Post Bellum Knitwear

Few of us have seen the war and yet we all feel like veterans. This feeling of loss of certainties, habits and freedom takes us back in time, to the 50s. These were the years in which the need for peace, change and floral revolution began.

As modern archeologists we reopen the trunks of the past, we find again pictures, sweaters, objects and ancient fabrics.

Knitwear had a different weight and body from nowadays. The big wool and felted wool sweaters were thick and rough. Ribbed cotton was totally lumpy and peeps out among the finds, the magazines and newspaper clippings.

The strict regularity of the uniforms responded to the need for strong colours and abstract contrasts.

The first brands were born in garages with hand-made dyes which were known in the 50s as “tied-and-dyed” and then became the extremely famous 60s’ technique: “tie-dye”.

After years of global conflicts, the primary need was to rediscover and confront oneself through apparel. As usual, style interpreted primary needs of safety and protection through the development of fabrics dyeing crafts techniques, with bright colours and psychedelic design forms.

Bright primary colors, spiral and mandala patterns and multicolored stripes. Clothing patterns were made with a patchwork of materials, creative recycling of resistant and monochrome garments intended for the war.

Recycling culture was born, not dictated by sustainability but by the need and the real lack of materials and economic means.

Jeans established themselves as a symbol of change and desire for equality between social classes and gender differences. They were the symbol of equality between men and women, since women had to replace the workers who went off to war in engineering companies which produced weapons and cars. Blue jeans fit in this context of colours which substantially reflects the themes of the 50s.

And here resurfaces the ability of the most modern spinnings to interpret time for the 2021/2022 collection with printed yarns, dyed or ready to be dyed proposals.

Unbleached yarn is to be interpreted with the colors of the season but with the recovery of the 50s and 60s’ dyeing techinques. Yarns that are already printed in the colors of Peace and in the rainbow ones. Primary colors are shown in inlay effects and in hand-assembled compositions.

Traditional knitwear wears coats of arms, embroideries, pins and buttons, multicolored crochet and abstracted corneylles.

Knit jackets with floral jacquards, small and repetitive along the yoke. Uniform’s colors such as kaki and blue jeans, are the background to the bright and full colours bleaching overlay like orange, vermilion and mustard.

Yarns are thick, there is no lightness but the consistency of warm hughs which reasserts itself in merinos and organic cotton yarns. Ubleached yarns can give back materiality to the knit. The practicality of a quality product is meant to last and keep us company during the following months and to be found again in the trunks a few decades later.

An anthem to cotton and a rediscovery of canvas. Wool cotton to face spring and cotton cashmere to face summer.