MILANO UNICA RE-TOUCH! is the theme-manifesto that introduces the presentation of Spring-Summer 2022 trends. RE-TOUCH! is an invitation to touch the surfaces of fabrics and accessories to arrive at a responsible and conscious re-interpretation of industrial production. RE-TOUCH! encapsulates the fundamental concepts of re-use, re-cycle and re-digitalization, emphasizing the importance of the act of touching.
Touch, understood as an empirical action of knowledge, is therefore the leitmotif of Milano Unica's research for S-S 2022 trends. Touching, grazing, palpating and caressing are all verbs that, through the sense of touch, lead to comprehending material.
After all, the physical specificities of "made in Italy" fabrics and accessories, such as weight, gauge, softness and roughness, require this simple hand gesture, to analyze their characteristics, to detect their structure and, finally, to understand their sophisticatedly intrinsic processing, which comes from knowledge handed down, working techniques achieved over time and Italian tradition.
«Not only that, but after a period of severe restrictions against physical contact and after an exhausting period of social distancing, Milano Unica, always concentrating on interpreting contemporary currents, has decided to pay homage to the sense of touch as a primordial value of human relationship and knowledge,» adds Stefano Fadda, artistic director of Milano Unica, to emphasize the relevance of the theme.
So for Spring-Summer 2022 trends, Milano Unica leads off from wefts and warps, thread thicknesses, weights, weaves and selvedges, that is, from the alphabet that defines the story of the three trends: Nature, Urban, Digital, three interconnected visions for a new season of re-birth.
Nature
This theme celebrates the triumph of nature through micro flowers, branches, maxi petals, close-ups of corollas, botanical weaves: a vegetative tangle that recalls silk-screen printing and the picturesque worlds of soothing elegance and beauty. In the background, you perceive the aesthetics of the designer William Morris, cited not only for his almost pre-Raphaelite sensitivity for nature, but also for his commitment to supporting the value of the Arts & Crafts movement and therefore the culture of craftsmanship and the manufacturing chain. However, the research goes beyond the modernity of 3D effects and digital patterns that make the foliage in intangible botanical micro-worlds contemporary.
Urban
This is the trend with vertical lines and their infinite processing possibilities. The graphic cue is drawn from the city skyline with its buildings and skyscrapers that come one after another, tracing imaginary parallel lines in the sky above. However, in reality, the starting point is the pinstripe, one of the masculine fabrics par excellence that is the basis for a study of sophisticatedly conceived stripes, baguettes, lines and stitches.
Italian historical archives lay the foundations for this theme’s research from which peaks of virtuosity are reached through a complex and refined synthesis of new patterns.
Digital
The volumes of Italian architectural rationalism, the graphics of the Fifties and the formal research of the Forties are the key points of this theme that finds its greatest expression in digital processing. Everything is pure form, without ornamentation, with a play on woven material and volumes. This theme proposes an elegant eclecticism of natural fibers and complex patterns.