What is romance, today? Is romanticism an escape or a way to delve into reality with another gaze and another touch, finding another meaning to the everyday?

This Marni collection is a quest for romance that finds its way in the soft, the wrapping and the intensely tactile, in lines that are sharp but fade and mold around the body, in shapes that are immortal archetypes seen through an emotional lense. Romanticism, in Marni-land, ultimately provides a soft shell for hard reality, projecting the density of feelings on the outer strata of one’s constructed persona.

Such persona is intensely deconstructed, clothing-wise. The collection is soft, on every respect: coats that unbutton into blankets; buttonless tailored jackets secured to the body with a string; kilts that are wrapped over pants, or shredded to the memory of what they were; layering of transparencies that dematerialize easy pieces; jumpsuits, jumpers and perfectos; dresses that coil and dance around the body. A dance that is also an accumulation of dots, of flowers and tartans, of fading, soft checks that are airbrushed onto items of clothing and accessories, getting a soft outcome out of an affirmative gesture.

Just like the hand that makes and unmakes, so tactility is important. Fabrics are dense and textured, from wools to teddy to leather to georgette to mohair. Even the scale of accessories, from micro to macro, is an invitation to use the hands and investigate. The exploration of archetypes brings creepers and sneakers charged with subcultural meaning into the discourse, further heightening the emotional sturm und drang feeling, the liberating gesture of getting closer to a state of nature.

Romanticism comes across as an urge to be and a way to dress and behave, in contact with the vitalistic forces of the wild, day after day.

The MARNI F/W 2021 Vol. 1 collection is available in MARNI boutiques and on Marni.com starting from May 2021.