The persistent absence of women in top creative roles at major fashion houses is too striking to ignore. Yet when the doors to these positions remain closed, a saying comes to mind: If the mountain will not come to Muhammed, then Muhammed must go to the mountain. Ilenia Durazzi should choose this motto as her label’s crest.
Refusing to wait for opportunity to be granted, she has taken matters into her own hands. After many formative years working for big companies, she decided to seek financing and found her own brand, shaping a space where her vision could flourish, and affirming that creativity, when fueled by intelligent determination, resourcefulness, and hard work, can find its rightful stage.
Durazzi comes to fashion from the world of contemporary art and with a lifelong love for horseback riding. She has woven these two passions into the fabric of her label. Her work borrows visuals, structural elements, and emotional resonances from both fields, creating a hybrid format that allows her voice to remain consistent. Rather than staging costly runway shows, Durazzi approaches her presentations as art performances that connect emerging creatives whose work she admires.
This season, she juxtaposed the classical art of the 19th century—elegant academic studies of female nudes alongside mythological subjects such as Leda and the Swan—with the industrial atmosphere of her showroom. She let the subtle eroticism of those images play against the starkness of the space and the clean lines of a collection that borrowed from the androgynous lexicon of masculine dressmaking.
Durazzi designs for women’s real lives, and while her instinct is toward precision and reduction, this season she loosened the grip a notch, introducing flowing panels and freer silhouettes that enhance speed and movement. Light jackets with a linear cut, plunging double-breasted vests, wide trousers, and parkas in distressed viscose carried a classy, everyday ease. Outerwear drew on uniforms but resisted rigidity: Cotton trenches were trimmed in leather, and car coats were softened at the seams for comfort.
Leather anchored the collection, worked like saddlery: raw, creased, and studded, pushed beyond polish into something more severe yet still supple. Exotic skins and animal motifs surfaced in jacquards, echoing the shadowy symbolism of Old Master canvases. Materials were forced into dialogue: Denim clashed with metallic leather; raffia offset the jewel-like gleam of metal, lifted from the equestrian world. Garments and accessories were punctuated with buckles, studs, and charms. A hybrid necklace of cascading chains and trinkets layered over a tailored suit in charcoal grisaille stood out as a statement piece—poised between hardware and relic, a dash of kink suggesting a provocative undertone.
