Alessandro Dell’Acqua continued to hone his quietly subversive vision of womanhood this season at No. 21

Presented in a formerly industrial space, the A/W 2023 returned to the cinematic inspirations of Dell’Acqua’s collection last September; this season, he looked towards Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s films of the earlier 1960s and the larger social milieu in the country at the time.
‘They were the years when provincial and middle-class Italian clichés fell apart in face of a changing world,’ said Dell’Aqua. ‘Yet they were also the years of the discovery of sensuality, eroticism even, along with the use – daring for the period – of cunning and treachery.’ 

These juxtapositions were captured in the collection’s looks: the zips of ladylike dresses left open and askew, tailoring sawn away and left raw at the waist, metal scorpion brooches fastening cardigans across the back. Other slip dresses were rolled down into a skirt, while layers of transparency – like chiffon dresses with ‘invisible’ tulle slips beneath – suggested a sexual frisson.
The designer said it was about shifting the archetypes of women’s fashion in pursuit of something new. ‘That’s why I put together a lot of clichéd elements of the feminine wardrobe, so as to better identify them, shake them up and strike them – or simply play – them down.’