Simon Holloway was appointed Agnona’s creative director just a season ago, but he’s putting his mark on the label’s look, firmly yet gently, as his personal style dictates. Unfailingly polite, the British-born Holloway seems well suited to give Agnona both flair and consistency. One of the storied Italian textile brands of impossibly high standards, Agnona’s wildly expensive knitwear has been favored by well-to-do Milanese ladies, obsessively discreet types so understated as to be snobbishly horrified of even the smallest evidence of showing off. Its signature neutral palette is so extensive that the word beige is translated into countless different variations, probably at least as many as the Inuit have for snow.
“I wanted purity, simplicity, a lightweight approach,” said the designer. Yet there was nothing simple in his stylistic vision for the label. On the contrary, his articulate, sophisticated eye filtered Agnona’s legacy in a contemporary way. “I delved in the archive,” he said. “It was full of hidden gems. In the ’50s, the house’s founder worked alongside the modernist movement on textile design, innovating the fabrics’ development; it wasn’t just a mill.” Hence the slightly couture spin that infused the silhouette; it looked cultivated. In keeping with house tradition, materials had a luxurious tactile quality; double cashmeres and crepes, silks and wool cottons, and georgettes and chiffons were of impeccable standards. An off-white suede duster was punched with a guipure-inspired floral motif taken from the archive; at the touch, it felt almost impalpable.
