Pitti Uomo 109: Antik Batik’s bohemian chic rebound

A lot of brands have had a hard time coming back from Covid, but not Antik Batik, the bohemian chic marque that returned to Pitti with real flourish this season.

 
A blend of European cool and Indian handicraft, Antik Batik could boast of a busy stand inside the Superstyling section of the three-day salon Pitti Uomo, edition 109, held in the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy.
 
Stand out ideas included a Jimmy Hendrix worthy hippie chic embroidered waistcoat, finished with a sweatshirt interior and sheepskin collar; or a superb jacquard shirt jacket made from the matelassé cotton used for winter blankets in northern India. Made in a great, punchy gold, mauve, and bronze pattern developed by Antik Batik’s founder and creative director Gabriella Cortese.

Plus, she cut a great new range of jackets in dense cotton canvas with deep patch pockets, ending at the waist and finished with high sheepskin collars. Cortese also showed posh hippie shirts with ribbed breastplates in light yet densely woven washed Indian cotton, their labels hand done in India.
 
In knits, there were lots of outstanding black, deep pile kimono/cardigans, trimmed and piped with green hand embroidery, all made in the sub-continent. Seen alongside several wonderful chunkier ribbed sweaters, produced in Scotland by a great mill named McGeorge.
 
“It’s like what we used to wear going to school in Italy,” smiled the Turin-born Cortese. For other chilly Alpine mornings, she harnessed great traditional methods, developing natty jacquard tank tops and slim long scarves created in vicuna in Peru.
 
For party time, Antik Batik also had plenty of options, notably cool oversized embroidered shirts featuring an ecru and black floral design. Though her most sensational idea were inside out jeans finished in beautiful floral patterns, some made in an eye-catching patchwork. Ibiza, Deia– where Antik Batik have a pop-up and a full store– here we come.
 
“Pitti really is the best show anywhere for menswear. We had made menswear before but not in such a serious way, so it feels really right to be here. We’ve seen lots of great people,” explained the ever-blonde Cortese, who has still not lost the dancer’s figure she boasted when she was a young performer at Paris’ Crazy Horse back in the 1980s.
 
Internationally, Antik Batik sells in over 400 doors, testament to its loyal following of counterculture cool kids. Asked to define the brand’s DNA, Gabriella laughed and responded: “Chic bohemians, who enjoy reading Jack Kerouac,” referring to the Beat Generation poet whose novel One the Road inspired a generation of artists, musicians, and globetrotters.
 
Just like Antik Batik’s clothes.