‘BARE’, as the title suggests, is about stripping back and peeling off, taking us back to the origin of things. Revealing while covering. Covering while revealing. ‘BARE’ celebrates the call of the primordial, the power of brutalist simplicity and the ambiguous sensuality found in nature at once pure and wild, equally charged with fluid excesses of masculine/feminine energy by design. Androgyny as the absolute expression of freedom.

The collection’s concept is informed by revisiting the work of artists/photographers such as Peter Hujar, Robert Mappelthorpe and Nan Goldin, similarly devoted to bringing to light the beauty often hidden in the shadows, resulting in a powerful crossroad between high art and marginal life. Those seen through their lenses came to similarly personify the conundrum existing in the act of laying bare one’s skin as well as one’s soul, a permanent walk in the fine line between intimacy and exposure, glamour and decadence, vulnerability and armour. Peter Hujar once said: “I photograph those who push themselves to any extreme. That’s what interests me, and people who cling to the freedom to be themselves”.

In this context, ‘BARE’ is more than a word to describe ‘nakedness’ or ‘the pure state of things’, but rather synonymous to legitimising the complexities of being including the free will to enjoy playing out the clichés or breaking the molde; to be superficially profound or profoundly superficial; to stick with one singular path or embrace multiple reinventions. No matter what, to lay bare is to be comfortable in one’s skin unreservedly. The act of being oneself is per se a revolution and to celebrate one’s skin even a more powerful one.

The collection gives way to a continuous game of contrasts between bourgeois elegance, primitive chic and glam androgyny. Sartorial tailoring is defined by bold shoulders and wide-leg trousers, a look inspired by both zoot suits and teddy boys. The essential timelessness of 90s dresses come to the fore through straight, knee-length skirts and bold layering that enlivens silhouettes that are sheer, and transparent, enveloping the body as it twists and turns. Colors run the gamut, from neutral skin tones, beiges and camels to browns that come to life in hues of cinnamon, caramel, ginger, all of them complemented by delicate peach and punctuated with absolute black. Accessories come to life through an unexpected mix of metal and botanical accents.