The Tamesis
For his second appearance at Fondazione Sozzani, Francesco Murano took a detour into androgyny, drawing on Tamara de Lempicka’s stylish Art Deco glamor. Openly bisexual, de Lempicka emerged in an almost exclusively male artistic milieu with a strikingly modern style. Her themes are mysterious, somewhere between masculine and feminine archetypes.
Murano conceived the series as a gallery of portraits, where his enduring fascination with Greek classicism meets his signature sensually biased editing. The body is wrapped in languid silk jersey draperies that recall the sculptural sensuality of Madame Grace and Madeleine Vionnet. “What fascinates me most is de Lempicka’s approach to Art Deco glamor,” he explains. “Decorative on the surface, yet rigorously pared back and form-driven. Through chiaroscuro, she clearly shapes the body, excavating classicism while reshaping it in a contemporary way.”
He translated this vision into elongated, sharp silhouettes and further borrowed from the photography of Horst P. Horst and Georg Hoyningen-Huene, in which the figures appear almost like shadows, reinforcing the sense of verticality. Last season’s ribbon pattern evoked the Futurist movement; here it becomes architectural on the structural parts, extending and completing the body lines. Angular geometric shapes introduce sculptural edges, and sharp details are reinforced by soft internal wires, allowing garments to be artfully shaped rather than restricted.
Murano specializes in more controlled draping, with structures that enhance the contrast between fluid jersey and classic tailoring. Strong shoulders and precise construction project a masculine edge, while silhouettes remain fluid, angled, and seductively stripped of embellishments.
