Raw-Seam Bonded Vinyl Jacket — Purple, Size IT 38 / US 2

Francesco Risso built Marni's Fall/Winter 2018 collection on what he called a Siamese process: garments fused from halves and assembled in a deliberately chaotic order, shown on a set heaped with old televisions, mattresses and newspapers. The show opened on coats in high-gloss plastic in primary paint colours, and this jacket belongs to that opening statement. Where Marni had long been known for polite, print-led eccentricity, Risso used it to argue that luxury could be raw, synthetic and unfinished.

The shell is a high-shine vinyl bonded to a felt backing, which gives the jacket a stiff, sculptural body that holds its own shape away from the wearer. The seams are saddle-stitched and left raw, with cut edges exposed and threads trailing loose by design, so the construction is worn on the outside. The cut is wide through the body and sleeves with a wrapped front, made to be cinched with a statement belt the way it was shown on the runway. The colour is an electric blue-violet that Marni names purple. Made in Italy.

What it reads as is a raincoat taken apart and put back together as an argument: industrial material, couture attitude, and finishing that refuses to be polite. It is one of the signature pieces of Risso's early Marni, and it still looks more radical than most of what followed it. Size IT 38 / US 2.