PURE IMAGINATION

Marco De Vincenzo puts a fantastical new spin on the house of Etro.

- Laura Rysman

What happens to fashion when it’s sprinkled with a puff of pixie dust? The house of Etro, synonymous with finely tailored caftans, layers of paisley chiffon, and billowing beach ensembles, was long the wardrobe for high-toned hippies traveling the world. But with Marco De Vincenzo, the brand’s first creative director from outside the Etro family, the Italian fashion house is going on a very different journey—a trip to a dream world of the designer’s own imagination.

“My vision has always been about fairy-tale fashion,” says De Vincenzo, surrounded by racks of his hallucinogenic-print creations at the brand’s Milan headquarters. His method? Start with the familiar and warp it into something more chimerical, and more startling. Case in point: a clog transformed from humble to fantastical with a towering platform and heel accented by a curlicue toe. In his debut show for spring 2023, models carried chain mesh mini-bags containing an odd piece of cargo: an apple, conjuring for De Vincenzo the magical world of Disney’s Snow White, his desert-island movie pick.