This morning it was announced that Marni creative director Francesco Risso would exit the brand after almost 10 years at the helm. “For Francesco Risso, the curious twists of the mind are our bulwark against anything proscribed or preordained; our brains and our passions will, in his view, set us free,” wrote Sally Singer in her review of his Fall 2019 collection for the house. “It’s empowering and wild, which, one could argue, is the whole point of fashion.”
It didn’t take long for Risso to start world-building at Marni. The designer, who joined the Italian house from Prada in 2016, replaced the label’s distinctive haute bohemian style for something altogether artier, more spontaneous, and sometimes messier with designs like half-and-half “Frankenstein” dresses and cut-out paper frocks. One of the ways Risso elevated craft was by revealing the construction of clothes; he created joy through color, and fostered a sense of togetherness, by adding playground elements to his shows—most memorable for spring 2022, when the audience was dressed in upcycled garments labeled Marniphernalia: Miscellaneous Handpainted Treasures.
Risso brought a bit of poetry to all he touched. Spring 2018’s theme was “two English gardens as seen by Tim Burton . . . with candies”; it was followed by his Technoprimitivism collection for fall, a consideration of “the contrast between our irresistible love of innovation and technology, and the other side, the movements of the soul that you cannot bring to a technological meaning.” Sally Singer praised the designer’s “sumptuous, deliciously playful, and utterly perverse impulses,” while Mark Holgate focused on the designer’s “poetically anarchic way”—qualities that are discernible in the collection, below, of Risso’s best work in Vogue.
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