Memphis Milano has been a constant fixation of many fashion and accessories designers in the last seven years or so: as you may rmember, Bill Gaytten took inspiration for Dior's Autumn/Winter 2011-12 Haute Couture collection from the design movement.
The thread continued in Sergio Rossi's Spring/Summer 2013 collection and later on took a new incarnation with Prada's A/W 2015 designs, with their pastel shades that looked entirely lifted from Michele De Lucchi's Girmi prototypes.
In more recent years the combination of colours of De Lucchi's interior design pieces reappeared in Christian Louboutin's sandals while Nathalie du Pasquier's drawings provided the main inspiration for Valentino's A/W 17 collection.
In other cases, rather than inspiring the textures and print clashes in the actual garments, the pieces of furniture by the designers behind the Memphis Milano movement became decorative elements on the runway.
In 2015 Arthur Arbesser showcased indeed his Resort 2016 collection at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence and displayed on the runway iconic pieces, such as the 1981 "Suvretta" bookcase by Ettore Sottsass.
The idea returned in the presentation for Rosie Assoulin's S/S and Resort 2019 collections: a few Memphis Milano pieces were indeed used as background decoration, among them Masanori Umeda's 1981 wooden boxing ring-shaped bed; Peter Shire's "Peninsula" desk, accessorised with Ettore Sottsass's "Bay Lamp" and matched with George Sowden's "Palace Chair".
The pieces were part of "Raquel’s Dream House", an installation of Memphis designs by Raquel Cayre, who curates the tribute Instagram account @ettoresottsass (despite being full of visually striking images, you wished that Cayre had actually opted for an account name that somehow sounded less like an appropriation of Sottsass' identity and more like a tribute...).
The Memphis Milano moods were clear in the bicolored dresses, zebra printed shoes and summer dresses and light coats decorated with cheerful handpainted watercolour stripes, or in the separates embellished with hundreds of coloured beads that seemed to form a visual morse code. Another reference could maybe be tracked in the straw bags dipped in silicone and transformed into colourful vases, maybe to imitate the famous surfaces created by Abet Laminati for the Memphis Milano group.
The collections also included desirable dresses and tops in silk damask, yet other garments with avant-garde silhouettes such as peplum bustiers matched with striped dresses could have been edited out of the collection as too similar to other quirky and supposedly conceptual modern designs out there that end up looking awkward on real women (yes, blame JW Anderson...).
Though the collections showed real attention to details and a passion for textiles unseen in other contemporary (and more celebrated) designers, they were a missed occasion as Assoulin may have moved from colours and experiments with different materials of the design group for more exciting pieces, especially for what regarded the accessories.
Using the iconic Memphis Milano furniture as background decor proved that we're still stuck inside of mobile with the Memphis Milano again, to rephrase the famous Bob Dylan song that inspired the design group. In a nutshell, it looks like we may still have to wait before seeing in the fashion realm a proper affordable and exciting project with a Memphis Milano designer or collaborator. Abet Laminati jewellery anybody?
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