Credit: Louis Vuitton
"We live in a society that zooms in and zooms out very easily. So I wanted to make sure that when people zoomed in on fabrics and embroidery they were looking at something they had never seen before." That's how Pharrell Williams, creative director of Louis Vuitton, describes the concept behind some of the most intricate and interesting workmanship seen on the Spring Summer 2025 Men's collection runway. And which we find in many of this men's season's runway shows, where much play was made on optical illusion, inviting attendees to go beyond the first glance to appreciate the intricacies of the workings of garments and accessories.
TROMPE L'OEIL EMBROIDERY
It happens precisely at Vuitton, where the camouflage pattern that appears to be printed on the shirt turns out instead to be a complicated game of embroidery that alone required the skill of 30 artisans, each of whom worked on it for 10 days. The same complexity is found in Dior's fashion show: the floral jacket in look 44 took 600 hours of manual labor to make, and only from very close up can you tell that it is not a print, but an embroidery. Challenging workmanship that is reflected in the wishes of the maison's typical customer: We have a lot of customers who buy special pieces," reveals Kim Jones. Therefore, do not think that these are only objects designed for the show: craftsmanship is a value that is increasingly central at this time, and brands are aware of it.
SUMINAGASHI
It means floating ink, and it is an ancient Japanese technique for decorating paper, with the ink being floated on the water in which the sheets are immersed. Dries Van Noten used it for his latest collection, the one with which he bade farewell to his eponymous brand as creative director: leaves and flowers appear on the very light layers that make up the looks, each of which is a unique piece precisely because of the particularity of this technique, which does not allow the same design to be obtained twice.
MADREPERLA
It is once again the work of the Italian Superlative the vest on the Spring Summer 2025 Men's Runway by Loewe. As in the case of the bustier made for singer Ariana Grande at the MET, the fashion house commissioned the Brescia-based company to make two garments in Superlativa pearl, a special mother-of-pearl that allows it to be made into sheets that can thus be applied to a variety of surfaces: here it is a leather garment molded to form a rigid tank top with pearly hues.
đź–‹: Francesca Zaccagnini
