Veronica Etro on the future of fashion: 'Now it's about doing less, but doing it better'

“We have recently been restricted to our homes,” says Veronica Etro. “So there must be no restrictions in our minds.”

Speaking to me via Italy, the imaginative director of womenswear intended for fashion label Etro says there are numerous important lessons to come to be learnt via the pandemic. “Covid-19 upset everything. The stores had been closed and suddenly we had to return to basics. I took one whole month off, since the full of Italy was shut, so for me, this became a time to reflect and reconnect with issues I felt were essential,” she explains.

“When we all came back to work, I discovered myself asking: ‘Why would anyone want this? Where are they have to this?’ So for us, it became about making each piece even more important. So nowadays it really is about doing less, but carrying it out better.”

Founded in Milan in 1968 simply by her father Gerolamo Etro, the business started life because a textile style studio, which quickly attained a reputation meant for creating beautiful patterns and materials of the finest top quality. Veronica and her three siblings had been all immersed in this environment from a young age.

“I remember my dad every Saturday used to take me to the shop and I would sit among all of the swatches. For me, it had been simply just magical to be surrounded by all of this colour, all of this beauty.”

Known because of its exquisite fabrics, the business expanded into bags on 1984, and into homeware the entire year after. In 1996, it unveiled its primary ready-to-wear fashion collection. By the finish of the 1990s, the business was being work and managed by her siblings, while Veronica was their studies at Central Saint Martins in London. She was summoned back to join the company by her brother, Kean.

“Kean was doing both men’s and the women’s [collections], in order that was just a little difficult. He stated that I must come back, so I did. I went straight to work, also to be honest, I spent the next two years just viewing, observing and learning. In 2000 I did my first collection, and it had been so inspiring and frightening. But witnessing everyone there, making the most of the display, was an incredible feeling.”

Famous for its make use of paisley, the swirling pattern that draws from Persian, Indian and Scottish motifs (the pattern carries the name of the town on the west central Lowlands of Scotland that produced it), the business has forged a deep-rooted identity that's linked to the notion of travel, with every single season offering visible cues to other places and cultures.

Confined and struggling to travel as a result of the pandemic, Veronica possessed to find another muse for her spring/summer 2021 collection. While quarantining, she rediscovered aged Italian records that brought back remembrances of holidaying along a sun-drenched Italian coastline. Realising the collection would have to be a sonnet to her individual country - even while it struggled with the pandemic - she conjured up youthful yacht dress in in breezy patterns taken from the archives, mixed with some nautical touches, such as for example sharp shorts and rope-soled shoes.

Loose knitted tops and flowing skirts and dresses came adorned with nautical flags and ropes, as silk scarves were casually tied into bandeau tops above tailored trousers and possibly elongated into foulard dresses. The well known paisley was made into roomy t-shirts and worn knotted over beachwear.

Fresh new, youthful and decidedly optimistic, it spoke of holiday seasons to arrive. A smaller collection than normal (“we truly reduced it by 35 %, and nobody noticed,” Etro says), it is a skilful mix of old and fresh that stays near to the primary DNA of the house.

“I am incredibly lucky, because at Etro we've such a solid language. I have by no means felt restricted by the heritage and I have never really had any pressure to change what I am doing. People definitely ask me: ‘What is my preferred paisley?’. But I don’t know; it’s unattainable,” she says.