Massimo Giorgetti, a coastal creature in good faith (born and raised in Rimini, a popular Italian summer resort on the Adriatic coast), recently came under the spell of mountain life: my green age of 44, after all my life with swimsuits on the beach, I must confess that I have fallen in love with alpine landscapes and high altitudes — and the life of famous mountaineers, ”he said of Zoom . “They were as adventurous as they were handsome, which is always a good combination.”
Having recently spent a lot of restoration time touring the valleys of northern Italy, Giorgetti was totally struck by its beauty. “Mountains have to do with loneliness, oxygen and breathing; their energy is so powerful,” he reflected. In the men’s collection MSGM wanted to convey the powerful feeling of experiencing this naturalistic magnitude.
“Vertigine” (the Italian translation of Vertigo) was the title of the collection, a word that captures the feeling of dizziness that high altitudes can cause; but it was also chosen by Giorgetti as a metaphor for what we have experienced in our quarantine circumstances: a disturbing sense of loss, almost to the point of becoming unbalanced. Despite being naturally equipped with copious doses of optimism, Giorgetti acknowledged that times are tough and that the #pandemicfatigue is taking its toll. But being able to escape even briefly to his beloved mountains has proven to be an energizing antidote: partly increased adrenaline and partly quiet introspection.
The collection referred to the winter sports repertoire, leaning between high-performance techno equipment and the sophistication of retro tones. Heritage setbacks were driven by MSGM’s energetic streetwear hit and flavored with an underground radish vibe from the ’90s. The short tweed dresses with a vintage St. Moritz wore hoods of large, lysergic colors; the luxury ski resort postcards of the 1930s were transformed into magnificent prints. The jeans and anoraks were laser-edged with contours of the Mont Blanc silhouette: they looked great combined with brightly colored XXXL box shirts, printed in abstract motifs that mimicked the textures of the rocks and the icy reflections of the glaciers.
The atmosphere of the collection conveyed more evocative images of a fun radish in the mountains than a healthy snowboarding picnic in the Swiss Alps. The feeling was enhanced with the electronic soundtrack of the online video presented today during Milan Men’s Fashion Week: a thrilling high-octane affair composed and performed by Italian artist Nico Vascellari and his band Niños du Brasil .
When asked to expand on the creative concept behind the video, which reproduced models walking randomly under a snowstorm (perhaps a future post-closure scenario of guys going to a party location in the mountains undisclosed?), Giorgetti said that this season he opted for artistic collaborations that have often been part of his fashion practice: “He wanted something normal. Honest. Simple. The experimentation is very good. But nothing can surpass an old-fashioned fashion show without nonsense, ”he said. “Even under the snow it would.”