Inside the burgeoning world of “posh pusher” apparel.
Speaking of his collaboration with luxury footwear brand Santoni, Marco Zanini said he felt the “need for a small, quality project, rather than a pressure to perform.”
To be sure, the collection was focused and luxurious. “We wanted to expand Santoni’s expertise and excellence to other categories,” explained Zanini, who was previously Schiaparelli’s creative director. He underscored that this was not a total look, but just “an initial nucleus that can be expanded in any direction, also in design.”
The outerwear lineup included a double-breasted, double-faced coat; a beaver coat with technical inserts inside, and a satin duster. Zanini opted for alpaca, exclusive Japanese wools and cottons, camel hair, cashmere, silk satin and treated shearling beaver. Touches of pink, yellow and turquoise lit up shades of classic blue, black, burgundy, camel brown and ink. “These are garments with no expiration date,” he said.
Among the standout shoes, there were sturdy lace-ups and pumps fastened with elastic bands.
Chief executive offer Giuseppe Santoni said the collection responded to the needs of the brand’s customers, who have been requesting an extension into other categories.
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Attico’s presentation in a Milanese apartment had the aura of a happening. As Eighties pop blared from speakers, models and “It” girls mingled wearing the brand’s Instagram-friendly designs, while waiters passed around trays of drinks.
It should come as no surprise. The founders of the label, whose name translates as “penthouse” in English, are street style stars Giorgia Tordini and Gilda Ambrosio, and where they go, the stylish set follows. Their third collection was inspired by the complex female characters in Pedro Almodóvar’s movies, and the outfits were suitably flamboyant.
The duo’s signature wrap dresses came in myriad versions: one was covered in multicolored sequined stripes, while another combined a zebra pattern with a print of red tulips. Classic wardrobe items like a camel coat or a smoking jacket were embroidered with fantastic animals like dragons and unicorns.
Several of the looks merrily crossed the border into pure kitsch — to wit, a crushed velvet lilac dress with a shaved paisley motif. No matter: These clothes are not for the faint-hearted. Rather, each item had the one-of-a-kind feel of a vintage find, and demanded to be worn with a nonchalant attitude.
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The name of this collection was “Dissolve,” and backstage following the show, the Japanese designer said he was thinking about light diffusing through a crystal, and the many colors it creates. There certainly was a lot of color in this collection, including a breezy satin patchwork shirt — in deep purple and green — worn with a bright red skirt; a pair of green salopettes layered over an orange turtleneck, and a furry red and black coat punctuated with big white dots.
It was a big collection, heavy on outerwear, with no real pattern or logic. Color was a big theme, but so was raw-edged denim, as in (yet another) pair of salopettes that came with a matching, tucked-in denim jacket. There were bits of ath-leisure, too, in the form of a coral track suit with a thick silver stripe down the leg. There were piles of coats — long and short — done in shiny plum or olive technical fabrics, some quilted, others padded.
There was a handful of nice pieces here, including a silvery white bomber jacket with a big blue star on the back, and some long patchwork trenches. One was done in shades of camel and caramel, while a navy
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OSMANNORO, Italy — Fulvio Rigoni is unflinching.
His clear ideas about the Salvatore Ferragamo woman’s look secured him the role of women’s ready-to-wear design director at the storied Florence-based house after working with former creative director Massimiliano Giornetti, who exited the company last March. Rigoni joined Ferragamo in September 2015 after runs at Prada, Gucci, Jil Sander and, most recently, Christian Dior, where he designed both rtw and haute couture.
Greeting WWD at Ferragamo’s Osmannoro factory ahead of the fall show, which will take place in Milan on Feb. 26, it is clear that Rigoni is methodical and organized. Notes about the collection are precisely typed up, his mood board on one side, his sketches on another and photographs of the looks neatly divided by categories on a desk.
“I was asking myself about the meaning of beauty and I found the answer in this Serge Lutens image,” said Rigoni, pointing to a TV advertising campaign for Jun Ropé from 1978. “It’s extremely refined, very chic and very rich but also outside the schemes, almost experimental.” The photo shows a veiled woman and a younger man. “Beauty is all of the above for me, far from anything too harmonic and precise in proportions.
