How was Ferrari's debut in fashion?

Ferrari's debut in fashion is certainly the biggest news in the fashion industry over the last few weeks. With this collection, the Maranello house wanted to expand its offer in lifestyle – and in fact, its debut in fashion took place in parallel with the opening of a new restaurant directed by Massimo Bottura and the restyling of the store dedicated to the brand's clothing offer. The collection was designed by Rocco Iannone, former creative director of Pal Zilieri who made his bones in the ateliers of Dolce & Gabbana and Armani, and it quickly became clear his intention to mix the values of the engineering design of the Ferrari team with an eye to the latest trends. The first comment that would be made would concern Iannone's good judgment: both his fashion-savviness and the ease with which he interpreted the trends of the moment in terms of Ferrari aesthetics is a sign of strong confidence for this and for the next collections. 

As it might have been expected, the collection was quite logo-heavy, especially in terms of accessories, but Iannone directed the creation of the range with intelligence and a firm hand. Firstly, because it has been able to create very intelligent variations on the Ferrari logo, with the Prancing Horse transforming into metal appliques, logo-jewels, micro-patterns or with the lettering of the Maranello house declined in a maximalist key in the first men's look of the show. Another highlight of the collection was the very varied use of materials, with the mixing of luxury materials such as leather and silk with carbon fabric, a fabric widespread in the world of racing and therefore communicating Ferrari's heritage well. At the end of the show, closed by Natalia Vodianova, there was almost a desire for the Maranello house to leave even more blank canvas to Iannone in the next collections – with this debut show the designer has shown abundantly that he has made Ferrari's language his own. 

In terms of design, the best looks in the collection had a "Prada-Esque" flavour to them, with a mixture of performance-ready futurism and a reinvention of the base codes of the bourgeois uniform. To this first layer, which immediately directs the collection towards a precise direction of luxury fashion, is added a streetwear patina that takes up the modernist designs of Virgil Abloh from Off-White™ while maintaining the identity of Ferrari but trying to make it attractive both for young fans of the brand and for the female audience. As a debut in fashion, Ferrari's has clearly established the fundamentals of the brand's aesthetics without falling too far into too obvious a commerciality but, indeed, translating in terms of fashion design the quality of design and craftsmanship that has made Maranello's workshops legendary. 

It's certain that Iannone's approach was the right one, the designer was able to introduce Ferrari into fashion with great balance, although, of course, the identity of any brand is refined collection after collection. This first chapter, however, undoubtedly caught the eye and did what it had to do: leave the audience curious to see even more.