antonio marras

His debut was with his prêt-à-porter in March 1999 in Milan. The collection had all the elements
of his poetics. There’s always a theme, red threads, then the taste for elegant contrasts: burn marks on luxury fabrics, distressed gauzes and sumptuous embroidery, visible seams and brocades together with a perception of modernity, richly decorative elements on vintage clothes, mixtures of rich and poor, male and female, decoration and structure, form and function.

Alongside the collections, he continues to experiment through his Laboratorio and Serie Limitata ranges: not quite prêt-à-porter, not quite couture. Clothes made by hand in the Alghero designer’s big homestudio workshop. Clothes that retain the allure of authenticity because only a few pieces exist at a time, they may serve as the starting point for models included in the first line.

In 2003 LVMH, the French luxury goods group, invited him to be the artistic director of the Kenzo fashion house, which served as Antonio’s travel companion for eight years until 2011.
The second line I’M ISOLA MARRAS launched in May 2007, debuting with the 2008-2009 autumn/winter season. Not exactly a second line, rather a more accessible, decoded Marras world.

Antonio established his headquarters in Milan. In all these years Marras made a fundamental choice, both sentimental and artistic: he never gives up living where he was born. From Alghero he travels to Milan and Paris, but it is always to Alghero that he returns in pursuit of creativity, inspiration and material for his expressive universe.