Pierre-Louis Mascia impresses at Pitti Uomo with a successful first show

“My silk scarves are like a caress on the body,” says Pierre-Louis Mascia. In the same vein, he conceived his very first fashion show as a moment of suspended grace. A guest designer at Pitti Uomo, the French designer, a loyal exhibitor at the leading men’s fashion show, succeeded in transporting the public away from their usual haunts for the duration of a show on Thursday evening, offering a joyful, fresh and exotic interlude with a spring-summer 2025 collection for men and women that was both rich and delicate.
 

“We’re faced with a world that’s becoming tense. We’re trying to soften the blow by bringing in a little more softness with something more feminine,” says the man who was creative director of the Paris accessories show Première Classe for nine years and has worked for shoe brands Robert Clergerie, Stephane Kélian and Arche, among others.
 
“In a world where everyone is very exposed, you have to stay in the background and only show yourself from time to time. Go to the front when you have something to say. This fashion show represents the progression of my work, it sums up the last fifteen years, like the chapter of a book that closes to open another,” he explains.
 
Singer Mélanie Chartreux opened the performance, singing a song that seems to come from a distant land and time, while eight dancers led by Toulouse-based choreographer Pierre Rigal begin a farandole, covered in long flowery shawls edged with fringes in different fabrics. Their brightly-coloured T-shirts read “Bonjour tristesse” (“Hello sadness”) as they bounce around in a frenzied round of tribal dance.
 
When they disappeared, the first notes of Ravel’s Bolero came out. It’s show time! Pierre-Louis Mascia chose the huge Florentine Liberty-style greenhouse of the Tepidarium Giacomo Roster, which lets the sun’s rays filter through the large glass roofs. He imagined art school students invading the premises with their brushes and colours. Boys and girls arrived, their drawing board or an old seventies vinyl under their arm, dressed in silk or cotton t-shirt-caftans, where the most varied prints blended together in a harmonious picture, superimposed on skirts, which themselves were worn over trousers.

Known for his incredible ability to capture a vision, the designer from Toulouse has no equal when it comes to thinking up an image and creating it from different designs, eras, motifs and colours, which once put together seem self-evident. His partner, Achille Pinto, a silk printer from Como, helps him create his daring collages, each time using new techniques that are the fruit of constant research, such as the “washed-out gradations” offered for the first time this season, by superimposing a gradation on a washed-out silk with a velvety feel.
 
Impalpable silk trousers took on the look of faded jeans, pleated tunics were reminiscent of saris, and light overcoats billow over shirts and Bermuda shorts cut from silky fabrics. Colifichets, long necklaces and hairbands lent a hippie touch to some of these thirty looks, which were sometimes enhanced by fleece jackets, tied at the waist like ethnic plaids, or glittering details in reference to the Orient.
 
Other outfits took us back to a more distant past. Like these ultra-chic pyjama sets with micro tie motifs, tapestry suits, always in silk, skirts in gradated shades, tied at the waist in a draped effect, and above all these cashmere shawls with long fringes for a precious, antique look. A nostalgic vein emerged from the ensemble, through this clash of colours and designs from the past.
 
“I was inspired by the Blue Rider (der Blaue Reiter), the avant-garde movement of German artists at the beginning of the last century. More than the artists, it was the idea of mixing all kinds of art that appealed to me. Basically, I’m not a stylist, I’m a fashion designer,” says Pierre-Louis Mascia. “The idea was to come out of the woodwork with a colourful and accomplished world, through a wide range of products and a broad palette that has been built up over the years. It’s just a question of nuances,” he continues.
 

“With Achille Pinto, who works with some of the biggest names, we have nothing to envy them. We use the same technical know-how. It’s still Italian luxury. Everything is proudly produced in Italy,” stresses the designer, whose products are positioned in the mid-top-range with prices ranging from €300 for a T-shirt, to €350 and more for scarves, €650 for shirts and €700 for dresses.

The Rodez-born designer, who has set up his studio in Toulouse, where he studied Fine Art, started out as an illustrator, working for Yohji Yamamoto and Romeo Gigli. He launched his solo career in 2007 with a small series of printed silk accessories designed by Achille Pinto, who became his financial partner in 2018.

Today, his brand has sales of €8 million, up from €7 million in 2022. In the first quarter, sales jumped by 16%. A promising result given the current economic climate. Its product is distributed through some 300 multi-brand stores with ‘very attractive’ resale rates, according to Giampiero Cozzi, Sales Director of the Achille Pinto Group.
 
After opening shops in Milan and Portofino, Pierre-Louis Mascia recently added a new address in Cannes. A pop-up store opened on the Croisette, which is now permanent. France, where he has a presence at Le Bon Marché, and Italy are his main outlets, followed by Germany, his biggest European market, which accounts for 50% of his total sales. Next come Asia (South Korea and Japan) and the United States. Scarves still account for half of its sales, with the remainder focused on ready-to-wear. Women dominate, accounting for 70% of sales.