Marni’s artistic idiosyncrasy is rooted in the practice of her design studio – a kind of workshop where everything is done by hand, from the making of garments, called ‘objects’, whose volumes are intended as couture-like soft sculptures, to the unique graphics that are so inherent in their eclectic images. “It’s a constant, obsessive manual activation,” Francesco Risso said during a showroom appointment. “Any decoration or exploration of shapes is done by our team. We have painters who can go from Renaissance reproductions to the craziest interpretations of modernist references. Our work goes much further than just making clothes.”
Risso has taken Marni on tour around the world, in a series of collections that alternated between the creative exuberance of shows and the slightly slower pace of seasonal presentations. While the Spring 2024 show in Paris in September took the ‘exuberance of the hand’ to a performative peak, resort, now in stores as Volume One, is a kind of balancing act between pragmatic ‘objects’ that Marni -fy the everyday and more expressive capriccios. ‘Disciplined chaos’ is what Risso often calls the approach.
The collection encompasses a variety of volumes, shapes and decorations – from concise basics for everyday wear to painterly ones, juxtaposing and mismatching the Marni triad of stripes, florals and checks in imaginative mashups, bringing the workwear/ sporty undertone of the line-up is adjusted. For both genders, suits, shells, trench coats, peacoats and anoraks coexist alongside expansive cocoon and balloon shapes and slimmer tailored or A-line silhouettes.
Risso said Marni was always preoccupied with the idea of uniforms, playing with a certain utilitarian feeling that was undermined by spirited non-conformity. To emphasize this idea, the collection was brought together through the use of different cotton textures, from crisp poplin to robust canvas. “We had a real cotton obsession,” he joked. Along with humor and whimsy, obsession seems to be an essential part of keeping the Marni machine running.
