The Attico Hits the Street With First Runway Show

MILAN — When Gilda Ambrosio and Giorgia Tordini founded The Attico in 2016, they were both at the peak of their influencer career, popping out here and there in practically any street-style gallery online during Milan Fashion Week.

The streets, where trends come to life, and social media, where trends went and still go viral, were their home and soon became their mood board. The duo succeeded in distilling a precise vision of femininity, a blend of high and low, sophisticated and sassy.

A runway show was a long time coming, but the pair didn’t want to embrace the format until the time was ripe.

Previewing their spring 2024 runway collection a few days before the show, Ambrosio and Tordini insisted the move has little to do with commercial or visibility needs. It’s more about building on the storytelling they’ve carved for The Attico until now.

“It’s a new thing, it’s important and it will mark our future and journey. It just felt right to do it now,” said Ambrosio. “It’s not a starting point nor a destination, it’s just part of the process,” echoed Tordini. “We didn’t work over the past seven years thinking about how one day we would have hosted a runway show. That was never our priority, we worked to build the company,” she said.

Their corner office inside a stately building in central Milan, filled with design pieces, is sunlit throughout the day and positioned on the mezzanine floor, just about the right position to indulge in people-watching.

The runway show is taking place on a street in the Arco della Pace neighborhood in western Milan, marking a departure from the intimacy of the presentations the duo has hosted in quintessentially Milanese apartments in the past, before transitioning entirely to the digital medium.

“The street is the most democratic of places and the stage for real life,” Ambrosio opined. “We’re keen observers and the street is where life happens,” Tordini concurred.

What both other mediums lacked was the ability to give a precise sense of clothing movement in real life. The new stage influenced the designers’ approach to the collection, Tordini and Ambrosio concurred.

“Experimentation has been the single funnest and most liberating thing about the show thus far, we set ourselves no limits and had none,” Tordini said.

Compared to merchandising-mindful collections, show pieces allowed them to toy with fabrics, techniques, embroideries and treatments, all in the name of heightening the tomboyish-meets-hyper-feminine look the duo has mastered over the seasons.

Starting from a grayish color palette with hints of brown, green and black — all colors the designers ascribe to Milanese style — in addition to pink and red, the collection is set to blend their penchant for eveningwear, as well as for workwear-inflected garb, mixing night and day attire, oversize and body-con creations. Somehow it will reflect The Attico’s evolution from eveningwear label to round-the-clock wardrobe builder catering to different women.

“Who has only one personality?” Ambrosio questioned. “It’s smart to be able to change and evolve over time, creatively and personally,” she offered.

“The starting point is always what’s happening in society and culture at large, reflecting on the world we’re living in. We engage in long conversations on new trends, not fashion-wise but more in terms of habits and ways of living, because at the end of the day it’s all interconnected,” Ambrosio said.

Tordini credited their young team for bringing about fresh perspectives, embracing unexpected routes and helping the bubbly pair stay focused on multiple tasks at a time.

The designers are not only readying the show for Saturday at 6 p.m. CET, but simultaneously brainstorming on two more seasons. The Attico embraced the see now, buy now format seasons ago and is planning to stick to it.

To be sure, the show collection stands on its own, as a seasonless lineup that will partly hit retail as soon as the show ends at the brand’s online store and select retailers including Saks Fifth Avenue, Galeries Lafayette, Harrods, The Webster, Forward, Antonia and Mytheresa, among others.

The brand’s name harks back to the intimate, nocturnal and mysterious vibes of early boudoir-meet-glitzy-partywear collections, and presentations, which have evolved over time not only expanding to more product categories — think hit shoes, beachwear, streetwear with the “Life at Large” collection, and most recently bags — but also expanding on the cool, glamorous look the designers embody so evidently. In 2018 Remo Ruffini acquired a 49 percent stake in The Attico through a vehicle called Archive Srl.

“At a time when femininity was anchored to a very precise aesthetics, à la Phoebe Philo, we came up with something different, more romantic,” Ambrosio opined.

In other words, she highlighted how the heyday’s party frocks, feather-trimmed pants and, most recently, the crystal-dotted fishnet tops and oversized cargo pants worn with sensual mules are breaking conventions on what’s expected of a strong-willed, powerful woman to wear.