“One must resist trends, respect at all costs what one believes is valid for oneself, and cultivate what I have always defined as the aristocratic taste of not pleasing.” Massimo Alba opened his seasonal manifesto with a quote by the painter Balthus, although it seemed so fitting that one could believe those were the designer’s own words. If coherence never misses Alba’s moodboard, freedom is what drives the ethos of the brand. “Everything feels very unstructured and far from the body, leaving a margin of space,” Alba said. This reflected his concept of respecting each and every different body and granting a comfortable sort of carte blanche in terms of styling options.
Infused with handcrafted prints, the collection was built on colors that interpreted the seasonality of clothes and nature, muted via specific washes, mostly in natural fibers. Linen was heavily featured, as was hemp: “It is a noble fiber with a richness to it, and a very particular touch,” said Alba. “It is also special to me for what it has represented in the history of Italy and the world.” Completing the collection, a new dress named Ettore brought some stiffness and structure, paired with boat shoes crafted as a limited capsule by a Venetian artisan.
Constantly evolving his relationship to the arts and the written medium (the showroom was fully covered in paper cuts and extracts from books) the designer made a fanzine to visually present the new campaign. “It is a format that binds precisely to an idea of democracy, of something that can belong to everyone, that you could also find on the streets,” said Giacomo Cabrini, Alba’s content manager and digital art director. Words are recurring elements in Alba’s world: they cover mirrors, the back of shirts, and freshly added handkerchiefs.