It would be weird writing a report about a Pringle of Scotland show just days before the Scots vote for or against their independence and not mention the obvious. For the brand’s Italian designer Massimo Nicosia, however, honouring the Pringle heritage is more about exploring the future of knitwear and developing his expert skills as a fabric scientist, and rightly so. Backstage he was pulling garments out from rails in every corner, describing how he managed to create a collection of clothes that mimicked water. Light, liquidity, and reflection had been on Nicosia’s mind after a visit to his favourite museum, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, where he’d once again come across Pablo Picasso’s On the Beach.
The artwork had inspired Nicosia to gather all his favourite water-centric references, from John Everett Millais’ Ophelia to the work of Federico Fellini, which could have turned into something very period-based and romantic were it not for Nicosia’s innate sense of the futuristic. Instead, he covered a top in clear geometrical plastic shapes to resemble waves, placed blue patches under sheer white material to make a coat look like the sea, and sealed little squares of sunglass material in pockets all over a top to make it look like the bottom of an Art Deco swimming pool. Nicosia may not be Scottish, but at Pringle of Scotland he’s certainly carrying on the very Scottish tradition of great imagination and extraordinary invention.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Piczo