Interview

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Milan, Italy: the Los Angeles ofEurope. A smog-filled, culturally parched economic engine in the middle of a famously lovely land, it is one of the world capitals of fashion. Since the crowning of Miuccia Pradaas a fashion queen in the early 1990s, there have been precious few new Italian designers for the world press to get jubilant over. It didn’t seem terribly likely that two designers who first met almost two decades ago while working at the venerable fashion house MaxMara would be the ones to shake things up. But with the 2005 debut of their line, 6267, Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi married an inventive, futuristic sense of cut, shape, and proportion to the imaginative Italian eleganza thought to have expired back in the 1970s. The results made them must-sees on the Milan fashion calendar, and last year got them the prestigious job as top designers at the alta moda house of Gianfranco Ferré, whose famed namesake died in 2007.

The duo’s debut Ferré collection for Spring/Summer 2009 introduced the world to a stark, simple, yet fantastic vision of what seemed like well-bred but mischievous ladies from Mars—make that Mars circa 1966, envisioned by Federico Fellini. And despite financial troubles at Ferré’s parent company, IT Holding, the Ferré line is (at press time) holding steady. In New York last November, Aquilano (talkative and funny) and Rimondi (reticent and dry) held forth on why American women dress better than Italians, why youth is something we’re so desperate to lose and then twice as desperate to get back, and why, in the end, it comes back to Pierre Cardin and Elsa Schiaparelli. Doesn’t it always?

DAVID COLMAN: So, everyone ready? [pointing to Aquilano’s finger] That’s a nice ring. What kind of stone is that? Or is it silver?

TOMMASO AQUILANO: It is, how do you call it, quarzo rutilato.

COLMAN: Rutilated quartz. People tend to think it has some sort of energy—you know, New Age.

AQUILANO: Really?

COLMAN: Well, they did in California in the ’90s. It never really caught on in New York. I had a stepmother who had this huge diamond on her finger all the time, and she always said that she believed in the power of crystals.

AQUILANO: That’s very funny. The diamond has a different power, I think.

COLMAN: How would you rate the energy of New York compared to Milan?

AQUILANO: We love New York so much—it’s so full of energy, and the mix of colors and sensations—but at the same time it can make you feel alone. When you’re in New York the best thing is to let yourself be moved by all the energy and to never think about anything else.

COLMAN: Go with the flow? That’s funny because most people here are swimming against the
current.

AQUILANO: If I swim against the current I feel a bit conformist. In New York the energy is more apparent. In Milan it’s less so. Here it is the multitude of people that creates energy; in Milan it’s individuals.

COLMAN: How would you compare Italian style with American style?

AQUILANO: I noticed it just this morning. With Americans, it’s hard to find one who truly goes against the tide, because Americans are much more conformist than Italians. Today the Italian woman dresses worse than the American woman, but three out of a hundred Italian women dress really wonderfully. The Americans are dressed well but all look the same.

COLMAN: What is it that American women are paying more attention to than Italian women?

ROBERTO RIMONDI: Accessories . . . Absolutely. And comfort.

AQUILANO: The Italian woman who wants to be sexy really lets you see it. She focuses more on her body, on showing it off. An American woman doesn’t show her body, but shows it in the way she dresses. She never wants to show that she is truly sexy, although in reality that’s what the American woman wants to be.

COLMAN: It’s funny. I think the world always sees America as being so trampy and sex-obsessed, you know?

AQUILANO: Yes. The Italian woman shows herself off, but in the end she’s not so obsessed with sex. The American woman, on the other hand, is obsessed with the idea that she might pick someone up. In Italy, women are not worried about not picking someone up.

RIMONDI: Because as soon as Italian men see a woman . . .