Pucci shows in Rome under the gaze of the Ludovisi Ares

Camille Miceli chose the Eternal City, Rome, and the historic Palazzo Altemps, next door to Piazza Navona, to present the ‘Very Vivara’ Spring/Summer 2024 collection by Pucci, the ‘prince of prints’. Rome is a city very dear to the Italian-French designer’s heart, a place for holidays and even for some unforgettable chagrins d’amour, as she told FashionNetwork.com with a grin.

In the frescoed halls of Rome’s 15th century Palazzo Altemps, still echoing with the dalliances of Italian early 20th century author Gabriele D’Annunzio, and under the immortal gaze of the masterpiece of classical sculpture, the Ludovisi Ares, Pucci staged a runway show featuring top models and timeless icons including Christy Turlington, Eva Herzigová, Angelina Kendall and, for the finale, Gabriella Rossellini. To the notes of Róisín Murphy’s version of Pensiero Stupendo, these beautiful women reminded the audience that Pucci is always able to surprise and enchant, staying true to its DNA even while adopting a contemporary tone, and managing to dress young women and ladies of various ages and morphologies impeccably.

When Miceli was named creative director of Pucci in 2021, Sidney Toledano said: “Camille will be able to write a new chapter in the history of this maison with a unique heritage.” And she has been up to the task. A heritage like Pucci’s, born in 1947 from the eclectic, visionary and even revolutionary personality of the Marquis Emilio Pucci, did not unsettle Miceli, who had previously risen to the challenge at labels with a glorious history like Chanel, Dior, and Louis Vuitton. Staging her second runway show for the maison in which LVMH bought a majority stake in 2000, Miceli said she was ready to reinterpret Vivara, one of the Florentine label’s most iconic patterns. Emilio Pucci designed it in 1965 to symbolise his connection with the Mediterranean, naming it after a remote, half-moon-shaped islet close to Capri.

“Until now, working on Vivara seemed to me premature, or perhaps, even too obvious. I’m like clay, I love to mould myself within a label. I needed to be ready with a renewed aesthetic, to be able to incorporate this legendary print into a new oeuvre,” Miceli told FashionNetwork.com in faultless Italian, made all the more alluring by her unmistakeably French accent. “With this new collection, I wanted to tell a story about different women, with the idea of bringing Pucci into their everyday life, addressing their individual needs, determined also by the different contexts in which they are living,” said Miceli.

Miceli has designed a highly diverse, modern and wearable collection, including also several silhouettes, like the cape dress, the frilled collars and the column dress, first created by Pucci himself. The collection alternates a sartorial register with a vision of carefree, contemporary femininity infused with a hippie touch. It featured scarf-style silk dresses, gabardine city sets with inlaid prints, micro shorts, miniskirts and asymmetric tops, longline dresses and skirts with deep slits, jumpsuits, snug t-shirts, oversize blazers and bomber jackets. Tassels, all-over embroidery, sequins, leather accents and chain details added a playful or sophisticated vibe to the looks. In the show’s finale, a series of hooded dresses and terry caftans with majestic volumes paid tribute to Pucci’s archives.

Miceli had fun extrapolating individual design elements, playing with proportions, and putting other Pucci prints centre-stage in the collection: Cigni, evoking the graceful shape of a swan’s curved neck; Bersaglio, a motif that twists and turns, curls and expands in space; Chiave, giving a Pucci flavour to classic stripes; and others, like Marmo, Pesci and Iridi. As usual, colour shone as Pucci’s signature trait, through a masterful, unhackneyed use of tonal matches. Alongside Vivara’s palette of navy, blue, green and purple, the collection’s patterns explored an array of tone-on-tone hues, from neutral shades like beige, khaki and black, to vibrant red and pink accents.

Accessories played a key part in the collection, notably the large costume jewellery (which Miceli loves, and has a solid grounding in) with its tribal feel – “proud,” as she defined it. Its style was consistent with the collection’s mood, and ranged from cascades of colourful discs to layered chains and studded leather tops, and even cheeky toe rings. Also featured were mules, twisty-heeled sandals, leaf sandals, leather handbags incorporating some of the scarves’ patterns, cross-shoulder bags with chain straps or handles, as well as nylon and raffia bags adding a touch of colour and zest to the looks. 

To explain how pleasant it was for her to delve into the label’s archives and then reinterpret what she found in her own personal fashion, Miceli cited a phrase by Goethe that Karl Lagerfeld used to repeat as though it was a precept: “faire un meilleur avenir avec les éléments élargis du passée.”  

Isabella Rossellini and the Ludovisi Ares at Palazzo Altemps – DR

Pucci’s Roman show was undoubtedly proof of the evergreen vitality of the label’s classic codes, provided they are reinterpreted in as revolutionary a spirit as that which characterised the creative flair of the label’s founder.