L’OFFICIEL Exclusive: Behind Salvatore Ferragamo’s Suspenseful Spring/Summer 2021 Campaign
The role of film in fashion reached new heights this past year, magnified by brands' need to debut new work digitally due to the ongoing pandemic. After almost a century of IRL runway shows, the Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo rises to the challenge and gives L'OFFICIEL an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the result: its Spring/Summer 2021 campaign. Following Ferragamo's Hitchcock-inspired short film that debuted during Milan Fashion Week last September, Creative Director Paul Andrew and acclaimed Italian director Luca Guadagnino continue their collaboration through a series of stills and a new video that capture the same feeling of suspense and intrigue.
A personal favorite of Andrew's, Guadanino was chosen for his likeness to Alfred Hitchcock, whose movies The Birds, Marnie, and Vertigo inspired both the collection and concept of capturing it on Technicolor film. London-born and Hollywood-based, Hitchcock may seem like an offbeat influence for the Italian brand. However, Andrew explains otherwise: “This film project speaks to the soul of Salvatore Ferragamo. Salvatore’s trailblazing early work for the movie industry in Los Angeles means that this company, although Tuscan through-and-through, traces its lineage back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Connecting that history to our contemporary moment through the medium of film seemed an elegant and timely way to add an extra dimension to our physical fashion show.”
The "Golden Age" Andrew mentions refers to the 1910s to 1960s era of American cinema that would solidify movies as on-screen narratives. Prior to the post-WWI classical Hollywood feature, theatre was the only source of story-based entertainment. Then, the film industry boomed during the Roaring '20s and revived again following the Great Depression and the second World War. This second renaissance is what makes Ferragamo’s homage to Old Hollywwod so timely, a period that brought Hitchcock's films and stars like Tippi Hedron and Kim Novak into the spotlight. Putting this correlation into the context of Andrews sartorial work, the brightly colored collection of streamlined silhouettes and luxurious leather detailing becomes an exhibition of optimism and provocation of what our next Golden Age will be wearing.
The mixture of Guadanino’s evocation of suspense and Andrew’s saturated designs is as haunting as it is captivating. As Andrew is a fan of Guadanino, initially for his film I Am Love which instantly reminded him of Hitchcock, Guadanino is also a fan of Andrew and the Salvatore Ferragamo label. The creators' mutual understanding of craft and design result in a cinematic campaign that evoke Andrew's favorite Hitchcock flims not only on the surface level, but in its composition as well.
"Luca and I spent several hours going through the film we made for this collection frame by frame," Andrew said. "It was a fascinating process that reminded me of pulling apart a made garment or vintage shoe to discover the secrets of its construction. What we discovered was that the stills—when we found the perfect moments of light, angle and focus—invited you to dwell on the qualities we’d worked to explore in the film; the texture and boldness of the collection, the interplay of the aesthetics between the construction of the accessories and the architecture of Milan, the impact of the Technicolor palette, and the mystery of the characters’ motives."
The cast of the fashion film include models Mariacarla Boscono, Maggie Cheng, Jonas Glöer, Samer Rahma, and Anok Yai walking the streets of an empty Milan (the clips were captured during Milan's COVID-19 lockdown in August 2020). Showcasing the buttery leather Spring/Summer 2021 creations and vintage-inspired yet thoroughly modern silhouettes, high fashion hides beyond every corner.
