Adrian Appiolaza joins Moschino. His latest rite of passage is this pre-collection lookbook, a project for which he enlisted photographer Chris Rhodes and a villa on the outskirts of Milan. As for muses, Appiolaza looked to British aristocrats, attributing his interest to his split English and Argentinian backgrounds, as well as a recent watch on The Crown.
In the spirit of Franco Moschino, Appiolaza approached the subject with a welcome bit of irreverence. His Aristos cycle in the foyer, dress up in antique carpets and wear the family porcelain as jewelry. Now that he has been with the Italian brand for a year, his position is becoming clearer. His Moschino is less campy and more rooted in the everyday than his previous versions, but not without elements of idiosyncrasy. “Franco had that sense of irony and humor, so it’s important that I keep that thread throughout the collection,” he said.
He did this with a number of techniques: stamping an English hunting jacket in trompe l’oeil style on a T-shirt, combining other jackets into a sleeveless dress, cutting lingerie panties and camp shirts in a tea-and-crumpet print, and an adjustment of the classic Argyle sweater motif with Moschino smiley faces and hearts. Hailing from Loewe, Appiolaza has a good handle on brand building. The heart, which he has made into a kind of de facto symbol, appears as knee patches on fantastic looking jeans.
He collaborated with Sanderson – holders of the Royal Warrant, in case you didn’t know – on the floral prints that appeared on dresses and tailoring. Other motifs, such as a cloud print and a naive landscape print, have been taken from Franco’s archive and can be seen in various guises on his Moschino catwalks. Appiolaza’s own playful personality comes across clearly on a cloud-print bag with the words ‘help me’ scrawled on it. What is that all about? “It was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying ‘help me’ become the next It bag,” he laughed.