Authentic lives, like the life of Lee Miller, the photographer and onetime lover of Man Ray — whose sparse advice to Vogue upon delivering her pictures of concentration camps was “Believe it” — often feel short-changed by designers of luxury products.
Somehow, an aviator jacket in ostrich and Persian lamb from Gucci, with the brand’s green-and-red canvas stripes at the waist, just doesn’t come up to the level of “Believe it.” Maybe the designer, Frida Giannini, should keep her inspirations to herself. It might also help to avoid designing under the headings of “The 1940s” and “Great Women.”
Whether she knows it or not, Ms. Giannini is a very good designer. In spite of the Gilda hair and lugubrious evening gowns with imitation dress clips, this was her best collection for Gucci. She tried doing sexy clothes — to please, one felt, editors — but Ms. Giannini is a young woman with an eye for tailored, light-hearted sportswear.
Gucci under Tom Ford was a great source for fur-trimmed jackets and classy town coats, and she has made them her business, this season uniting them with tweed aviator pants, cropped knits and gold-embellished platform boots. These looks sparkled with chunky gold bracelets, gloves and shirts with white French cuffs — a nice touch.
Although masculine tailoring was the main event, Ms. Giannini has almost made a fetish of her printed dresses. The best this season is a creamy silk shirtwaist in a gold and blue “bluebell” print with a striped web belt and fluttery sleeve. There were also cute dresses in muddy red tartan and a sleek number in black wool with a kind of bib in leopard-printed fur. The broad-shouldered, ’40s evening dresses seemed a dreary antifashion; here you’re dying a little for sex.
