Via Snella

Download Spring/Summer 2010 campaign PDF (PDF)

Remember the old days when we used to cross the small countryside path barefoot under the gloomy moon. It was summer, we were young and wanted to hang out in the city. Remember that eternal nonchalant summer when apartment studio parties were replaced by climbing ceremonies and swims across the lake. I was sporty, yet elegant and naïve. You were playing the neon-tiled dance floor on the meadow. We had brought suitcases with chic démodé garments from the city and donned them in the woods. We hated poppy nylon sweaters and boring surf-uniforms. Ours were looks, real looks. Sweat, waves, sand and heat were not a problem. Fashion was not a problem.

For spring-summer 2010 Via Snella proposes an alternative choice to modern mens’ sportswear. With a penchant for tiny details that calibrate functionality, minimalist dandyism and a diachronic marine cotton-wear touch, Via Snella ss-10 recovers the sophisticated relaxedness sports clothes used to have back in the thirties and the fifties. Warm-proof sweatshirts with reinforcements, materials resilient to heat and water, hidden textures celebrating nature and its winds, waves and raindrops, all clad in layers of an immaculate sustainable fashion. Summer is here.

Download Autumn/Winter 2009 PDF (PDF)

VIA SNELLA AUTUMN/WINTER 09 carries
the odour of your old classroom.

PIECES OF CHALK
and BOOKS and RULERS and
STAINED WORLD MAPS,
and your TEACHER in his
HUGE PASSÉ EYEGLASSES
and BAGGY THRIFTED SWEATER,
dictating on the blackboard
today’s lesson of INDOLENCE.

And YOU behind the desk
YOU, rebelling with endurance
against the UGLY CLUMSINESS
and SLOVENLY PRETENTIOUSNESS
of the adult wardrobe;
YOU, PRAYING for the FUTURE
to arrive
and for the classroom to become
a GLAMOROUS FASHION SET irradiating
BOHEMIAN BEAUTY, LAVISH ELEGANCE
and QUEER ETHEREALITY.

VIA SNELLA
BREAKING THE SCENT OF THE OLD
WITH AN ANTI-CONFORMIST AND LIGHTFUL RELAXEDNESS.

Download Campaign PDF (PDF)

Download Collection Poster (PDF)

Ok, we have had enough of this dry, western pragmatic minimalism. How about trying something different? What if male fashion took an unexpected twist towards the folklore sensuality of the hundred and one nights? How about unveiling the lazy buoyancy imbuing the looks of the contemporary Arab man? Yes, he is the one, our undisputable new macho idol—the light-coloured chemise unfolding indulgently on his shoulders, his quasi-transparent silky sweater betraying a fragile masculinity melded with Bedouin tales and stories from the Taliban frontier.

The Via Snella SS09 collection playfully reflects on the apparent dissonance between a rock solid macho stereotype and its ambiguous translation into feminine-like textures, tones and shapes, when it comes to the everyday Arab dress code. And yet, what is at stake here is neither the Arab “male uniform” nor uncontested masculinity ushering into a girlish narcissistic queerness. It is rather all about a ubiquitous hybridism deconstructing the very language of male fashion. And it is about legacies—unsettlingly autonomous outfit legacies carving a relaxed and natural core manliness beyond oppressive ethics.