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MILAN — Blumarine’s Anna Molinari is often dubbed “the queen of roses” — a nickname given to her by Beppe Modenese, honorary chairman of the Italian chamber of fashion, because of the designer’s passion for the flower, which she reproduced in a plethora of looks over the years.
It is only fitting then that the book “Anna Molinari Blumarine,” published by Rizzoli and to be launched in March, begins with a fairy tale by Molinari’s friend Elena Loewenthal called “Queen of Roses.” The book marks the brand’s 40th anniversary and will be feted with a dinner on Feb. 25 during Milan Fashion Week.
The cover of the “Anna Molinari Blumarine” book.
Courtesy Image
The book spans from Molinari’s early family life in Carpi and her falling in love “at first sight” with Gianpaolo Tarabini Castellani — including a heart-shaped tattoo on the back of her wrist which did not go down well with her father — to her deep-rooted passion for knitwear, developed first through a small family workshop working for other designers, then through a factory, called the Molly, and finally through Blumarine, founded in 1977. “Blue. Blue like the sea, Blumarine. That’s what we’ll call ourselves,” said Tarabini when the couple, then married,
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BARE BONES: Not content with challenging the codes of luxury fashion, Demna Gvasalia is rethinking the rules of e-commerce.
While other brands add ever-more sophisticated content to their online shopping channels, Balenciaga is coming out with a stripped-down version of its site. Gvasalia is creative director of the Paris-based brand, in addition to his label Vetements.
The new balenciaga.com, which rolls out today on all devices, features a bare-bones menu inspired by an Excel sheet, designed for ease of use.
“Organized as a plain-view portal for ready-to-wear and accessories, it removes all the visual obstructions and useless distractions between the shopper and the purchase. Each click brings you closer to the product,” the brand said.
The e-commerce site, originally launched in September 2014, ships to 95 countries worldwide and will add five more in March: United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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What might Meryl Streep wear to the Oscars? Cross Chanel off the list.
It seems that Streep was quite taken with an embroidered gray silk gown from Karl Lagerfeld’s most recent couture collection for the house. The dress was ordered, with Streep requesting an adjustment to the design — a higher neckline. Done. Such personalization is what couture is all about, along with exquisite execution, and, in the case of Chanel, Lagerfeld’s design brilliance. What more could the world’s greatest living actress want for Hollywood’s biggest night?
Turns out, she wants a paycheck. With work on the dress well underway in Chanel’s atelier, word came from Streep’s camp to cease and desist. “I made a sketch, and we started to make the dress,” Lagerfeld told WWD. Days later, a phone call came in from a member of Streep’s camp. “’Don’t continue the dress. We found somebody who will pay us,’” Lagerfeld quoted the messenger.
Streep in Lanvin at the 2012 Oscars ceremony
Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock
Chanel, he noted, has a policy of not paying celebrities to wear its clothes, apparently even those of the “greatest living” ilk. That’s not to say there’s no expense involved, both in terms of valuable hours clocked by the artisans of the
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Istanbul-based women’s designer label Zeynep Arçay is set to launch in the U.S. The leather-rooted brand’s fall collection, its sixth overall, will launch with an online exclusive on Forward by Elyse Walker beginning July 15. Brick-and-mortar stockists will include Switch in Los Angeles and Julianne in New York and Santa Barbara, Calif., with other retailers expected to confirm after Paris sales meetings wrap in March. The U.S. web site will simultaneously see a revamp in the summer when fall product hits stores.
The eponymous label has an aesthetic of edgy sophistication underscored by timeless design. It launched three years ago exclusively with Turkish luxury retailer Beymen as a champion of paper-thin, manipulable leathers as everyday fabrics. The resulting collections have struck a balance of hard and soft, tailored and feminine silhouettes for the modern elegant woman.
“I’ve had a lot of success with the collection abroad and have been eyeing the U.S. for some time,” Arçay explains. “The strength of fall 2017 made it the obvious season to introduce to such an important new market. After a successful round of sales appointments in New York last week, I’m really excited about what this new market holds for the brand. We’ve also had
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