Etro, to the music of Morricone, looks West in a live catwalk show

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 16, 2020

Finally, after 15 weeks of runway confinement, Etro staged fashion’s first, proper, live fashion show in Milan on Wednesday before a real – and not virtual – masked audience practising social distancing.

The first true live show by a major league brand since Louis Vuitton in Paris back in March 3, Etro unveiled this co-ed, Spring-Summer 2021 collection inside Milan’s most prestigious hotel, the Four Seasons on via Gésu. The models marching on pebbled pathways inside the former cloisters of this 15th century convent.

Like every event in the four-day Milan Digital Fashion Week this season, Etro is available to be seen the web platform of the Camera della Moda, Italian fashion’s governing body. There will only be one other live show in Milan this week: Dolce & Gabbana, at 5.30PM today, out of an online calendar featuring 43 brands.

For the opening image, Kean and Veronica could be seen assembling their cast in a circular interior courtyard below the hotel garden, their careful formation emphasized by a rising drone shot.

Right away Etro, very likely the greatest classical print makers in fashion, sent out a patchwork jerkin of temple detail and faded flowers, worn with a tropical tiger in an oasis shirt over faded jeans with turn-ups. Or self-confident menswear chic, that looked to the Wild West for inspiration. The first female model wore an elegiac prairie print governess dress under a suede Comanchero jacket with fringes.

Passing by an audience, spaced one-meter apart and nearly all in masks, that included a Gotha of Milanese fashion editors: Emanuele Farneti, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia; Andrea Tenerani, the city’s most in-demand men’s stylist, and the UK’s man in the Italian capital, Luke Leitch. All perched underneath looming white parasols in the hotel garden.

For guys, there were urban jungle, Prince of Wales, single-breasted jackets; off-beat, paisley deconstructed suits; and a Rockstar suit in a jungle print. Presented to live classical music played by the Ensemble Testori Orchestra, directed by Giulia Sandoli, and including cello, contrabass, piano and a quartet of violins, playing a perfect selection of music by the late, great Ennio Morricone, climaxing with an emotional rendition of his marvellous soundtrack for Once Upon a Time in the West.

“We are finally back together, in the garden of this iconic hotel, in the heart of Milan’s Montenapoleone district. We want to highlight that we are a family, that Etro is a family living in a world of joie de vivre, color and positivity. This season, we want to bring to the stage real clothes for real people, discovering a new authenticity. Just what we like, what we think is absolutely relevant, what makes us feel good. Nothing more than this,” explained Kean and Veronica Etro, the house’s brother and sister designers.

For socializing: Navajo pattern cashmere knit cardigan; excellent safari jackets in a quirky beige Ikat and a remarkable leather jerkin done with a beautiful Nevada desert image – Butch Cassidy at a Taos gallery opening. Lots of natty, striped shirts finished by photo of big cats, with an ecological element. Shirts made in eucalyptus yarns and polos of fabrics culled from recycled plastic bottles.

Women in lace barn dance dresses; denim micro shorts and jackets in marbled intarsia and a super suit combo in the garden tiger print seen on guys. Though the Etro cowgirl is not above a stop in Nepal, to pick up embroidered belts and charming silk bandit shirts; marching like their boyfriends with totes and weekend bags as if checking into the hotel. All wearing the snappy new Etro x Carrera sunglasses, riffing on the eyewear brand’s iconic Champion aviators though in Etro hues of bitter lemon, deep red and girly pink.

All told, ideal clothes to make a brilliant first impression when you arrive at a summer villa for a weekend. No wonder Kean and Veronica looked so proud when they took their bow. They had every right to be.