Armani's Blue Period
By SUZY MENKES
Published: September 27, 2010
MILAN — “La Femme Bleue” read the inky letters over a projection of undulating sand dunes. This was not Picasso’s Blue Period but
Giorgio Armani sending out a powerful and personal collection to close Milan Fashion Week.
“It’s the Tuaregs — all blue, all the same color, but with a different spirit,” said Mr. Armani backstage to explain a collection that might have been on one note in its depiction of the nomadic Saharan tribe, but was, in fact, subtly nuanced in color and texture.
The models came out with their heads bound with ethnic scarves and their feet in the kind of flat sandals that might make it through the desert. The clothes were soft, long, draped, transparent — or often all of the above. And it made a calmly beautiful collection more in the Armani spirit than many the designer has shown of late.
There was a fashion mission: to bring skirt lengths down, without making the change of silhouette seem constricting or unnerving. One of the ways the designer pulled off this elegant collection was by using the same wafting, semi-transparent gauzes that had appeared earlier on his Emporio runway. But this time they were indeterminate shapes — a drift of fabric as vague as sand blowing in the wind.
By contrast, newly shaped pants were waisted and very slightly rounded. Worn with cropped jackets, they looked fresh and new for daywear. So did the long, slim dresses that never segued into red carpet extravaganzas. The most edgy look was when satellites of tulle circled the body.
This show represented Mr. Armani at his best: the gentle nod to ethnicity in bold jewelry and in the headgear; clothes that moved as easily as the bodies inside them. Above all, this play on just a single color — but with myriad different effects from silken sheen to dry cotton — stood out as a beacon of summer elegance in a season of wild color.
While other designers have taken the hippie de luxe trail, first walked by Yves Saint Laurent in the 1970s, Mr. Armani showed his independent vision and his conviction that making women calmly beautiful can be a mission statement.