Antonio and Efisio Marras on modesty, Dubai and Arab Fashion Week

Father-son fashion designers Antonio Marras and Efisio Rocco Marras visit the Antonio Marras store the morning after the brand’s Arab Fashion Week show. Delores Johnson / The National

Italian designer Antonio Marras sent his resort 2018 collection down the runway at the closing show of Arab Fashion Week, which wrapped up in the UAE on May 20. Taking place at the Meydan Hotel in Dubai, the fourth edition of Arab Fashion Week, organised by the Arab Fashion Council, marked the first time that Marras has participated, alongside fashion brands such as Marchesa, Michael Cinco and Kristina Fidelskaya.

Contrary to instinctual assumptions, many of the fashion brands that were part of Arab Fashion Week were not at all Arab. Still, Marras is in the process of forging a deep link with the region – he has paid a number of visits to the UAE over the past year, as he recently opened a boutique at City Walk in Dubai.

“I was very pleased to be chosen to close Arab Fashion Week,” he says. “It was a great opportunity to showcase my work, especially now that I’ve opened a boutique here in Dubai. It really allowed people and customers to enter my world and my vision.”

The designer, who was born in Sardinia and debuted his first ready-to-wear collection in 1999, refers to Dubai as a “magical Babylon”.

“I very much enjoy these layers of international people and influences from different cultures,” he says. Even during the model casting for his Arab Fashion Week show, Marras took note of the incredible diversity here. “It was very international, very multifaceted, with different ages, different races, and that very much reflects the city and what you see in Dubai,” he says.

Whimsical lace dresses, adorned with intricate beadwork were aplenty on his runway at Arab Fashion Week, as were edgier skirt and blazer ensembles, with details such as embellished lapels, lace panels and wide waist-belts. A yellow floral design coupled with black lace was worn with a yellow headscarf, and a teal gown was styled with a matching turban.

Efisio Rocco Marras, Antonio's son and the creative director of I'm Isola – a diffusion label under Antonio Marras – explains that modesty, which may be on-trend internationally, has been part of the Antonio Marras DNA since the beginning. "He has this kind of Victorian look, and a very proper way of thinking of a woman. You can still be super-glamorous and covered up till your neck," he explains. "Also, I think it's a very Italian thing, to be covered."

Indeed, many of the designs displayed around the Antonio Marras store feature maxi lengths, tiers and ruffles, though they’re by no means matronly. In fact, there’s an eclectic energy about them. Mixed prints, scattered beaded appliqués and off-shoulder or one-shoulder necklines make them applicable to the contemporary fashion climate.

Attached to the store, which is fitted with a piano, vintage books and ceramics, ornate rugs and wire mannequin forms hung from the ceiling, is a small cafe, too – in fact, it’s the brand’s only restaurant concept worldwide. Marras explains that he had been organising his annual pop-up restaurant in Milan, and it caught the eye of his partners from Dubai, when they visited Italy. “They came to Milan during design week, they saw the restaurant, and they were like: ‘OK, we want it.’ When I think about a store, I thinks it’s like inviting you to my house; the first thing I do is offer them something to drink and eat, so the concept of having the store and restaurant together really made sense.”

City Walk is also home to an I’m Isola store, which caters to a younger client base, with less of a focus on embroidery and more of a tendency towards shorter hemlines. “The two lines live and survive in the same way as the relationship that I have with my dad,” explains Efisio. “Isola comes from the same roots, the same place, the same senses of putting together a collection, and obviously we have different tastes, but we come from the same background. I set the base and the style I like, so it starts from the Antonio Marras perspective but then it goes into punk and street influences, and it completely detaches, although it’s part of the same family.”

The duo work together closely on the two lines, and both admit that the father-son factor sets the experience apart from other professional working relationships. Antonio reveals that he can get judgemental and critical easily, and that can sometimes affect his relationship with his son. “The best thing about working with my dad is that I don’t have to explain anything — we have like a telepathic relationship,” says Efisio. “But that’s also the worst thing. Whenever there’s something good, we cheer up immediately but whenever there’s something bad it becomes a tragedy. There’s no middle ground between us.”