Italian brand Forte_Forte and Vogue’s “Who is on Next” winner Lessico Familiare took over a Parisian café during fashion week to present their joined upcycled capsule collection.

By Gabriela Cambero

In the middle of Paris fashion week, the schedule stopped for a moment for the guests of Forte_Forte and Lessico Familiare, who discovered the collaboration of the brands during a casual breakfast at the Marais fashionista haunt, Le Progrès.

For the occasion, the café was transformed with all tables featuring a traditional Italian breakfast and romantic table linens (typical elements in the designs of Lessico Familiare). While the guests enjoyed their pane e burro, models walked around the street and tables, showing off the looks from the collaboration, with romantic and relaxed airs.

Lessico Familiare was founded “out of boredom and joy” during the pandemic by Riccardo Scaburri, Alberto Petillo and Alice Curti, who decided to repurpose what was around them at home and create clothes that felt part of a “familiar lexicon”, born from overlooked curtains and crumpled tablecloths. As such, confection out of pre-existing materials is part of the brand’s DNA and origin story.

For their part, Forte_Forte was founded in 2002 by siblings Giada and Paolo Forte, with meticulously hand-finished, skin-thin T-shirts, and over the years, they’ve metamorphosed into an internationally renowned fashion house. With strong roots in Veneto, Italy, they bring a rich tradition of craftsmanship to their designs.

Enter “Poem for a Guy”, name of the collaboration that effortlessly marries nostalgia with innovation, and title of the Elton John song which inspired it. In it, Lessico Familiare worked as they would their artisanal collections but this time, the base materials for creation were defective pieces from the Forte_Forte archives, which could be given a second life through their intervention. They are deconstructed and reborn with painstaking attention to detail, creating a romantic and ironically reinterpreted take on classic silhouettes, which are neither women’s nor menswear (or maybe, they are both).

The romantic Shakespearean inspiration comes in the form of puffy sleeves, ribbons and ruffles. Pijamas and shirts fuse into distorted oversize versions of their original shapes. Collars are sleeves, bustiers are bottoms and shimmer appears in unexpected places. Everything comes with a twist, everything is a remix of something else. Bohemian and romantic meets masculine, tailored meets glitter and militar meets bows. There are no rules in this fashion blender.

Giada Forte describes her feeling during the collaboration as a “powerful emotional connection, especially in our intense love for the beauty of recovery and respect for the poetry of the past”. It’s a shared love for the art of repurposing that fuels this creative endeavour.

“Poem for a Guy” is a celebration of partnership, craftsmanship, and creativity. It reminds us that fashion can be more than a uniform; it can be a work of art, a poetic expression of emotions and ideas. This spirit of freedom and ingenuity flourished in Le Progrès for a fleeting morning.

The one of a kind pieces will be available at the Forte_Forte Rue Grenelle boutique, and then will travel to their Madrid and Milan locations.