Animuomini” returns, moving between classicism and play, instinct and reason. The masks come to life, merging with the collection as a personal iconography re-emerges.
Etro staged its presentation in the dim back rooms of a Brera trattoria, swapping white cubes for low light and a faintly Wunderkammer-ish atmosphere. The space was intimate and plush, populated by mannequins crowned with Venetian-made papier-mâché animal heads—foxes, owls, rams, bears—turning the display into a well-dressed menagerie with impeccable table manners.
Marco De Vincenzo explained that the masks nodded to @etro‘s 1997 photographic campaign, devised by Kean Etro during his tenure as creative director. The idea hinged on physiognomy, the notion that human traits often mirror animal ones, and that our most refined behaviors still rest on fairly primal instincts. “I thought the imagery was genius,” he said, and so he brought it back. It felt less like an archive citation than a knowing throwback: odd, and slightly camp. The collection was called Ani-men, a portmanteau of ‘animal’ and ‘men.’
