Tod’s Fall 2023 Menswear Collection

Villa Necchi Campiglio, the once private residence in the heart of Milan that is a gem of modernist architecture, has become a sort of second home for Tod’s, as its elegant interiors are a fitting frame for the sophisticated collections Walter Chiapponi is designing for the label.

At today’s presentation, the designer said that he wanted to work on “the memory of elegance.” Chiapponi isn’t a nostalgic, but he’s partial to a certain classy bourgeois style that would look at ease in one of Villa Necchi’s salons. “Going around town these days, what I see is that people aren’t embracing sportswear as they used to do,” he reflected. “I’m not saying that streetwear or sportswear are dead, because they’re not. Comfort and an idea of casualwear will stay. What I’m saying is that sportswear isn’t an inspiration anymore for fashion designers of a certain cachet. Which makes me happy,” he continued. “A form of relaxed yet soigné tailoring is taking the lead, even for young generations.”

For fall, Chiapponi worked on a focused collection “which whispers and doesn’t scream,” he said, and which pivoted on his flair for casual elegance. He offered a series of cropped blousons loosely inspired by a ’40s silhouette. Worn with slim, classic trousers, the blousons were cut près du corps, and made in the finest leathers, cashmeres, and wools. Variations on the theme included a white leather iteration, a short version with knitted intarsia, a fitted bomber with furry lining, and a piumino made in a softest suede usually used for gloves.

Chiapponi highlighted the chiaroscuro technique manually applied on leathers to give them patina and three-dimensional depth. “These are beautiful objects made with artisanal savoir faire,” he said. “They don’t need to be loud to be heard; they’re almost silent. But there’s lots of life inside each of them.”