Initial reaction:
With models caged behind a wire fence and concealed under face nets, this season Riccardo Tisci was set on playing his own ball games.
Boy meets girl:
Super hot Mariacarla Boscono appeared to tease the gang of boys in a black midriff-baring bandeau and oversized jacket with sports stripes along its back (swiped off a player’s back no doubt). She returned in fur wrapped round the neck like a towel and cinched with a belt – a flash of silver foil at her midriff. Smoking...
Playing ball:
Fur was worn draped like a towel around the neck, and bound over the chest by a white panel. These panels then became distorting muscle wraps on the arms of sweaters, as if restructuring and shifting the silhouette. A basketball vest was reimagined in coarse grey fur, like a hair vest, and edged in orange. The distinctive interlinked loops and lines of a basketball ball began to appear over hips on the slouchy, streetwear trousers, before being blown up onto incredible black bomber jackets, the silver ball lines looping around its shape. The same motif appeared on a pristine white shirt, in a zip-like, silver line.
Art influences:
Opening vests, shirts and hoodies appeared splattered with paint and washes of orange, white and yellow. With its swooping abstract blurs it could have been an interpretation of a ball flying through the air mid-game. The basketball ball motif of lines and curves morphed into an abstract Bauhaus minimalist blur of brown, beige and red on soft sweaters, before becoming refined and reduced into very minimal red, blue and yellow lines – like court lines on a sports hall floor – over a black bomber, shirt and sweater.
How they wore it:
Trucker caps and stacked trainers were pure streetwear, while beautiful tailored coats gave the air of an urban dandy. Black suiting was worn with origami fold white shirts. The collection was styled for the first time by Katy England.
The soundtrack was created exclusively for Givenchy by The Martinez Brothers, listen in the show video below.
