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Antonio Marras Belongs in Paris
By J.J. Martin
Photos by Gruber-FWD
MILAN, Mar 6, 2003/ FWD/ --- Antonio Marras may be Italian but his designs don’t have an iota
of the splash, sass or color that characterize the work of his Milanese colleagues.
In fact, his dramatic, dark, avant-garde designs, rich in historical tales, seem much more
like the fantasy fare dreamt up on the runways of Paris.
For his women’s Fall Winter ‘03-04 collection, he put on a show that was 100% theatrical,
full of clothes which begged Baz Luhrmann to take medieval Spain to Broadway.
The hero of Marras’ dark royal Catalonia narrative was Spanish Queen Eleonora d’Arborea,
who ruled over the designer’s native Sardinia in the 14th century.
Marras took all of d’Arborea’s regal sleeves, hair buns, and medieval jewels and transported
them into a futuristic, Goth fantasy.
The tormented girls, who exited from behind a curtain of enormous boulders, had the air
of dark princess but none of the excessive finery.
Fine tiered silk or velvet frocks were slashed up, tucked and stacked into piles of
billowing volume.
Wool combat pants mixed with long cascading regal dresses.
White lace shawls and 19th century black top hats were worn with modern, heavy black wool
kick skirts.
They were like regal princesses who’d been pushed out of the castle years ago and now were
wise street-survivors.
They clanked along in combat boots, their white faces shrouded in fitted leather hoods or
capes that wrapped up over the neck and head.
Not a strand of precious pearls was to be found along the neck, but metal chains and
hardware hung like knight’s armor.
The finale, in which the curtained wall of boulders came crashing down sending rocks
spilling down the runway and revealing the whole lineup of Marras’ Goth army rising in
back-lit steam, was a shiver-inducer that’s a rarity in this town.
Its powerful presence was a breath of fresh, creative air.
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