In 2024 we arrived at the Sanremo Festival with Fred De Palma.
For the occasion we created four looks for the Festival evenings and two more for the moments off stage.
The idea was to start from the formal menswear wardrobe and relate it to a seemingly very distant world: that of workwear.
I was mainly interested in taking elements we are used to seeing in everyday life, often born to meet purely practical needs, and transforming them through tailoring research, materials and proportions. Bringing something ordinary into an almost couture dimension, without completely erasing its origin.
In the first look, the classic men’s suit met workwear through silk duchesse. The neckerchief that workers wear around their necks to wipe away sweat became an accessory entirely covered in Swarovski, while a silk satin shirt, constructed only at the front, left the back completely bare.
In the second we reinterpreted a formal trouser through a double-layer construction, inspired by work garments with removable parts. On top, a jacquard knit with a worn-out effect and a waistcoat that fastened with a long scarf left to fall down the back.
The third look instead played with the proportions of menswear tailoring: a boxy, cropped jacket, a poplin shirt entirely covered in Swarovski and an oversized formal trouser, from which garters dangled. A detail you would hardly expect to find on a traditional men’s suit.
For the last one we chose optical white. A double silk duchesse jacket, with structured shoulders and exaggerated lapels, accompanied a carpenter trouser, complete with hammer holder, but made entirely of silk. Boxers, also in silk, peeked out from the waist.
I like to think that the value of these garments lies not only in the precious materials, but above all in the work needed to transform something we all know into something we have never seen before.
Sometimes it is enough to change a fabric, other times a construction has to be completely rethought. And at other times you simply have to have the courage to leave a hammer holder on a silk trouser.
Off stage too we kept the same language, expressing it in two more everyday looks.
A cropped coat in long-pile wool, in a soft canary yellow, worn over a grey mélange tracksuit that echoed the proportions of the stage garments, but with a decidedly more casual attitude.
And a total grey mélange look, made up of a wool and alpaca coat, a second skin turtleneck and a double-layer trouser. To complete it, a buttonhole flower made with haute couture techniques, using the same cloth as the coat and embellished with Swarovski details.
That year we also had the pleasure of dressing Skin, one of those people who don’t need a ranking to prove who they are.
For her we chose a black dress from our collection, a draped chemisier in Japanese triacetate, in which a shirt with exaggerated shoulders merged with a miniskirt in a single construction. On her feet, our camperos in brushed leather, deliberately worn, with metal toe caps engraved with the SSHEENA logo.
Two completely different artists, a single Festival and the chance to bring our work to one of the most watched stages in Italy.
Fred came thirtieth out of thirty participants.
Come on, we didn’t win anything, but we don’t think it went that badly.