Fluidification

FLUID or NOT FLUID, that is the dilemma

What will the winter season be like? The concept of fluid is not at all obvious.

Fluid does not mean smooth, loose and flowing, rather it means strategic, fragmented and multiple.

A fluid is capable of tackling the obstacles, the piles of problems we will have to overcome this season; a liquid, dividing itself into many small particles, manages to creep into the cracks in the walls that stand in front of it and manages to get through.

It will therefore be a FLUID season, as artistic director Elisabetta Scarpini suggests, in the sense that we will succeed this time too, dividing ourselves and inventing multiple solutions to find ourselves on the other side of the fence and recompose ourselves in a more fluid future.

This winter will be a hectic one, long waits for raw materials and great battles to get the samples in time for the shows. Experimental knitwear, seamless garments and multi-fine machinery to face, in the most creative and stimulating way, a winter of uncertainties. Being fluid is the only way to overcome an obstacle, without coming up against harsh reality!

OUTDOOR or INDOOR?

Which collections should we design? Will we be free to go out and ski, walk in the woods and stroll through New York’s streets, or will we once again be locked in our living rooms and perched on our bedroom tables?

The bedside table has been our best friend for the past season and, together with the kitchen table, has become our new workstation. Now, however, the emergency has passed, we are vaccinated or immunised and we have also all turned into Scandinavian interior designers and have the most elegant houses of the millennium.

A direct consequence of the environmental change is certainly our stylistic change. Never again will we be without a knitted homewear, but goodbye to the shapeless and slabby effect of soulless yarns, there is a huge choice, this year, of stretch wools and long fibre yarns. The full needle stitch is a new must. Extremely long knitting times, so it’s best to start designing collections before receiving the yarns!

Not only knitted trousers but also shorts, dresses, skirts and shirts! The knitted shirt and knitted polo shirt are the new comfort. Perfect in technical yarns that make them more modern than traditional polo shirts in extra-fine pure merinos. Knitted collars, thanks to the latest knitting techniques, lose their set, monochrome shapes and become modern with jacquard lettering and contrasting colour stripes. The zip is the new button!

CASHMERE or MERINOS?

What if we used only cotton next winter?  I don’t want to offend the spinning mills, but we can’t be blackmailed by the cashmere exchange and see our sales stopped because of the exorbitant cost of raw materials! Faced with difficulties, designers create! And here on the horizon are jumpers in cashmere front and cotton back, cashmere jumpers with stripes alternating with other compositions!

Merino will be gauzed, scoured and carded, 100% Shetland will re-emerge from vintage trunks in new colours and with new gauzing treatments.

STOCK SERVICE or MINIMUM TANK?

The stock service has disappeared. Only very few companies with years of consolidated success behind them are able to provide a guarantee of continuity at this time. These spinning mills should be rewarded and supported in their choice of yarns. On the other hand, the yarns no longer in stock service are destined to undergo a strong slowdown in use, because this is not the moment for brands to take home stocks of sample yarns. What stylistic solution to find? Let’s start working on coordinated collections for women and men again, using the same yarns! Genderless collections to optimise colour baths!

ALPACA or MOHAIR?

We thought that alpaca could replace mohair for good, but it can’t. It’s like deciding to stop drinking coffee and switch to tea, they are not interchangeable. The alpaca has conquered us, thanks to the mohair crisis the alpaca collections are now beautiful, pushed to the avant-garde in processing and treatments. But alpaca will always remain a less shiny, less lightweight product than mohair. So, whatever the cost, go for certified mohair in both the noblest KID MOHAIR blends and the most common blends, but it’s worth certifying even the most ordinary mohair because without mohair there can be no real winter season in pastel colours as it promises to be!

RECYCLED or ORGANIC?

Organic means investing in a new cycle of consumption with a direct improvement in the working conditions of the entire supply chain and a huge decrease in environmental impact. Recycled means putting the already stocked product back into circulation, minimising waste and saving resurces. These are important dilemmas that only designers can solve with a skilful balance in the use of materials. Braids and closed stitches to be made with recycled yarns and very thin and light fineness in direct contact with the skin.

ACRYLIC or POLYAMIDE?

Montefibre was closed four years ago and since then a silent revolution has been taking place, but the change was only whispered, never clear.
And so designers have only grasped the uncertainty and not the strategy. Now we can no longer use acrylic for our collections, what should we use?
Although we are talking about fibres with completely different performances, recycled polyamide is really the yarn to keep an eye on because it will see a strong evolution in the coming seasons.

INNOVATE OR RESIST?

This is the only question that is easy to answer, innovate, fluidise thinking or let ideas flow. The future has begun and we must create in step with the times!