Antonio Marras’ Show is a Feast for The Eyes
Antonio Marras’ theatrical talent for storytelling, gives shape to his formidable body of work. He’s an accomplished designer and painter, sketching and sculpting with almost obsessive compulsion. Every collection adds another chapter to the designer’s narrative and this season’s titled “Nulla dies sine linea,” which, translates from Latin, into “Not a day without a drawing” adds another chapter to the designer’s narrative.
Antonio Marras’ latest groundbreaking presentation coincides with the designer’s 20 year retrospective at The Triennale Museum in Milan. The exhibition Antonio Marras: Nulla Dies Sine Linea,” loosely translates into “Not One Day Without a Drawing.” reflects Marras’s restless passion for designing and creating art. The exhibition took on a whole new life with the presence of actors, models and dancers presenting the garments from Marras’ Fall 2017 collection.
The starting point for the collection was a woman named Eva Mameli. She was a late 19th century, Italian botanist and naturalist, and the mother of famed Italian writer Italo Calvino. The other was German choreographer Pina Bausch. These are the women who inspire Antonio Marras. There were no professional models in the show, only close knit family and friends presenting the garments in the collection. Among them was model Benedetta Barzini, who on various occasions has walked the runway for Marras. The other artists, models and performers staged curious impromptu performances on the catwalk. “It’s a parade where you meet a lady with outfits enriched with moss and lichen growing on the clothes, t combined with an homage to Pina Bausch says Marras.
There is no scenography, but an interplay of dancers from the Theatre of Dance in Milan.” “The gestures of dance are free,” explains Marras. “Like my work.” It is also the world of nature that greatly influences Marras. The designer showed a series of jackets embelllished with applications of butterflies, mosses and lichens as if the clothes were discovered after decades in a musty old trunk in an attic. The dresses came brightly coloured in velvet, with jackets featuring a patchwork of materials and applications that reference the world of botany. Among them, was a pleated skirt with prints of flowers and leaves. On the men, knee-length coats and jackets-in the colors of an autumn forest featured embroidery of leaves.
