Profile of Fashion Designer

Gianfranco Ferré

by Angelo Flaccavento Sculptural volumes with a healthy dose of drama best sum up Gianfranco Ferrè’s particular take on fashion. Born in 1944 in the northern city of Legnano, Italy, to well-to-do parents, Ferrè graduated in Architecture from the prestigious Milan Polytechnic School in the late 1960s.  View Gianfranco Ferré's photos from the show Entering the fashion world with a small collection of accessories that spawned collaborations with such designers as the late Walter Albini, Gianfranco Ferrè eventually launched a complete eponymous line, to rave reviews, in 1978. Since then, the line has grown into an empire that encompasses menswear, denim lines, furs, fragrances, eyewear and much more. Ferrè is part of the first wave of Italian ready-to-wear designers who made an international impact, a group that includes Giorgio Armani, Krizia and the late Gianni Versace, to name a few. The designer is better known as Italy’s “fashion architect”: like all labels, a narrow-fitting and yet appropriate one. The strong use of geometric shapes (always adapted to the human body), the play of volumes and the balance of details do indeed have some very architectural qualities. Nevertheless a deep bond links his work to the tradition of couture, seen anew from a more pragmatic perspective where luxurious fabrics and careful construction are paramount. Dior and Balenciaga look no doubt like probable references, but the back-and-forth play with tradition is never too literal in the designer’s hands. Fittingly, Ferrè was appointed creative director for the House of Dior in 1989 (post-Bohan, pre-Galliano) to oversee both the ready-to-wear and couture lines; he succeeded in breathing new life into the very French grandeur of the then-staid Maison. A true master of his craft, Gianfranco Ferrè has shaped a personal creative lexicon: his signature is strong, visible and immediately recognizable as such, and not just to fashion insiders. Ask anyone about Ferrè’s work, and the answer is most likely to be “white shirt.” More than twenty years in fashion means a zillion variations on the apparently basic item: from rococo to Japanese, via challenging hybrids and plain Zen purity, Ferrè has made the white shirt his veritable pièce de resistance and a playground for daring design solutions. Another pillar is the continuous homage to India and the Far East in general, both in terms of colours (orange and lacquer red being favorites) and decorations and shapes. In recent seasons the sari became the base for beautifully draped evening gowns, while in the past a whole collection was built around a clever interpretation of the Japanese obi belt. Ferrè has a strong, stylish woman in mind, one that loves to wear rich, even opulent clothes without a hint of vulgarity. She’s no Barbie doll: au contraire, she is a glamazon in total control, assertive and self-conscious. Heavy embroideries, trims, passementeries are all featured abundantly in each collection: think baroque for the 21st century. Ferrè clearly loves fur and gives it new life in his unique fashion shaker. In the Fall 02 collection, for instance, the designer went from a sporty black fleecy jacket (cinched at the waist by a high belt) completely lined in honey mink, to a short astrakhan coat lined, again, in mink, to black fur stoles. But the masterpieces were some armor-like evening jackets made out of a stylish patchwork of dyed fur stripes (purple, deep green), later and silver chains (what???) At the dusk of the 90s, when the end of the Dior contract gave him time to focus totally on his own business, Gianfranco Ferrè moved his Milanese headquarters to a Liberty building on via Pontaccio, in the arty area of Brera. Everything, down to the elevator door, bears the Ferrè stamp, making the building a showcase for the many different sides of the designer’s creativity.