Antonio Marras S/S'14 - The Clothes Maiden Magazine

The female form is a moliminous facet of fashion; ultimately, it’s what makes womenswear necessary – due to attire’s fundamental purpose of maintaining decency, along with its highfalutin aim of the accentuation of certain corporeal elements and the obscuring of others; but from a more aesthetically-driven perspective, the female form is also one of the most powerful springboards for innovative design.

Antonio Marras’ spring/summer ’14 collection is, almost undoubtedly, this season’s finest case-in-point: seventy-six outfits, all bound together by a deftness of design, fetis femininity imbued with shades of flora and fauna, and a sensual quality so broad and all-encompassing, yet strikingly ineffable, it’s nothing short of breathtaking.

Though it’s the epicurean, modern take on a well-worn, feminine aesthetic that underpins the collection – as evinced by the sundry fitted, knee-length A-lines with sheer inlays; cocoon-esque coats, studded with pleasantly portentous butterflies and roses in full bloom; and the discordant assemblage of patchwork prints augmenting the subtle subversiveness of a whole manner of looks – it’s the unashamedly briliant invocation of legendary Latin poet, Ovid’s, magnus opus, Metamorphoses, that gives the collection its slightly avant-garde, wholly innovative, edge.

Marras responds to Ovid’s epic by forging his own parallel narrative and, subsequently, zeroing in on phrases such as “rules respected yet broken”, “balanced chaos, perfect disorder” and “sisters. Daughters. Each born from the modification of the other. Colours reflect and evoke the dawn…”; he then unpicks and unpacks the fickleness and fragility of nature and human nature in the face of change, and the symbiotic relationship between man and material, using “luxurious embroidery, wild threads, transparencies, layering, perforated patent leather motifs, [and] butterfly wings of cloth…” (textures and textiles are a key component of this collection – which isn’t at all surprising when you consider the fact Marras has had no formal fashion design training, save the formative experiences in his father’s fabric store; consequently, the collection could be seen as a back-to-basics approach – back to what one knows best and is most comfortable with – but it’s the impenetrable veneer of heightened sophistication and drama sans pretensions that allows it to be seen as something much, much more).

Merely by watching footage of the show, you are, in an instant, immersed in the theatre of fashion – the drama of dress; you are immersed in a whole other world centred around Marras’ own magnus opus which, in turn, is centred around “clothes like leaves on which the times of change and mutation leave their mark”; and then, when it’s all over and only the memory remains, you are left with a greater understanding and appreciation of all that fashion can be, when it’s on form.

Tara Okeke

For more information, check out the Antonio Marras website or watch full-length footage of the sublime S/S14 show.