Milan Fashion Week delivered some inspiring and demanding collections this week. There were great ideas that would fly straight off the catwalk, as well as gorgeous looks that might be challenging to carry off. Francesca Fearon takes a closer look at some of the best designs.
Emporio Armani
There is a trend for graphic geometric prints in Milan this season, which Giorgio Armani calls the “new pop” in his Emporio collection. He took the digital symbols of the circle, triangle and square and repeated them in various scales as prints in knitwear, as appliqué patterns on velvet tailoring, and accessories.
Designers in London and New York are planning to combine their men’s and womenswear collections on one catwalk next season. Armani demonstrated how well this could work with a series of male chaperones shadowing his ladies down the catwalk, wearing the same digital motifs on sweaters.
Gucci
Beyoncé, in her electrifying new Formation video, is not the only one looking at throwback Gucci for ideas. The retro GG monogram, customised for her dancers, also anchors Alessandro Michele's latest collection. Barely visible since the logo mania of the 1980s, the horse-bit prints appeared on swishy skirts, while the monogram was spray-painted on leather jackets. Michele was going old school with Gucci's famous signature red and green stripes, trimming blousons and bags. However, by mashing it up on the catwalk with sporty sweaters, Studio 54-sequinned looks, oriental prints and vintage Victoriana, he has created an exciting street-style look that is idiosyncratic, but not easy to replicate.
Roberto Cavalli
Peter Dundas bounces back into form in his second collection for Cavalli with a dreamy collection inspired by early 20th-century Bohemianism, but interpreted in that rock-chick style he refined so successfully at Pucci. Luxurious art nouveau prints were evident in decadently dark-coloured silk and velvet-decorated jackets, floor-sweeping coats and capes, perfect for special occasions, worn with bell-bottomed trousers and long, embroidered gypsy scarves.
The lean, sinuous looks were inspired by orientalism through the 1930s and the graphics of art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, but there were references to the 1970s and Led Zeppelin’s glam rock as well.
Prada
Miuccia Prada is a deep thinker and her concepts are multilayered and complex. This season, she references time travel through the ages and introduces illustrations of the changing seasons by Christophe Chemin, which she lifted from her menswear show last month, along with jaunty sailor hats. To this she adds elements of corsetry and accessories of large key and book charms that are supposed to contain personal memories. Confused? Well, the sum total is a collection of beautiful 1950s-style gilded brocade dresses, printed skirts and mannish tailoring pulled in with loosely laced corsetry and chunky belts, and draped with a few small velvet tippets on the shoulders that can be worn anywhere.
Versace
Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss and Victoria’s Secret Angel Adriana Lima on the Versace catwalk felt like a kickback to that famous show at the beginning of the 1990s that launched the supermodel phenomena with Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington. The skirts are still micro-short, and the famous baroque scarf-print shirts that the original supers wore have been updated in stripes of graphic black prints on pastel grounds. There, the similarities end. Donatella’s vision is still pacey, but she has a more sporty vision than her brother Gianni. The body-conscious athletic couture of her Atelier collection a month ago in Paris is reinterpreted with stirrup pants and lots of zippered sweaters, jackets and coats that, at a sweep of the zip, can deconstruct a garment into pieces.
While Donatella has made the brand her own, clingy barely-there dresses, with ice-coloured glacier prints show that a sensuous dress is still part of the brand DNA.
Pucci
The feedback to Massimo Giorgetti’s debut collection for the Florentine house was not positive, but the designer has pulled out all the stops this season to create a great collection that embraces the activewear heritage of Emilio Pucci along with, of course, the famous prints. The founder was an enthusiastic skier, and Alpine scenery, sometimes violently fractured, was worked in print and jacquard knits across oversized ski sweaters, puffers, jumpsuits and intarsia designs on shearling coats.
Giorgetti has a very different aesthetic to his predecessor, Dundas, whose rock chicks have been replaced by cool, sporty urban girls, who like garish colour mixes (a trend here and at Moschino) and street styling, which suggests Giorgetti is attracting a new breed of customer to Pucci.
Dolce & Gabbana
Once upon a time in Milan, there were two designers called Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who created fairy tales with their fashion. They conjured up dreamy princess dresses with tinselly skirts and handsome Prince Charmings in toy-soldier uniforms with shiny big buttons, for a fashion show. Walt Disney's nostalgic cartoon Cinderellas and Sleeping Beauties were the starting point for an enchanting collection that blended some of the designers' signature 1950s silhouettes with goofy cartoon motifs, such as fairy-tale tailor mice, tin soldiers, a chandelier and teddy-bear embroideries. The set props were from La Scala opera house and the soundtrack from Disney's Cinderella. The designers are great storytellers and are aiming for a new generation of princesses – ones who can, presumably, afford this delightful fantasy.
Etro
Veronica Etro has an eclectic, decorative eye when it comes to mixing exotic prints, plaids, paisley patterns and kimono embroideries with a dark, moody palette. Her clothes have the hippy spirit of the early 1970s with long scarves, darkly printed maxi dresses and biker jackets trimmed with ethnic embroideries, but Etro cites her student years in 1990s London as inspiration for her oversized wool coats, military parkas and the overall bohemian vibe of her collection.
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