One of the hot tickets of MFW, the Bally show unfolded on the 17th floor of Torre Velasca, a modernist skyscraper built in the 1950s and recently renovated, with sweeping views of the city. Creative director Simone Bellotti went for a small audience, hosting just around a hundred guests. His compelling work at Bally has revitalized the Swiss label, once dormant and with no fashion creds, putting it on the map.
Bellotti titled the show Leistung Aufführung—two German words that both translate to “performance,” but carry distinct meanings. Leistung refers to performance in the sense of work, measured by productivity and achievements, while Aufführung signifies performance as a form of self-expression on stage. Bellotti’s moodboard featured black-and-white photographs from the 1950s depicting Bally’s employees at their desks, surrounded by celebratory gifts and accolades—perhaps recognizing their professional accomplishments. These archival and somewhat unsettling images were reproduced onto plain cotton totes, printed with pretty, minuscule wildflowers. On the runway, the bags were carried by guys clad in stark, structured shirt-suits crafted from thick gray felt. It’s the gentle incongruity of such pairings that makes Bellotti’s approach so captivating.
Also on the moodboard was an image of the hide of a furry quadruped, alongside a 1970s photograph of Swiss performer Luciano Castelli, his face heavily made up, dressed in shimmering sequined drag. Both references surfaced in the show, hinting at the tension between freedom and restraint, instinct and control that underlies Bellotti’s work at the label. This duality also echoes the contradictions within Swiss culture that he has drawn upon: an idyllic landscape hiding a shamanic, mystical underbelly, while discipline conceals raw, emotional artistic expression. In the collection, it translated into a play between structure and fluidity—formal tailored coats and severe black leather dresses were disrupted by wild burst of fur erupting at the back, or peeking out from the rigid crinoline of a peplum top, or trimming the slashed front of a leather midi skirt, opened to reveal bare legs. They looked pretty sensational.
“I crave discipline, but breaking the routine is liberating,” Bellotti reflected. His exploration of shapes and volumes serves as a means of embracing creativity beyond the constraints of purely wearable fashion, drawing closer to the art of sculpture, or to the iconoclastic performances of Castelli, who attended today’s show.
Interspersed throughout the collection, hourglass-shaped dresses—crafted from organza, leather, or a checkered blanket—featured a jutting, rigid circular front insert. “It reminded me of the desks used by Bally employees, or the ones where we carry out our daily work routine,” Bellotti explained. They looked elegantly impractical.
Castelli’s sequined drag looks inspired shimmering berets, a glitzy sleeveless top, and a voluminous balloon skirt extending from a structured leather bodice. Models’ faces were also covered in full sequined makeup, creating an illogical contrast against a sharply tailored black day dress with a rounded skirt, or a men’s shirt suit in glossy black leather. Logic may be quintessentially Swiss, but Bellotti is Italian—ultimately, in his vision for Bally, instinct prevails over control. He wants to break free.
