ETRO MEN’S FALL & WINTER 2022/23 COLLECTION
This show has been announced by an army of books. Little books: all different but part of a small library, therefore united by a subtle, present and persisting, even though not necessarily perceptible or evident, thread. Slim or full-bodied tomes, designed to sit in a pocket, and travel with the reader. Tomes that disclose journeys of emotions and knowledge.
This show, today, takes place in the crisp January light, in a place of knowledge. A place where students begin a journey towards unfathomed and unexplored destinations, at once distant and reachable. The collection itself is a journey: sidereal and Nordic, crystalline and vibrant, undertaken by a platoon of young men in the making, who face the adventure of life with a book in their pocket.
A new mental order can be felt, as crisp as the January light. The journey, whether it is knowledge or adventure, requires a map and a map requires clarity, which is not about being schematic but about being lucid. The collection is clear in the overlapping and accumulation of different signs: North stars and anchors, winter sea and mountains, wolves and roses. An amalgam that, like a small library, is united by a thin thread: the will and vision of its author, Kean Etro. In this new feeling, even paisley finds a geometric dimension, while the exercise of dressing well regains importance.
Clarity is in the rhythm of shapes, colors, and themes; in the overall, lively linearity. The soft and neat silhouette is a sum of full colors arranged in monochromatic compositions: icy shades of gray and cobalt blue, intense tones of purple, forest green and orange, bright touches of red, electric blue, hints of mustard. Graphic black and white works as a side note. Materials are dense and tactile: wool, velvet, jacquard silk, rubber. The layered and clean silhouette is a sum of archetypal garments, seen through the Etro lens: the coat, the gardening overcoat, the pullover meant as outerwear, the caftan, the duvet, the jacket, the printed shirt, the sweater with a slogan that’s a calembour. The wit of the Etro language follows this new order and cleanliness, too: the rose is scholastically declined as an Ancient Latin word on shirts and linings, or is presented in a botanical and stylized form; the wolf, a species whose conservation Etro has been committed to since 2020 in cooperation with WWF, is an inlay or jacquard that emphasizes the Nordic and sidereal path. Embossed crystal patterns and white interruptions create surprising effects on the surfaces. Cartoon sneakers and classic lace-ups, at the feet, seal the face-off of youth and adulthood. The journey of knowledge and the adventure of life has just begun.
