As Vogue.com editors make their way to Paris for the last lap of the Fall 2016 season, they weigh in on the “freakiest” Milan Fashion Week in a long time. Curious? Read on for excerpts from the conversation.
Sally Singer, Vogue Creative Digital Director
It was not so long ago that Milan was synonymous, in fashion geography, with a sexy forthrightness. Sure, there was Marni, with its charming “waste-a-date” prints and proportions. Yes, there was Prada, which could be nerdy or nervy or Nerve.com. But overall, the city oozed louche luxury: curves at Dolce, glamazons at Gucci, bombshells at Versace, groupies and gypsies (of the hot cinematic kind) at Cavalli.
Not so anymore. One stunning result of Alessandro Michele’s reign at Gucci, still in its infancy, is that the whole of Italian fashion is now happily flying its freak flag. And who knew there were so many eccentrics at work in such a bourgeois town? With the exception of a fabulous black jersey dress worn by Taylor Hill during Dolce & Gabbana’s Cinderella fantasia, the most memorable looks from Milan Fashion Week were quizzically alluring in the best way. Marni, for example, took oversize proportions (a buzzword of the season) and rendered them with grown-up glamour. Prada mixed menswear with Victoriana with magpie prints to bewitching effect. Missoni did head-to-toe chevron knits—chunky hats, grandpa cardies, endless scarves, filmy frocks—that were so modern and cool, such a chic update on festival girl, well, you wanted to cheer. And you wanted to buy. Or I did, at least. When Italian fashion is at its best, it has a compulsive quality, that siren call of the timely and the timeless, the urgent and the ancient. At times this season, I was happy to be seduced again.
Nicole Phelps, Director, Vogue Runway
As a close watcher of Milan’s up-and-coming class, I can say that the Michele effect hasn’t necessarily been good for the city’s younger and untested designers. In less assured hands, the more-is-more-is-more aesthetic that’s currently dominating fashion can go badly wrong. It doesn’t help, of course, when you’re treated to a collection like Tomas Maier’s for Bottega Veneta in the middle of the week. His faultless pantsuits make nearly everything else look sloppy. Maier’s collection will go down as one of my favorites of the season: elegant and aspirational (oh, to be able to afford model Mari Agory’s Le Smoking), yet not so austere that you couldn’t picture it living off the runway.
Among Milan’s newcomers, Lorenzo Serafini, who took charge at Alberta Ferretti’s Philosophy line a year ago, has a firm handle on wearability. That’s why we’re starting to see his floral print dresses and flirty ruffled knits out and about at the shows. Come next year at this time, it’ll be the 1980s-influenced paper-bag waist, pleated leather trousers he showed this week. Since Jeremy Scott’s arrival at Moschino, humor and high jinks have trumped the banal subjects of ease and usefulness, and God bless him for it. Milan needs moments of levity. The question is, how will he top the burned and singed and literally smoking dresses of his Bonfire of the Vanities finale next time around?
Sarah Mower, Vogue.com Chief Critic
I have the kind of brain that auto-deletes when on fashion-show overload. So, on this “laundry” day between Milan and Paris, I’m not feeling very intellectual about Milan, but I do know what’s coming out in the wash as far as what I, personally, actively want. I’m with Nicole about the Bottega Veneta tailoring—when it comes to it, I won’t be able to afford it, but bravo to Tomas Maier for endorsing simple, grown-up day-chic and for sending me scrabbling to see if there’s a long scarf in my hall wardrobe. On the point of footwear, Milan also made up my mind that ’40s-’70s platforms or otherwise lower, pointy kitten heels are the way forward for the long march through Paris (thank you to Gucci and Versace, respectively, for clarifying that). I’m glad also that all my glittery things can see the light of day again—a trend we saw through London but was endorsed in Milan by Dolce & Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, et al. Otherwise: The sight of long, dangly earrings at Ports 1961 and Marni has triggered jewelry lust—and a break to pore over the severely tempting cabinets at 10 Corso Como, that retail bellwether of fashion, proved to me that this must be an expanding category for every woman. (Maison Margiela has a huge range now.)
