Director Petra Collins takes us on a magical journey.
Roberta Einer’s charming collection saw the designer render her rich embellishment and detailed embroidery on a lineup of glamorously languid silhouettes. The Estonian-born, London-based designer had been captivated by the heritage of Lisbon on a trip to the Portuguese capital a couple of years ago, and imagined her muse taking a winter jaunt there, circa the Forties or Fifties.
“It’s quite a nostalgic collection for a change, and…in darker shades than normal, because I feel like my brand has become more grown up,” said Einer at her static presentation, where models lounged on a set dressed to resemble a stylish tennis court.
So while there was a sense of the opulence that the designer honed during her time working at Balmain, it was toned down, as if viewed through a sepia-tinged filter. One model wore a calf-length slipdress done in panels of matte sequins in contrasting colors, such as peach, mauve and khaki green, while a chocolate-colored blouse, paired with a sleek leather skirt, was embroidered with glittering flowers in pink, white and turquoise.
Einer also channeled the Art Deco motifs of Lisbon’s architecture, with a graphic, pink and black pattern on a Forties-esque pantsuit, while a hand-painted floral print in tones of
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Chinese designer Anna Yang, who made her Milan debut for fall, brought some star dust to the city with a collection that took its cue from aliens and her own fascination with the 1947 Roswell “UFO incident,” which has spawned a body of conspiracy theories.
Not for Yang, though, scary creatures with antennae or robots on wheels. Her aliens were more of the “Blade Runner” variety — an elegant bevy of ladies with a penchant for silvery fabrics and bright, clashing colors.
“I wanted to mix the silver with the pink because it’s so sweet and soft — I thought that would come as a surprise,” said the designer, who is planning to open her first European store in Milan later this year. She currently sells her upbeat, youthful collections at Beijing’s Galeries Lafayette and via a clutch of stand-alone stores in mainland China.
The collection was one big silver tray of colorful macaroons and other tea time treats: A silver croc patterned jacket sprouted fat pink fuzzy sleeves, while fur chubbies and long coats came in shades of bubble gum, burgundy, tangerine and tomato.
Balancing all of that colorful bulk were sheer skirts — in black, red or caramel — and short, patent pinafore dresses layered over
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Fausto Puglisi is Italian. He likes to mix in odes to Miami and New York and other places through his collections, but at their core they’re always designed to represent his motherland. For fall, he went home old school in a very new school way. “I started with one of my latest obsessions [Paolo] Sorrentino,” said Puglisi, name-checking the writer/director of such lavish modern cinematic interpretations of Italian traditions as “The Young Pope” and “La Grande Bellezza.” “Rome and Naples but twisting in a modern way like today.”
He made his point very effectively the way Sorrentino would have, by opening his show with a short yet lush and direct fashion film featuring actress Cristina Donadio, a woman who has lived and it shows, engaging in a badass dressing ritual among the Greco-Roman statues in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. She shows up as a power b—h wearing the ersatz tough side of Puglisi’s aesthetic — aggressively gilded lather bomber jacket, printed T-shirt, butch boots — and directs her court of Puglisi-clad minions to change her into a rich, regal red brocade dress robe, slippers and intense jewelry. She’s transformed into a different kind of queen. The film put his thoughts in
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Alberta Ferretti took a trip to Venice for her fall collection, mining the city’s romantic landscapes and rich history for a display steeped in drama.
Gigi Hadid set the tone with the opening look, a chiffon dress and floor-sweeping cape that were both printed with a postcard rendering of the city — striped poles and gondolas included. The cape featured a fur lining in bold blue-and-white stripes, which were a recurring theme in the nautical-flavored lineup.
A hand-painted stripe pattern — an arty take on gondolier shirts — appeared on items ranging from chiffon dresses to wide-leg pants. Ferretti gave it a luxury spin with a navy-and-white astrakhan coat, and grounded it with an oversize ribbed sweater, worn over a floor-length navy skirt with a maxi duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
There was a strong fantasy element to the collection, shown in the Rotonda della Besana, a baroque building complex and former cemetery in Milan. The designer lavished coats, sweaters and capes with opulently embroidered Venetian symbols like the winged Lion of Saint Mark, and topped some of the looks with wide-brimmed hats — think Jude Law in “The Young Pope.”
“The show has to make women dream a little,” Ferretti said backstage. “I
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Alessandro Michele, don’t hide your light under a bushel. Or, more accurately, don’t hide your light between a too-distant, glass-encased runway and silver-mirrored pyramid under tricky stage lights that keep going up and down. Pithy? No, but neither was Michele’s effusive fall collection for Gucci.
Rather, it had a whole lot going on. So thank God for the backstage walk-through, however brief. It afforded the chance to glimpse what Michele’s Gucci is all about, which is almost-couture.
Michele no longer captivates his audience with the shock of the new. In a very short time, he has established a clear signature: all eccentricity, gentleness, cross-references, magpie pilings and especially, highly decorative clothes and accessories. He’s not interested in seasonal flip-flops. “Creativity is something that belongs to the person that lets a brand live,” he said. “You create every time a story — it’s a chapter. [Your] taste is [your] taste…repetition doesn’t mean it’s not new, repetition means there is something refined and different, upside down. It’s like love.” He likened himself to an alchemist, mixing far-flung ingredients into a heady concoction.
That loaded alchemy is not for everyone. While some experience the proverbial fashion swoon, others shrug in confusion. “Carnival clothes,” remarked one exiting guest. These are indeed niche clothes, which
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PARIS — A Turkish designer based in London, a Russian working in New York and a South Korean-American living in Tokyo: The list of 21 semifinalists for this year’s edition of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers shows that fashion has no borders.
“Young designers are extremely mobile nowadays,” said Delphine Arnault, the force behind the prize initiative and a key talent scout at family-controlled LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
Among those competing for a grand prize of 300,000 euros, or $320,000 at current exchange, plus a year of coaching from experts at luxury giant LVMH are 10 men’s wear designers, nine women’s wear designers and two unisex labels. LVMH is the parent of fashion houses including Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Givenchy and Berluti.
“The importance of men’s wear is growing. It will be interesting to see whether that near-balance between men’s wear and women’s wear designers is maintained once the eight finalists are selected,” Arnault said.
British designer Grace Wales Bonner last year became the first men’s wear designer to take home the grand prize in the competition, which was launched in 2013. The previous winners were Thomas Tait and Marques’ Almeida.
Among the candidates for the 2017 edition are Dilara Findikoglu, a Central
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