ABOUT PDR AW 2021 COLLECTION: AN ODE TO IMPERFECTION AND AUTHENTICITY  

“Imperfection is game, it is irony, it is the desire to break the mould. Imperfection is the exaltation of the perfect”

This coming winter collection has a few references: one of the most visible is the classic English Burberry Coat, the old school knit vest and the navy blue sailor peacoat that imply to the dream of traveling and new adventure. The designer of Phisique du Role, Alessandra Bellelli, is imagining a new wild journey along the Norwegian fjords, wrapped in cosy knitted scarf that never ends.

Her dream and intention to travel soon is part of her positive outlook on the future. You can feel it in the explosion of colours and playful accessory design: hoods, muffs, caps, super giant scarves. Stripes are everywhere declined in interlock stripes, in cotton wool, merino, alpaca and mohair gauze.

Knitwear again plays a central role in this collection. Made of 100 extra-fine virgin wool, mohair, alpaca gauze, or cashmere blend, even with a little elastic to make the garments sculpted and compact and all of course in exaggerated colors. The thick sweaters have exaggerated sleeves or crooked ribs - It is as if they wanted to go around you, hug you!

“Everything is imperfect, overlapping buttons, buttons that are too large, dangling threads, masculine fabrics with feminine details, slits where they shouldn't be, ribs all crooked ... but are these mistakes?” 

And if you feel overwhelmed by the details and the colours, the volume and the corkiness, there is a lot to satisfy your taste for discreet charm and feminine delicate elegance. You can find dresses in ironic fake flower polka dots, shirts and scarves in viscose crepe and solid colours. Skirts are severe, Oriana Fallaci or with slits, but always with the cultured discreet bourgeois in mind. And again from silk twill garments finished in foulards with their worsted wool cardigans, two pieces in one, precious, bourgeois for good.

“A collection must be rich in sensory experiences. No one can take away the dream of traveling, ours will not be regrets but soon they will be certainties”.

Everything in this collection is made to mix and match, to play and enjoy. For example the shirts in wool silk muslin are wide and with rouches and meant to mix with trousers in men's fabrics, yarn-dyed flannel, referring to the Prince of Wales style.

Whether beaded or lined with horsehair, the signature coats and jackets remain true to the PdR original style, or what Alessandra Bellelli likes to call “the fake mistake”: a boxy jacket sleeve, with 2 huge buttons that you don't expect, a men's volume jacket with a little feminine touch at the wrists, the shetland jacket with a sleeve with crossed and colored buttons all unmatched. The hood in super classic cloth with a detached collar in a wrong color. The super bourgeois microshetland jacket with a hand-crocheted pocket and threads that still hang. The cotton skirt with the belt that is a perfect half jacket cut and finished as if the top were there.

A symphony of mistakes that makes every PdR collection one of a kind, authentic and a little raw, but unmistakably Italian in quality and artistry of expression.

And not to forget the queen of the collection: the PdR jacquards. Those sweaters that are a book of Carpi's history and culture of knitwear. They are always the ones that make PdR different from others, that create the unexpected effect and connect the stories produced by the imagination of the designer. There are hours of testing of yarns, designs and colors invested in every piece of knitwear, made by PdR.

“Our collection is made with love in Italy, the yarn is Italian, the fabrics are Italian, the carryover fabrics are dyed or printed in Italy, everything comes from Italian companies that combine tradition and quality with circular companies where you don't throw away excess fabrics, water, where everything is energy”