Federico Curradi: fashion from the Bocca D’Arno

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 15, 2018

Designer Federico Curradi comes from Chianti, but his aesthetic is light years away from any of the tony sun seekers of Chiantishire.
 
Curradi is one of Tuscany’s most relevant designers, who manages to combine a rustic sensibility with hipster panache and ecological credibility.

 
On a sunny Thursday evening during Pitti94 in Florence, Curradi presented his fifth signature collection, based on a simple, yet charming, idea, the river Arno.
 
“The Arno flows through Florence and it goes past Pitti. When it reaches the sea there is the beautiful place called the Bocca d’Arno, where fishermen build these beautiful huts, baracche in Italian. I wanted to capture that idea of these huts, made from all these materials that they found. They are environmentally perfect,” explains Curradi, who has the easy charm of a handsome Tuscan.

The result: shirt-jackets with patch pockets in faded ecrus and beiges, finished with large buttons and paired with deep pocketed jersey shorts; chunky parkas with lots of ties and trims; and a series of great summer cotton dusters (a huge trend here) in surgical green and dusty putty.   A combination of hippie patchwork references, and easy luxury that looked very of beat yet now.

 
“My reference point was Massimo Osti and the '90s. That’s why I used lots of technical fabrics, but not in nylon but in silk. We have a huge worldwide problem with plastic destroying our oceans. So all my fabrics are biodegradable,” said Curradi, referring to the Italian garment engineer and founder of Stone Island.
 
As he builds his business, Curradi proudly showed off his new studio and showroom on via Santo Spirito, a storied old street on the left bank of the Arno. This was the third time presenting in Florence. Though he continues to lives in the country with “my own horses and cows and the odd visiting wolf. I’m a country boy at heart, 20 minutes away in Chianti.”