From the depths of his Italian Vogue archives, Alessandro Dell’Acqua unearthed an editorial in which Steven Meisel photographed the late Stella Tennant, her aristocratic cool poised against the Devonshire countryside. It triggered a sort of well-bred collision in his imagination: haute country restraint running headlong into the insouciance of French bourgeois-bohemian chic (one of his obsessions). All of it added up to a pre-fall collection written in a sort of stylistic shorthand, where eccentric ease mixed with a dash of polish.
Dell’Acqua has little patience for abstract ideas of elegance. His version comes as a tightly edited clash of naughty bourgeois, sporty grunge, and disheveled glamour, all run through a styling percolator that’s unmistakably his own—he famously skips the stylist altogether. This season’s delightfully eccentric mêlée was rooted in covetable everyday staples, tuned to the mood of the moment, yet he’s “pointedly uninterested in chasing whatever trend happens to be having its turn.” The lookbook was shot in a lavish Milanese home, all gilded mirrors and stucco ceilings; however, the collection felt irreverently at ease framed in such grandeur.
T-shirt mini dresses arrived fully tartan-sequinned; and Argyle knits sparred with pleated dévoré georgette skirts dusted in gold thread. Tailoring, by turns, came cropped in Prince of Wales checks or indulgent and lush in gold lamé brocade. Mongolian wool coats, padded parkas, and Loden-cut overcoats swaddled in oversized scarves played against chunky chiné knits finished with long fringes “as if they were feathers.”
In the men’s line, brocade reappeared on cargo trousers, paired with a checked turtleneck zipped up the back. Leather jackets, neoprene-lined sweatshirts, voluminous cable knits, and neatly tailored Prince of Wales coats piled on the laid-back swagger.
Dell’Acqua is a maestro of instinctive, idiosyncratic styling that looks unnervingly nonchalant yet exquisitely put together. How does he do it? He just smiled his Cheshire-cat smile.