For independent designers, no matter how talented they are, the road to success is always winding. It’s a bumps-and-hiccups ride that Marco De Vincenzo has experienced firsthand. After launching hisin 2009, he sold 45% to LVMH in 2014, and after six years he bought it back at the end of 2020.
Now in full control of his label, which he’s put on hiatus for the moment, De Vincenzo is energized by the beginning of a new cycle. While retaining his position as head of design of leather goods at , he’s been working on a personal project, unveiled during Milan Fashion Week with an intimate presentation. Called, it involves a sophisticated take on the upcycling of vintage clothing. De Vincenzo described it as “a collaboration with unknown persons.”De Vincenzo has always relied on extensive vintage research to feed his collections’ inspiration; for this new project, his hunting territory has been a rather humble kind of vintage, nothing of couture or high-end provenance.
“I did it just for the sheer pleasure of being back in a free creative realm, with no deadlines, no clear purpose on what to achieve, and no pressure on what shape all this would take,” he said. “I’m certainly not the first one doing upcycling, but I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and it’d be great if each designer would consider it as an integral part of his practice.
The collection shows De Vincenzo’s talent for creating a repertoire of imaginative mutations, bearing his peculiar style—artsy, slightly quirky, and conceptual. A cropped tweed jacket lived a previous life as a boxy blazer, until it was taken apart, slimmed down, and fully relined; a sort of wallflower-y a-line printed dress was reincarnated into a sexier party dress, studded with a spiraling motif of metallic baubles.
粗糙