This year we’ve had the pleasure of wearing Pomandère at the Pitti Uomo Fair. Its current but still traditional delicate forms and soft colours never stop surprising us. But how can they be so charming? We asked Carlo Zanuso, a young designer from Vicenza. He was born and has grown up in the sartorial culture, he is a refined experimenter of fabrics and style, still beholden to the handcraft tradition.

Your new Spring/Summer 2014 campaign is awesome: would you tell us its story?

Pomandère new collection summarizes the impressions collected in an imaginary journey across Italy: the expressive power given off by the Mediterranean Sea, the heady warmth of the Lebeche wind lifting up brown ground and shaking golden wheat fields. In this journey you can catch a well-balanced bond between nature and human presence, feel the energy which flows and colours unique garments, created to underline the delicate womanliness of every Pomandère collection. Nature and architecture meld in the geometry of fabrics reminding of Baroque garnishes of Sicilian palaces or of floor decorations where a sleepy cat lies down in a hot summer afternoon.  The S/S collection can evoke colours and texture of the inspirational element, like the sour smell of the Neapolitan lemons, the grainy compactness of sand, the typical Siena earth colour, the emerald green of the Dolomites woods.
It’s a seductive invitation which won’t let you impassive…


Which colours, fabrics, materials did you work with and why did you choose them?

For this collection I used the Pomandère typical summer fabrics, such as linen, which has an unusual bourgeois connotation and therefore looks embroidered, and silk, which can be found in several versions like georgette, habutai, crepe de chine and printed silk. Romanticism means only one thing, though, that is lace!  For what colours are concerned, you will find deep, electric or ocean blue, very intense, a powerful key colour, it tastes like saltiness and reminds of waves breaking on the Mediterranean coast. Yellow, unexpected, but soft and secretive, it bursts into summer clothes like a hot sun in the sky. And then mandarin, which soothes both your eyes and mind, so bright and powerful, it immediately recalls Sicilian citrus fruit, and there the journey begins…


Your personal keyword for this year?

Handicraft, meaning know how to do it and do it well.


Your origin is deeply rooted in Vicenza: why did you choose to stay and work here?

I decided to stay here to carry on a family tradition, the very core of our business. It was one of Pomandère’s keyfactor: I actually grew up within my parents’ company reality and my passion for fashion grew up along with me in that atmosphere.


Summer’s come: how should a Pomandère woman dress to embrace it?

The “ideal” Pomandère woman would wear something light and fluid, like a silk short and a silk voile overblouse.

Take a look at the gallery: a cloudy sky won’t stop the new awesome S/S collection!

DD