GCDS SS24 – Milan Fashion Week
GCDS embraces their core Italian roots for MFW. By Magdalen Manning
Renowned for its contemporary flair and outlandish pop art designs, GCDS SS24 chose this time to ‘return home’ for the new collection at Milan Fashion Week. For summer, founder and designer Giuliano Calza is found exploring a playful mixture of his own Neapolitan roots and the label’s well-known Italian streetwear beginnings. This time, he’s bringing everything back to where it started – the simple love of making clothes.
“Every journey ends where it started: home,” said the show notes. To emphasise the point, Calza dubbed his new collection Mediterraneo, and it marks a decisive shift in the aesthetic and the fashion. Befitting the new perspective, the show took place in the intimate salon-like atmosphere of GCDS’ very own headquarters so this alternative version of Giuliano Calza could be properly studied and appreciated.
Opting for a more considered and stripped-back colour palette, onlookers were invited to bask in the creation and craftmanship rather than be distracted by the spectacle. Dreamy pale blues and subtle creamy yellows described almost the entire tonal scope, with luxurious chocolate brown leathers and the occasional glamorous shimmering silver adding different subtexts to the unfolding plot.
There were new theories on materials and textures, as denim pieces flaunting the GCDS logo paired with matching boots and semi-sheer chiffon tank tops, socks and gloves with lettuce-trimmed hems, all developed the growing sense of synchronicity. Other examples were seen when comfort met glamour in metal bauble-embellished sweatpants tucked into silver knee-high boots mixed with a bikini chaser. The famed Italian motto “La Dolce Vita” never looked so sweet.
Elsewhere we saw ‘bourgeois’ tweeds and aldo straw; there were exaggerated silhouettes and linebacker shoulders, crisp tailoring and shirting, and bold horizontal striping bisected by asymmetric zips to play with the eye – “all of it mixed with a certain spontaneity, with the insouciance of appreciating formality and breaking it all up a bit.”
GCDS SS24 was a delightful display of form and bravado from Calza; a literal prodigal son returning home.
To read our review of the FENDI SS24 show from MFW, click here
Click here for more information on GCDS SS24
