and then subside into black. The journey continues, without a compass and proudly without a map.