Anger, fear, unease. Milan’s top designers were clearly wrangling with their feelings when developing their new Fall collections. Who among us isn’t? There’s climate change, global strife, incompetent leaders. Everyone has their reasons. The upside is the pain of the present is producing some shake-us-out-of-it fashion at houses like Gucci (those masks!), Marni (piercings), and Prada (Frankenstein’s monster). As Andrew Bolton reminded us at the preview of the Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition: “Fashion: Notes on Camp,” challenging times often do.
Milan was once known only for these global powerhouses, but that’s slowly changing. It was hugely satisfying to discover Marco Zanini’s debut collection, which he is entirely self-funding. Zanini has designed for many famous labels over the years; he’s talented and versatile enough to go from the minimalism of Halston to the mad surrealism of Schiaparelli. This is his vision now: understated and in exquisite materials, but with idiosyncratic details that elevate what he does above the merely classic. His clothes are individual. Veronica Etro’s Etro collection appeals for the same reason.
The Moncler Genius concept is proof that massive corporate projects, when well considered, can support wild and seductive flights of imagination, not simply pump more product into the world. Pierpaolo Piccioli’s second outing with the down outerwear specialist, itself a collaboration with model Liya Kebede and her made-in-Africa Lemlem collection, stood out not just for the beautiful colorations of its voluptuous trapeze gowns, but also for Piccioli’s point about inclusivity: couture did not always welcome all, but his does. That’s a message that bears repeating.
How could the Fendi show have been anything but poignant? Karl Lagerfeld, who died two days before this show was held, was the house’s creative director for an extraordinary 53 years—the bond between the designer and the house was “fashion’s longest love story,” Silvia Venturini wrote. But as the monogram double-F body stockings and winsome dresses of this final collection make clear, Lagerfeld was modern to the last.
Prada
“Prada-philes will love this collection because it was, at its core, very, very Prada. Not because there were, as ever, many great swaggering coats. Not because the dresses nodded to a demented Kim Novak or an inscrutable Eva Marie Saint. Not because there was a shoe in balletic pink with a plexi-heel, or a thick-soled brothel creeper for one of those slushy-streets, death-of-sex dates. It was very Prada because it spoke so clearly to the twin impulses that both define and daunt the Prada woman: I know what really matters and I also really love fashion. Such a beautiful, bad romance.” —Sally Singer
Marni
“This was not an easy Marni collection, and it wasn’t delivered with a soft touch. The soundtrack veered from The Shining to a number by Kas Product that featured a shrieking cat. The boots and shoes were massive, sometimes studded—the footwear of storms and storminess more generally. But there was also something moving, and unfathomably chic, about Risso’s neurotic, erotic vision. In some ways, he seemed to be fashioning a response to these dark times, much as Miuccia Prada did earlier this week. She defined romance as an ideal of goodness and agency in a monstrous moment. For her, romance provides the narrative escape routes we need to think both through and past the totalitarian present. For Risso, the curious twists of the mind are our bulwark against anything proscribed or preordained; our brains and our passions will, in his view, set us free. It’s empowering and wild, which, one could argue, is the whole point of fashion.” — S.S.
Etro
“The show featured models of all ages—from the legendary Farida to the American teenager Cara Taylor—and, in a season of age-diverse castings, here it felt right, not forced. Mostly the women looked like themselves, or an opulent downbeat version of themselves. Mostly, they looked like cool reflections of the mind of Veronica Etro, who is perhaps the true reason behind her brand’s unflashy renaissance. Every season, she imbues the codes of the house with some personal fascination of her own—be it female surfers or Beat writers or her own decades-old love of the Clash and Oasis. She doesn’t seem to rely on the research binders of well-paid stylists or to bow unthinkingly to the whims of marketing folk. She is true to her enthusiasms and curious about the world, which speaks beautifully to the DNA of the Etro brand.” — S.S.
Zanini
“Tailoring and slip dressing are the foundations of the collection. That sounds straightforward enough; both categories are trending. Only, Zanini’s suits and dresses don’t look like they’ve come off an assembly line. Evidence of the hand is everywhere: on the ribbon detailing at the back of masculine-cut suit jackets and dusters (pull it tight for an hourglass shape), on the blanket-edge hem of an oversize camel coat, on the delicately embroidered sleeves of a double-face cashmere peacoat, and in the washed, lived-in feel of slips and shirtdresses in muted colors.” —Nicole Phelps
Fendi
“As Gigi Hadid closed the show in her diaphanous buttercup-yellow dress, the crowd rose to their feet—just in time for a short movie clip of Karl Lagerfeld, who was asked by filmmaker Loic Prigent to sketch his look the day he arrived in Rome to work for Fendi. Lagerfeld, of course, remembered it perfectly as he sketched with the effortless panache with which he imagined thousands upon thousands of amazing pieces of clothing. In this instance, a fedora from Cerruti to cover his long hair, a Norfolk jacket in yellow-and-red English tweed, a printed Lavalliere cravat, French knickerbockers, and dark glasses—a look he described 54 years later as “mauvais gen” [disreputable].” —Hamish Bowles
Gucci
“This Gucci collection was as ‘full of little things’ as always, many of them deeply personal—there’s comfort in the familiar, even for a guy as free associative as Alessandro Michele. He emphasized the sober ’40s tailoring of his grandmother’s generation in jackets worn by men and women: shoulders sharp, waists nipped, and trouser legs full above ankles cinched with cord. Many of the pieces were unfinished, with basting stitches tracing seams or the outline of outsize lapels, and raw edges elsewhere. Pierrot collars, in contrast, seemed to speak of childhood whimsy and innocence, as did the nonsense words ice, lolly, and sucker that appeared throughout. Different identities to slip into and out of as easily as a woman changes her Gucci sneakers for mismatched gold and silver platforms.” — N.P.
Moncler 1 Pierpaolo Piccioli x Lemlem
“This collection saw Valentino’s often smoking and always interesting creative director apply a collaboration to a collaboration. He approached his friend Liya Kebede to input the patterns and aesthetic of her sustainable and socially responsible Ethiopian label Lemlem to his couture interpretation of Moncler. When we found PPP he was in his tunnel shooting his mise-en-scène on his iPhone, surrounded by the usual phalanx of international PR reps. The looks had the same voluptuous volume of his first presentation for Genius, but here they were interrupted by the graphic vibrancy of Lemlem’s contribution.” —Luke Leitch
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