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Act n°1 debuts at Milan Fashion Week with outspoken show
The collection by emerging women’s ready-to-wear label Act n°1 has certainly been one of the most intriguing at the Milan Fashion Week. Designer duo Luca Lin and Galib Gassanov, winners of the Who Is on Next? 2017 competition, spoke out with a fresh voice at Act n°1’s maiden show on the Milanese catwalks. Their original approach, and their fashion-with-a-message, has certainly attracted attention.
With the show for the Spring/Summer 2019 collection, the two designers, who recently relocated their atelier from Reggio Emilia to Milan, chose to denounce the outrage of the forced marriages of very young girls in countries like Georgia, where Azerbaijan-born Gassanov, 24, spent his youth.
“We want to tell authentic stories, and fashion allows us to speak out about problems like these to the general public, giving a voice to those who don’t have one,” said Gassanov.
The collection talks two different stylistic languages: an adolescent one, rich in denim items and sweatshirts, and a traditional one, featuring ethnic garments in jacquard fabric and even wedding dresses. Indeed, tulle plays a part in many looks, wrapped around the body, shrouding it or simply overlaid here and there.
The two threads run through the entire collection, sometimes colliding in some of its destructured clothes. “The way we work is the result of the clash between our multiple cultural roots and modern society. We often work with two entirely different types of garment, which we chop up and remix in our own fashion,” said Luca Lin, 25, the son of Chinese immigrants to Italy.
Teenagers’ jeans are adorned with tulle and slit at the knee, worn with a white masculine shirt which seems to slide down the body, baring a shoulder, the collar sewn on to the sternum. The same shirt, in extra-large size, a symbol of the male tormentor, blends into a delicate silk tunic in green hues.
Elsewhere, it morphs into a dress with the simple addition of a black tulle veil stitched around the waist, while a see-through tulle apron in pastel green, with wide shoulder straps, is layered, like a pretend wedding dress, over an extra-large black sweatshirt.
Another provocative accessory, the chain, a symbol of imprisonment, is featured in the shape of long earrings, or wrapped around ankles, or as laces on stiletto-heel pumps. Also notable are the superb Chinese gowns in painted silk, slinking down the length of the body to the feet.
Act n°1 was founded in 2016 and is positioned in the 'advanced contemporary' segment, with already 40 retailers to its name, among them Luisaviaroma and Farfetch.
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