Bal Harbour

P H OTO S CO U R T E S Y O F E T R O the "sparkle is ever y where." When designing, he always star ts with a blank pa ge, because he never wants a specific inspiration to weigh him down. "I don't want rules," says the designer. "You need freedom to say something." De Vincenzo found such creative freedom at the helm of the heritage Milanese fashion house in June 2022 . He's been the head of leather goods at Fendi since 2008, ran his own namesake label from 2009 to 2020, and made headlines with upcycled vintage project Supèrno in 2022. Along with Filippo Grazioli at Missoni and Sabato de Sarno at Gucci, he's part of a new guard of designers bringing a new dose of cre- ativity to legacy brands. "It seems that family brands are writ ten in my destiny," says de Vincenzo. Having designed at Fendi for the last 15 years, he has long balanced "new and old," he says, and credits the Rome-based house's accessories department as the "fundamental experience" that taught him how to strike the right balance between interpolating the archives and starting from scratch. Etro, which is known for its bohemian prints and luxe textiles, didn't exactly need reinventing when de Vincenzo, 45, arrived. "Not all brands need to turn the page, and Etro is one that wants to write new pages of an already written book," he says. "We are trying, season after season, to respect the legacy of the brand without missing a new point of view." Along with producing versatile pieces, de Vincenzo's priority is making sure prints remain Etro's main attraction, calling them " the first heri- tage to be preserved." "I am fascinated by Etro's textile histor y. Before being a fashion brand," the designer explains, "Etro produced fabrics for more than 20 years for many other brands. Let's say that it can be considered a leading brand in textile culture." In order to expand his reference points, de Vincenzo is "studying the origins of the brand to gain more freedom in interpreting it." Though he's also looking at clothing pieces from past collections, he points out that "the most inspiring pieces are all the old fabric books and sketches—they were and still are essential to starting any collection." star ts with to weigh freedom heritage of leather of leather of 2009 to O F E T R O in at cre- de long house's taught archives didn't brands of season, view." making heri- fashion 20 leading de with a weigh freedom heritage leather to FOR ETRO CREATIVE DIRECTOR MARCO DE VINCENZO, De Vincenzo's priority is making sure prints remain Etro's main attraction, calling them "the first heritage to be preserved." 226 BAL HARBOUR

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