Camille Miceli had the Palio di Siena, a historic bareback horse race in the Italian town’s medieval square, in mind this season. After several collections playing with Pucci’s psychedelic 1970s vibes, the moment had apparently arrived to discover that the house’s Florentine exuberance had another historical address.
The Palio isn’t exactly for the shy. Its medieval pageantry, graphic Contrade symbols, horses, flags, and fiercely competitive spectacle make it an oddly perfect match for Pucci. Miceli found her way into that world through the archives of the Siena Contrade, where she discovered that Emilio Pucci himself had already been borrowing from its iconography. She translated the animals and emblems of the Contrade into prints, jewelry, and motifs, while pushing their decorative quality into something more contemporary.
Pucci’s familiar vocabulary became more pointed, and more sensual. A black-and-gold “zebra” print had the drama of a heraldic creature, while other glyphs appeared stretched vertically or horizontally, giving them a new sense of movement. Gold lent the collection a nocturnal, decadent energy. There was plenty of Pucci flamboyance, but Miceli was careful not to let the prints do all the talking. This has become something of a mission for her: to make Pucci recognizable as a fashion house rather than simply a very good address for prints. Black-on-black jacquards, quilting, knitwear, ribbons, and deliberately plain pieces provided counterpoints.
The silhouettes borrowed something from the Palio’s theatrical past. Waists were cinched, skirts flared, and certain dresses had a medieval-meets-skating quality that felt natural within Pucci’s universe. Miceli also revisited Emilio’s own drawings, including previously unused sketches, extracting details and proportions from the archive rather than merely reproducing its most obvious hits. Winter also gave her an opportunity to elaborate on the Pucci proposition. The tactile side of the collection mattered more than it often does here: jacquards, quilting, knits, and rich surfaces made the prints feel less like decoration applied to clothes and more like part of the clothes themselves.
It’s no secret that Miceli loves a good time: if Siena supplied the drama, Studio 54 supplied the collection’s after-dark attitude. The images of the advertising campaign, conceived around dancing and partying, extend the idea of Pucci as an occasion brand: clothes for when you intend to be seen. Which is rather the point. For Miceli, Pucci is feminine, daring, and energetic, a celebration of women who want to stand out. But in her view the clothes should not require an instruction manual. They should be, as she puts it, a “no-brainer”: you grab one, put it on and go.
That apparent simplicity is harder to achieve than it sounds. Behind the exuberant prints is a precise attention to the female body, “where a waist should sit, where a motif should fall, what should be revealed and what might be better left to the imagination.” This is where her point of view as a woman designing for women becomes most persuasive. Rather than dressing an imaginary unicorn, she is thinking about actual women, with actual bodies and actual lives. Pucci’s fantasy remains intact, but it is becoming more wearable, possible, pragmatic.
The cleverness of this collection lies precisely there. Miceli is not trying to tone Pucci down. She is giving all that color, pattern and glamour something to hold on to: stronger silhouettes, richer materials, and a little more reality. The Palio may be centuries old, but for Miceli it is less an exercise in historical costume than another way for Pucci to do what it has always done best: make an entrance, and show an appreciation for guilt-free, mood-boosting dressing up.