Fashion label Marni rises from coronavirus lockdown with global video

The fashion industry has had to get creative amid the coronavirus pandemic, especially during fashion week. 

In Milan, Italian label Marni sent 48 newly created looks to the four corners of the Earth -- including Dakar, Detroit, London and Tokyo. 

Friends and collaborators of the fashion house donned them for a film montage, which was live-streamed at Milan fashion week. 

The project is called "Marnifesto" and makes a point about the universe as a collective. 

It answered the question that often hangs in the air after runway shows: Who would wear this, and where?

"That has been the biggest challenge: To create a space that is metaphysical of course, where we can be together," Marni creative director Francesco Risso said in a video interview ahead of the virtual unveiling.

The lockdown, Risso said, instantly interrupted the Marni creative process, which he described as "very sensorial and tactile," characterised by pieces passing from one hand to the other, while inspiring new ways of creating.

"People were dying things in bathtubs, or painting and draping in their homes,'' Risso said. "I was impressed how every member of the team adapted that moment into new exploration."

"Making fashion is a collective work. But this time more than usual. Somehow the anarchy about it, the devotion to freedom and self-expression has been central to the work," Risso said.