ON FIRST impression, Antonio Marras appears more like a passionate painter than a fashion designer. He sits quietly with his sketch book balanced on his lap. He works quickly, his large hands moving skilfully across the page, completely absorbed.
A glimpse over his shoulders reveals an intricate drawing of a woman enveloped in feathers and flowers that eventually connect to form an exquisite dress that resembles something out of a fairytale. To finish off, Marras takes a spoonful of his espresso, and carefully shades just the right areas to add life and colour to his masterpiece. 'I love art,' the Italian designer says in thick-accented English, carefully pronouncing some of the few words he knows of the language.
He confesses, through a translator, to having plundered many of the art galleries in Central during his recent trip to Hong Kong, especially those carrying Tibetan art. 'Art is so important to me,' he says. 'I feel it's like something that belongs to me and is mine to enjoy.'
Most people are probably unfamiliar with the name Antonio Marras, although his experimental designs may well be immediately recognisable. Since his first foray into fashion in 1987, when he designed his debut ready-to-wear collection under a separate label, he's earned respect from fashion critics for his hand-crafted clothes. His style is edgy and avante-garde, with a mixture of Italian handicrafts and recyclable haute couture that's more chic than dumpster.
He quickly established himself in Milan as one of fashion's most unorthodox designers. At his shows, textures are layered and fused, while his abundant use of what many would consider fashion 'waste', is recycled into something chic and wearable, making him more of an artist than a designer.
His experimental fashion continued when he made his debut in haute couture under his own name in 1996, letting his imagination run wild to rework vintage fabrics and clothing. 'Ready-to-wear and haute couture are very different worlds,' he says. 'Ready-to-wear is my livelihood. I've been designing it [under my own label] for over 10 years. But doing haute couture was a necessity, eventually, because it was the only way I could design without constraints or boundaries. I can express what I want freely and it's a territory for experiments. Haute couture is the ultimate dream.'
