Late last summer, the invitations to Marni’s spring/summer 2022 show began landing in the inboxes of editors and buyers. But there was an unusual request attached: every attendee was invited to visit the brand’s ateliers in the days leading up to the show, where they would be fitted in a full Marni look. “We went back and forth a lot discussing whether or not to do it,” says creative director Francesco Risso. “But after two years had passed, and we were coming back to the physical realm, it just felt right. I remember returning from my summer holidays and having this moment of… not panic, I don’t think, but certainly a state of fear. Like, is everybody actually going to wear Marni? I told some of my friends and they just said, ‘You’re fucking crazy.’”
There was method in Risso’s madness, however. There are fashion shows, and then there are . The latter doesn’t necessarily mean bombastic spectacles featuring thousands of attendees and blockbuster musical headliners, but shows that expand the possibilities of what the simple act of presenting clothes in front of an audience can look like, infusing a sense of real meaning into a format that is repeated thousands of times, twice a year, every year. It’s easy to drift into hyperbole when talking about an ambitious fashion show, but the nerve behind Marni’s latest offering does
