Massimo Giorgetti is resetting MSGM. Not reinventing it, exactly; there was no need for a personality transplant. More like opening the windows, turning up the color, and reminding us that “fashion is supposed to be fun,” he said. In an industry currently addicted to the word new, a reset is a refreshingly modest ambition.
The collection returned to MSGM’s original pleasure principles: color, graphics, some shine, and the slightly reckless art of putting things together. Masculine met feminine, polished met organic, sharp met sensual. Cool tailoring was thrown against sentimental prettiness; sporty nylon against chiffon and muslin; sweetness against a few tougher military details. The effect was lively and generous, with the kind of visual promiscuity that has always been part of MSGM’s appeal.
Art history made a cameo, this time courtesy of a collaboration with the foundation of Italian Pop artist Mario Schifano. Giorgetti dipped into the archive selectively: Amore nel Deserto became a skirt and a screen-printed tank; the interiors, palms, and horses from Schifano’s work for the Agnelli family appeared on a series of T-shirts; Cielo Stellato was among the other images revisited. These weren’t Schifano works simply lifted and pasted onto clothes, but images filtered through MSGM’s own penchant for Pop imagery. Because the real story was simpler: a return to MSGM’s instinct for color, energy, uncomplicated spirit, and the pleasure of mixing things up neatly. Giorgetti wasn’t proposing a new MSGM so much as clearing the surface and letting its original personality breathe again. It may not be a revolution, and it didn’t pretend to be one. But after fashion’s recent fixation with reinvention at all costs, there’s something rather appealing about simply remembering what you were good at in the first place.