Reimagining Marni: Francesco Risso talks

Marni’s Francesco Risso has a talent for turning abstract thinking into beautiful designs

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Minutes after taking his final bow to mark the end of Marni’s AW19 menswear show in Milan, creative director Francesco Risso returns backstage to a bustling scene that can only be described as well-practised choreography. Models, production runners and Risso himself are navigating their way around clothing rails, make-up tables and mounds of white garment bags while a dry ice machine continues to puff out clouds of white mist. It’s an industrious but dream-like environment that ironically echoes the very theme of the show.

For this, Risso’s ninth catwalk collection for the Italian fashion house, the designer imagined downy angora knitwear in multicoloured stripes, oversized tailoring, and outerwear in fantastical animal prints. Risso himself is today dressed in a diamond-pattern dressing robe – shawl collar left open, cloth-belt untied – accessorised with a Wee Willie Winkie-style cotton nightcap, complete with pointy tip and pompom.

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