ATXV, based in Milan, is a small jewel of a brand founded and designed by Antonio Tarantini that won a 2021 Vogue Italia Who Is on Next? Prize, and this season was picked to show at RUN, a showroom for emerging talents in Paris organized by ANDAM Fashion and WSN, where hopefully the line will get some of the attention it deserves—and not just because Charlie XCX wore it recently.
While the brand falls into the “emerging” category, Tarantini is a seasoned designer who went solo in order, he said on a call, “to have the possibility to express myself.” His main subjects are the body and textiles. The latter he manipulates by hand, pulling and twisting and wrapping his materials in ingenious and gestural ways to create not-so-classical drapes for body-proud women. Though Tarantini makes use of transparency and cut-outs, these are not “naked” dresses; he uses fabric as a second skin. “I really like to create and play with the material because I think when you go in a shop, or when you touch a piece, this really makes the difference,” he said.
A photograph of a full moon illuminating clouds inspired the fabric in the opening look, a chemise dress with a slightly dropped waist and raw-cut sleeves. Rather than make a print, Tarantini captured that nebulous scene with a shibori-dyed material. The skirt in look 15 was made of a velvet so fine it has an airy transparency. It was shown with a cashmere cotton double T-shirt under, with a delicate nylon lace bra over it. Tarantini has a knack for making (body) confident clothes out of the most ethereal materials. The result is a kind of “perverse luxury,” he said.
Tarantini was in a sort of emo mood this season. “I was a little bit darker,” he said. But as a self-described “wintery person with a summery heart,” angst wasn’t part of the narrative; rather this collection was an exploration of the sometimes decadent “sense of freedom in the night, in the dark, that I really like,” the designer said.
Tarantini made his first outerwear piece for ATXV: an oversized jacket that he imagines a woman mistakenly grabbed and put on while leaving a club. There was one in an oil-black painted leather, and a heavy cotton number in smoky gray with a white lining, a symbolic representation, said the designer, of night and day, respectively. Tarantini described the proportion of those jackets as being “completely wrong” in a bad-meaning-good way. “Because I’m coming from Dior, from Versace, from Dolce & Gabbana, I learned how to create a beautiful piece for a woman or for a man, but now I really like to make mistakes,” he said. By “mistake” he meant doing something such as cutting a shadow-like techno jersey pullover top asymmetrically so that the neckline drapes in an unexpected way. An unforeseen element in this offering was Tarantini’s use of metal rings. Fabric was suspended or passed through them, sometimes are wrapped or knotted. The designer said he found in the circle both a symbol of perfection and protection; much like he finds in his nonna’s ring, which he wears like a talisman.