All I ask of a round of collections in any city is that I come away with some new styling ideas to put into practice, to have my inklings confirmed, and, ideally, to be jolted by something I’ve never seen before. The never-seen box was ticked for me by Marni’s balloon-sleeve blouses—something I don’t already have in my personal arsenal and will want to buy when the time comes. So the primitive fashion-instinct department of my brain has come away quite happy from Milan this time, although the inspiration is mostly on the level of driving me back into my own wardrobe to retrieve things I already own. That leaves the door wide open for Paris, of course, where I think we are all looking forward to witnessing what fashion needs to get out of this endless cycling back: some really brave, ground-shifting innovation.
Luke Leitch, Vogue.com Contributor
Quizzically alluring vs. sexy forthrightness, huh? Valorizing the rise of so-called man-repelling in this traditionally most-crotch-led fashion city is totally fair enough, Sally, but it makes me a little sad. Because while absolutely the idea of dressing in a manner appealing to the male gaze might rub up awkwardly against contemporary feminine self-identity, surely not all fashion need be visual bug spray for bros to register on the radar of credibility? Peter Dundas’s second outing for Cavalli, absolutely, was much more truly “Cavalli” than the first—and therefore featured a great many flesh-led direct appeals to the male libido seasoned by liberal application of flounce and ruffle. It was old-school Milan—ultimately submissive. It needs an attitudinal logic to liberate it. At Philosophy, however, Lorenzo Serafini combined more contemporarily assertive elements with his Dolce & Gabbana–honed molto sexy métier in a collection that was both quizzically alluring and sexily forthright. On the flip side of that, I can never compute how Versace collections are hailed as feminocentric while simultaneously being so skimpy as to flirt with—and this season consummate—wardrobe malfunction: Surely the message is more physical than quizzical here. Antonio Marras, whose maximalism long prefigures Alessandro Michele’s, made his muse a schizophrenic erotomaniac stalker (now that’s man-repelling) but via a beautifully calibrated romantic filter that rendered the collection moving on multiple levels. I’m going to step off this soapbox now before falling off it, but the hot-or-not criterium seems a bit reductive to me. But I’m just a man!
More broadly, this was most definitely a strong Milan, with lots of entertainment outside the reliable, big-ticket Gucci-Prada-Dolce arenas: Marco de Vincenzo’s verve makes him a very, very promising emerging name; Rossella Jardini’s liberated eccentricity was a little delight; Jeremy Scott’s flagrantly aflame closers were hilariously meaningful; Fausto Puglisi was typically fiery . . . Really, there are too many to mention without being conversationally impolite. So just one final note: Today the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana chief Carlo Capasa stated in Corriere della Sera that the official Milan line on buy-now-wear-now is the same as the French. My Italian is low-grade, so don’t quote me, but he said they’ll stick to the current system to ensure quality and creativity that makes you dream—and wait. As Sarah says, here’s hoping we see lots of that dreamy creative innovation once this caravan hits Paris.
Alessandra Codinha, Vogue.com Fashion News Editor
I’ll keep it short. We keep hearing that now is an exceptionally important time for Italian fashion, that Italy must be a workshop and not a museum, according to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose appearance at an early luncheon last week was more exciting than that of any model or celebrity in the front row. (And who are we kidding—there really weren’t any celebrities.) And I agree with everyone above, that between Alessandro Michele’s shot in the arm all the way to Missoni’s return to form (with stops at Prada and Marni and Dolce & Gabbana in between), it felt like an exceptionally strong showing, particularly when it was designers playing to their own unique strengths. I think the continued emphasis on runway diversity and individuality is especially encouraging, as is the continued emphasis on romantic, emotion-driven dressing. Happily, the moral here seems to be that Italian fashion might just be living up to its promise. So, in short, bring it on, Paris: Allons-y!
Source: Vogue.com
