La Dolce Vita

Walter Chiapponi, the new steward of Tod’s, tells Jeffrey Yan all about his vision for the brand, his take on Italian good taste and the role of fashion in this new normal

- Jeffrey Yan

The first look on the runway said it all: A crisp cornflower blue shirt worn underneath an oversize blazer, paired with slouchy corduroy trousers and white sneakers—not a single loafer or leather piece in sight. For a house famed for exactly those two product categories, it was clearly the dawn of a new age. The man responsible for this paradigm shift at Tod’s is Walter Chiapponi, who showed his first collection for the House earlier this year in February for fall/winter 2020. It is Chiapponi’s first creative directorship, but he brings with him years of experience honed at heavyweight fashion names such as Miu Miu, Givenchy, Valentino and Gucci.

Accordingly, his first order of business at the Italian house is to beef up its fashion offering. The studio team in charge of design after Alessandra Facchinetti’s departure in 2016 had mostly stuck to wardrobe staples and timeless essentials—chic, for sure, but not exactly groundbreaking. “I wanted to draw on the Italian lifestyle and elegance, but give it a contemporary twist and a touch of subtle boldness. A big part of my references came from the ’70s. My idea was to rediscover the classics, but imprinted with a gentle rebellion,” says Chiapponi on what he wanted to achieve with his debut collection. That gentle rebellion and subtle boldness came through in his slouchy suiting, the oversize outerwear, the slightly off-kilter colour combinations (like baby blue with chartreuse) and the hints of grunge he injected into the Milanese bourgeois look.