#MFW: GCDS Fall Winter 23/24

Reducing the distance between his perceived public persona, and who he really is, this season Giuliano Calza brings the GCDS action home. Literally, in his household, where Kittho the cat reigns supreme. It’s Kittho himself who presides over the catwalk, blown up to gigantic proportions thanks to the artistry of Carnevale di Viareggio masters Fratelli Cinquini Scenografi e - another celebration of Made in Italy craft and skills - and covered in newspaper clippings - that’s just because Giuliano feeds his creativity with the news. There is nothing Giuliano loves more than being with Kittho, but most of all there is nothing he loves more than making clothes: real ones, meant to be worn, not tricks intended to trigger viral yet virtual response. This collection is a fusion of such urgencies, condensed in a pure act of fashion making.

The house is the frame and the inspiration: à la GCDS, but of course. Giuliano Calza explores the obsessions and the proclivities that make him creatively thick: the very bourgeois tweeds of the jackets ladies wear; the pinstripes gentlemen depend on; the worn out leathers of their rebel off springs; the velvets of sofas and the tufty textures of bath mats. No prints this time round, nor bold patterns. Just like the household is a place with diff erent souls, one probably tender, and one more sultry, so the collection relies on the face off of the sweet and the darkly seductive, with accessories blowing the claws of domestic felines to human proportions, turning them into sensual weapons.

A beloved bakelite telephone comes back as a bag handle. The cozyness of punto pelliccia knitwear wrapping the body like a blanket is contradicted by the abundance of slashes and openings. And this being an act of fashion making, the work in progress is constantly shown, with safety pins aplenty holding things in place.

The feeling of intimacy allows for a new outlook on GCDS. The one Kittho probably has, through his yellow eyes.