Review of Etro Fall 2023 Men’s Fashion Show
A New Era for Etro
By Mark Wittmer
With his menswear debut for Etro, recently appointed creative director Marco de Vincenzo continued the forward momentum he’s already established for the house and solidified that he was the right choice for the brand. Put together quite quickly, his first ever collection for the house, the Spring 2023 women’s collection presented in September, planted the seeds of a chic and polished new direction, and now his 70s-influenced yet competently contemporary menswear collection has rounded out an exciting first chapter.
Through a smart handling of the Etro legacy without hitting us over the head with its iconic paisley, Marco de Vincenzo proposed a clear vision of the Etro man: sensitive, poetic, sophisticated.
But not boho! While Etro’s history of loads of paisley and relaxed, fluid silhouettes sometimes led it to take on a sort of hippie-pirate aesthetic, de Vincenzo has made a welcome departure from that rather played-out and unserious territory and moved in a crisp direction that is nonetheless still colorful and intricate in a recognizably Etro way. The runway set design, which transformed its empty warehouse location into fabric warehouse brimming with pallets and racks stuffed with spools of lushly colored fabric.
Knitwear was one of the collection’s biggest stars, with intricate floral and abstract jacquard patterns attesting to Etro’s legacy of craftsmanship while showing it has a much broader sense of pattern to offer than just the familiar paisley. Floral embroidery (there were certainly more floral and check moments than paisley ones) on everything from fleece to leather also featured prominently, another example of the house’s command of craft.
The collection’s biggest touchstone was 70s menswear, with the suiting silhouettes referencing the era’s relaxed sense of indulgent cool. Plenty of fun details also hearkened back to that time: flared pants, ascots, wide lapels, psychedelic textures, and color choices. Overall, the color palette tended towards freshness but still made sense for fall, with pale green and muted orange appearing throughout the browns and grays.
Styling made smart use of layering, while a few pieces like slit-front skirts and boiler suits expanded the menswear mold and encouraged creativity in how and with what to wear the designs.
Accessories included a few statement handbags that still maintained a masculine cool – some of which reappeared in smart belted incarnations – and a voluminous woven tote. Rivets and chunky soles added a bit of an edge to the schoolboy-esque derbies.
While the Etro man feels like a more defined, picturable in real-life person than the Fendi man we saw yesterday, neither show benefitted from the casting of models who exclusively looked like 17 year-old boys. We know this is pretty standard practice for the mainstream fashion industry and its biggest brands, but shows from independent, breakout brands like the Magliano show held just before proved that so much can be achieved by having a little age diversity. This feels especially true for Etro, whose character is spirited and perhaps a bit whimsical, but sophisticated and not at all strictly young.
That one casting quibble aside, the collection felt like just what a new menswear debut from Etro needed to be: focused, purposeful, and relevant – even as it took time to stop and smell the flowers.
