Marni’s fall 2024 collection looked like it was created for warriors, weirdos, characters, cult leaders, and space travelers. And that’s a good thing, not just because the clothes felt so visually striking in comparison to other runway shows in Milan this season, which have been dominated by wearability. Like a jolt of electricity to the sea of everyday outerwear and pretty dresses, this collection was also deeply personal.
A futuristic choir opened the show, all members dressed in white inside a white cavernous space that looked like it was covered in crinkled paper. Viewers were treated to oversize coats, structured cutout sweaters, and stiff dresses that riffed on 1960s retro-futurism, all done in black and white.
The looks were all about big shapes and explorations of proportions. Ever interested in textural textiles, Marni’s creative director Francesco Risso has been getting more and more comfortable with experimental silhouettes in recent seasons. Here, he brought forth a flurry of chunky, furry leopard-print dresses with funnel necks and mixed animal prints that suggested a strange new vision—one that melded futuristic dressing with Paleolithic aesthetics. Raw, primitive energy was distilled through massive bags the models held over their bodies, or ultra-shrunken wool miniskirts. Colorful, crafty looks were contrasted against space-ready fashions like cocoon coats and black-and-white garments that looked like armor. There were dresses with hoop skirts shaped like triangles, their deep V-necks going as low as the stomach. Coats dragged on the floor and sunglasses came big, wide, and with mirror reflections. Baggy gloves were paired with large shift dresses.
The coed collection was explored a textural wonderland as a playground for experimentation. The big spiked coats and the painterly plastic dress worn by Paloma Elsesser both exemplified those concepts to the core. And, of course, color (or lack thereof) took center stage—as it is wont to do at a Marni show. All those black-and-white looks brought to mind 1960s retro-futurist designers and the very first people who went to space. What might they think of the way we dress today?
