In a distant land of kings and queens, beautiful maidens and noble knights, there lived an ancient monarch. He was mad. He was cruel. And above all — he was deathly bored.

So, in his endless thirst for entertainment, he summoned his servants and ordered them to create a royal menagerie unlike any other kingdom had ever seen. A garden of strange and beautiful creatures, where reality and fantasy, beauty and ugliness would exist side by side…

The idea for “Menagerie” emerged last October, when the brand’s designer was looking through an art history book and came across an image of Clara the Rhinoceros by Pietro Longhi (1751). In the painting, Clara, a female Indian rhinoceros, stands behind a barrier, surrounded by a crowd of spectators — Venetian townspeople dressed in period clothing and carnival masks.

The story behind the animal captured the designer’s attention. Over the following months, she kept returning to the subject, gradually exploring the stories of other exotic animals brought to Europe in centuries past. The original source of inspiration eventually expanded into the image of a royal menagerie — a place where rare and exotic creatures became symbols of their owners’ wealth, power, and status.

But this story — and this collection — is not really about animals.

There is something these creatures had in common: they were taken from their natural habitats at an early age, transported to foreign lands, and kept in conditions often wholly unsuitable for their survival. They became spectacles for the public and were entirely dependent on the will of powerful and wealthy individuals.

As the designer explored their stories, she felt an unexpected connection to her own emotions and to the contemporary world. The image of an animal confined to a cage and subjected to the will of its owner became a metaphor for powerlessness within a system where the lives and freedom of millions can depend on the decisions — and the madness — of a handful of powerful individuals.

At its core, Menagerie is a collection about anger, rage, and disillusionment — emotions that surface when people find themselves trapped, powerless, and cornered, like animals in cages controlled by old, mad kings.

This time, leCRI moves away from its traditional emphasis on technically complex constructions and handcrafted techniques, focusing instead on emotion, texture, and colour. A more aggressive palette, contrasting surfaces, and distressed textures create a sense of tension, unease, and suppressed rage.

Menagerie was conceived as a minimalist, animalistic, and more mature collection. Yet, as always with leCRI, a significant part of the collection is made from upcycled materials.This time, the brand has taken its zero-waste approach one step further: for the first time, the collection incorporates leftover materials sourced from the production of other brands. Materials that would normally become waste are given a new life and a different context.