S. S. Daley Returns to Menswear Roots in Florence – WWD

British brand S.S. Daley is looking to go back to its menswear roots with its fall 2024 show slated for Thursday at Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.

The 5 p.m. show will mark a series of firsts for founder and creative director Steven Stokey-Daley, who was revealed as a guest designer of the 105th edition of the international menswear trade show Pitti Uomo last October.

Stokey-Daley said the Pitti showcase would enable the brand to be seen by a much wider and more men’s-focused audience from around the world, after switching from the women’s sales calendar to men’s last season.

While tricky, the move “makes everything a lot better,” he told WWD.

The 30-look lineup will be only menswear and the designer said the brand’s women’s offering will not be included in its runway shows for now.

“There [was] no real way to showcase just men’s when we started. It was quite a challenge to move from one schedule to the other with a small team. But I am glad that we changed how we operate dramatically,” said the Liverpool-born designer, who once aspired to become an actor.

Among the changes that will be shown here are the brand’s Italian-made inaugural shoe range. But it is also the first time a sizable portion of the collection, particularly its tailoring, will be made in Italy as well.

What felt like “a really necessary step in terms of furthering and extending the brand quality” coincided with showing in Florence, he said. “We have quite a strong sense of signature in some of the things that we do, and they [Italian factories] understand that. We are constantly learning from each other in this collaborative process.”

In addition to Italian tailoring and British-made crochet, there will be knitwear incorporating motifs from ceramics and tiles from Portugal, where the pieces are crafted.

Florence also had a tangible influence on the designs of fall 2024 that he likened to “S.S. Daley going on holiday,” merging the brand’s “ideas about British sensibility” with “Florence’s overwhelming beauty.”

Stokey-Daley said Florence is now one of his favorite European cities, having fallen in love with the less-touristic facet of the city during his research.

“The culture of living is exceptional there,” he continued. “I’m not necessarily a hugely spiritual person, but I think there’s an element of calm in Florence that feels quite different from London. This is a great opportunity for us to explore this extended sense of self.”

As for the location of the show, the Salone dei Cinquecento, or “Hall of the Five Hundred,“ was a place that “punched [him] in the chest.”

While this imposing chamber inside Palazzo Vecchio filled with sculptures and Renaissance frescoes depicting military victories by Florence over Pisa and Siena under decadent paneled ceilings was initially a daunting venue for the show, Stokey-Daley decided to use it as a gallery and a viewing platform, letting the space juxtapose with the collection itself via a series of activities to be unveiled at the show.

It has been an eventful three years for the designer, who kick-started his career in 2020 by dressing Harry Styles in his University of Westminster graduate collection in the “Golden” music video.

In 2022, he was named the recipient of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers.

His London Fashion Week showcases were memorable affairs involving friends at the National Youth Theatre performing love letters between Vita Sackville-West and Violet Keppel; or featuring Ian McKellen reading an Alfred Tennyson poem.

Honored as he was to join “a long line of incredible people that [he looked] up to for years,” which includes ERL’s Eli Russell Linnetz, Martine Rose, Grace Wales Bonner, and Thebe Magugu, he was keenly aware that Pitti is the start of what he sees as a drastic evolution — and one that required being prepared for.

Francesca Tacconi, special events coordinator at Pitti Immagine, said that despite his young age, Stokey-Daley’s fashion is characterized by “an expressive maturity, an amused and eccentric reinterpretation of British heritage, an indifference to gender stereotypes and a commitment to sustainability.”

“We love his talent for revising the archetypes of menswear, the uniforms of the most exclusive British high-society public schools, capturing the signs of the times and extravagantly subverting everything with a subtle irony, playfully amplifying the volumes of his garments, fooling around with the details, working with unexpected fabrics and floral prints,” she added.

For spring 2024, Stokey-Daley presented, through a look book, an option he said felt right, to take a moment to “refocus and realign” both on the design and business fronts.

“It was important for us to take the time that we needed to expand the offering and get ourselves in the right place commercially to go forward,” he said. “Our big goal has always been to create something with longevity. We referenced British heritage so often and when you think about British heritage houses, there are so few that exist now. We are aiming to have that sort of long-term presence.”

According to Stokey-Daley, the brand managed to retain all of its current accounts, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Dover Street Market, Matches, Bergdorf Goodman, 10 Corso Como Seoul, and I.T, amid a tough trading environment, and by doing sales in-house, the brand has been able to respond more swiftly to market conditions.

“I like to have that personal connection with the buyers. I like to know what sells quicker than what doesn’t. Sales in-house will remain,” he said.

After Pitti, the brand will be showcased during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. But before that, “we will throw a great dinner after the show to celebrate what we have achieved,” he added.

With contributions from Lily Templeton