FLORENCE — On November 17, 2025, guests gathered inside the Teatro Niccolini in Florence, a theatre that has stood since 1648, as the eighth chapter of Stefano Ricci’s Explorer series was unveiled. Creative director Filippo Ricci told the audience that reaching eight missions was “an important accomplishment, of which we are very proud, thanks to an extraordinary team.”
The eighth Explorer explorer edition is built around a 26-day expedition to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, taking the brand’s team from the Torres del Paine granite towers to the windswept estancias of gaucho country. National Geographic photographer Andy Mann, whose conservation work helped establish the world’s largest Arctic National Park, was the official photographer, working alongside Moggi Studio.
“For me, nature is the artist. As the photographer, it’s my job to get out of the way and just let it speak for itself,” Mann said at the launch about working where nature sets the terms. He also described unexpecteds, including a moment of genuine peril when a vessel they were in took on water in a fjord as 150-kilometer-an-hour winds were raging around them. “There are five things that need to go wrong at the same time to sink a Zodiac in Patagonia,” he said, “and four and a half of them were happening simultaneously.”
The garments reflect the expedition’s textures. Technical multi-pocket blousons come with detachable linings and goose-down parkas trimmed in fox fur. The tailoring line features Alpha Yarn vicuña jackets spun to 13.5-micron fineness, finer than standard cashmere, alongside deconstructed stone suits. Eveningwear nods to the Magellanic penguins encountered on Isla Magdalena: total-black tuxedos in Antico Setificio Fiorentino silk with Swarovski crystal buttons. The palette runs from glacier white and Nyirre yellow to Pampa green and a dominant earthy Brown Patagonia, the season’s fil rouge(guiding thread).
The Explorer series has now reached its eighth edition, following previous missions to the Galapagos, Cambodia, Rajasthan, and Iceland. Each campaign pairs a location shoot with a conservation commitment and a fabric research thread. The luxury menswear brand also deepened its investment in Florentine craft, acquiring Moleria Locchi, a historic atelier specialising in decorative metalwork, as part of a broader push to bring more production in-house. Niccolò Ricci, CEO, and Filippo Ricci lead the family house alongside founder Stefano, whose parents started the business in Florence in 1972 with a tie. The brand confirmed a partnership with Fundación Científica Acción Fauna for puma conservation across more than 100,000 hectares. “Protecting the puma today is protecting Patagonia itself,” Mann said. The full AW26/27 collection was presented at Pitti Uomo 109 in Florence in January 2026.
(Additional reporting by Alina Trabattoni)
