Fashion Symbols with Aynura Maye

Bringing together the opposites

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Why suddenly the Earth Colors are staple colors of SS21?

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As we’ve made half way thru the Milan fashion week today, on the third day, I dim the light of my cell phone and make myself comfortable on the coach with a freshly brewed coffee to catch up with the shows that I didn’t get to watch during the day. Right, I enjoy night time “me” hour with coffee after the family members are gone to bed. By the way, I’ve finally learned to use my coffee machine as I avoid bars and coffee shops as much as I can. Sometimes I even dare to experiment with my coffee.

Cut to the chase, I keep clicking IGTVs one after another and at some point close my eyes to see what has remained with me so far – the total palette of earth colors flicker in front of my eyes. I feel like, wait a second, really, starting from milky white to dark brown – the earth colors (colori della terra) do make considerable part of all collections. Now, seeing this repetitive pattern takes my thoughts to another pattern that I’ve been observing. Albeit, more detectable than and not as subtle as this one – many stories of inspiration revolve around going back to roots, home, family and traditions.

I know it may sound bizarre what I am going to write next. The first question comes to mind is how one is related to the other. Yet, if someone ever wondered, here is one possibility of why and when we tend to turn to the earth colors (and how these two things are related).

Secret tone of the earth colors

We perceive earth colors in association with the Earth (as it is obvious from the name). The earth symbolizes home for us. Home is where we belong, safe harbor, our mother and ultimately defining feature of our identity. No wonder, when we go poetic about it, we call it ‘mother earth’. In a sense, the earth, (la terra) is the great mother, the container of life – from where we come, to where we return. Without making it more complicated let’s get to the point.

Now, when in difficulty, what is the first urge we feel? For most, the urge is to go back home, parent’s house, that small village where each piece of stone is so familiar to us, where tranquility reins and nothing seems to change. All too familiar, right? We long for that unfailing serenity. This basic formula has myriad ways of manifestation in our behavior.

Wish for homecoming in making

One is what, I dare to say, we’re observing on the runways now (oh, well, also on our screens too). In disquieting times like this, we involuntarily crave to back home, our safe place. The cacophony of the time we live in, political uncertainties, environmental crisis, social movements, the pandemic that has crippled the world make us look for a solid ground where we’ll feel safe again and feel in charge of our lives. Earth colors in all its shadows are manifestation of that need for comfort, serenity and certainty.

Yes, I love fashion for so aptly interpreting the cries of our souls and compensating the missing aspects of our lives through design.

I guess, by now, the correlation is quite clear between the earth colors and the stories of “going back home”. The colors and patterns D&G presented are very strong. Yet, the theme is revisiting the patchwork tradition of Sicily with a grotesque set design. Fendi, in sharp contrast to Dolce & Gabbana, dedicated the collection in delicate tones to family traditions. And my most favorite so far, with refined aesthetics Luisa Beccaria showcased family ties in the most poetic way possible.

Yes, just like that. To my humble opinion, the longer we have to endure hard times like this, the more we are going to see romantic, nostalgic, yet structured pieces and tranquilizing or solid dark colors running down the runway or coming to our screens. Especially, in fashion of the continental Europe. Unlike Anglo-Saxon fashion, which takes more of an outward stance, the fashion of the continental Europe is wish-making at work, especially, in hard times, to bring visual compensation for what is missing in our lives.

Fendi’s show on Fontana Trevi and hidden mysticism

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I have moved to Rome in the beginning of 2016. Pregnant. The baby was due in July. While I was trying to settle down and make space (literally) for the new member of the family, something incredible was happening in Rome of which I became aware quite late. More precisely, that thing was happening in the same month that I was giving light to the new addition of our family. Fendi put on a spectacular show called Legends and Fairy Tales on the iconic Fontana Trevi to celebrate the Fashion House’s 90 years of heritage.

Fendi celebrating 90 years with subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

To tell the truth, I was too busy with family duties back then. In fact even the idea of this blog hadn’t been born yet. But the thought of me being in Rome during that event and not knowing about it somehow pains me. When I write it down I realize how mean I sound.

Cut to the chase, Fendi’s show was majestic, mythical and obviously very much appraised. Now, almost more than two years later I am going back to that event to share why I would have loved to know about it and why it made people “wow”.

Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images )

We, unknowingly, tend to reproduce exact same images that were “living realities” of our ancestors, which still are secret realities of our psychic life. You wonder what I am talking about and what it has to do with Fendi’s iconic show. Here it goes:

The Water.  And Fendi models walking over the water or “being born out of water”.


Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

Water in our dreams (and psychoanalysis) symbolizes our unconscious – the dark depth of our psyche. The source or the container of everything from destructive to regenerative, from devilish to divine. In this sense, it is related to “Great Mother” as well. Because our little, tiny, fragile consciousness nourishes on the unconscious. When we feel exhausted, burnt out in life, we shut off to the world and retrieve to that source to recharge and regenerate our life energy.

Now, how this whole spectacle resembles the images and living things I was talking above? Let’s now dig a bit into mythological side of it to see how this relationship to the unconscious manifested itself as mythological symbol. Or just scratch the surface, it is a very complicated symbol.

No need to remind that since we, as mankind, became aware of ourselves, water has been an ever present symbol. Among many other things, it is symbol of regeneration, rebirth and purification. It is that baptismal water that means rebirth in Christianity. Ablution rituals in Islam that stands for purity. There is long list of strict rituals entailing water in Judaism. Regardless religion or faith, full immersion in water is about being reborn out of divine waters to where we will return. In this sense, it is related to the Great Mother, the divine uterus or in psychological terms the unconscious. (Does it explain why there are so many spells and exorcism rituals done with water? Thousand and One Nights series are full of it) I know, it sounds quite absurd when I write like this because it is hard to digest such metaphoric things consciously. But in our unconscious realm where everything gets associated pictorially on feeling-base it makes perfect sense.

Fontana Trevi – divine uterus


Fendi celebrating 90 years with a subtle mythic show – Heroes and Fairy Tales
7 July 2016, Rome, Fontana Trevi
Photo: Internet (Victor Boyko/Getty Images)

Moreover, this scene was over Fontana Trevi. Yes, Trevi is iconic because it is one of the symbols of Rome. But it has its own peculiar significance. People travel hundreds of miles to drop a coin in this water to “make their dreams come true”. With all the mythological monuments that are part of the fountain, Fontana Trevi symbolizes that divine vessel, waters of which hold secrets, recharge, and give hope and new life.

That’s why the whole show with models walking over the water or “being reborn out of water” resembled a ritual of rebirth, where initiator would be immersed in water to be reborn. This is the reason that it had people “wow”.