Gianluca Ferracin and Andrea Masato introduce the Fall/Winter 2016 collection of EdithMarcel (@edithmarcel_official). The Italian agender brand reflects for this season on one of the cornerstone pieces in the history of fashion: The Little Black Dress.

Conventionally born in 1926 from the mind and hands of Coco Chanel the LBD conceives Mademoiselle's vision of fashion poured in the immediacy of this dress: a direct dialogue with the body, a slight malice in stripping the woman of the frills that relegated to its secondary social position. For these reasons, and for its being as both mean and symbol of an aesthetic revolution, the ‘scemarello’ - ‘silly thing’, as Italian journalist Camilla Cederna used to call it - instantly becomes an icon.

Drawing from the values and symbols that characterizes the petite robe's basic form, the Italian duo addresses an scenario where the LBD could be read with conventional gender divisions abstracted, giving rise to a collection that, while faithful to the brands philosophy, transcends the concept of gender reflecting on the possibilities arose from working with a simple form through layering, juxtaposition and multiplication. The lines of the little dress design a flat shape, influenced by the volume of the body that inhabits it: it is not the form dressing the gender, but the gender characterizing the dress, giving substance to its potential.

matt0045_elab_web Made of functional and transformable clothes the collection is conformed by jackets that can change in length and material; coats with short sleeves, to which muffs add flaire; pants with flat crotch, worn with shirts and tops, both deliberately disproportionate. The horizontal cuts create a trompe-l'oeil effect that suggests the shape of the petite robe, without openly declaring it.

The whole mood is allusive, visually playing with boundaries and provoking a reflection on what is masculine and what is feminine; the materials used contribute to this conscious confusion, and the fur summarizes the agender meaning of the entire collection.

The cleanness and linearity that characterize the aesthetics of the brand are never betrayed. The colours play on neutral tones, from camel to black and ice grey; a deep purple attracts the attention and expresses the alluring tone that runs throughout the entire collection; and the flowers applied on t-shirts remember that the ornament, if measured, can be pleasant crime.