MILAN - JIL SANDER : HOLDING PATTERN FASHION .
From Fashion Wire Daily
By Godfrey Deeny
The Italian men’s fashion season opened Sunday morning in Milan and promptly went into a holding pattern even before the Duomo’s bell struck noon.
Jil Sander kicked off the season, or rather edged into it, presenting a spring summer summer 2006 collection that looked designed by a nervous committee, rather than dreamed up by an inspired designer.
The Sander collection, as we all know, has been adrift for several seasons, ever since the house’s founder quit the label for the second time. Her latest replacement – Raf Simons – was sitting front-row at Sunday’s show, but the talented Belgium had nothing to do with the collection presented to the ruling class of the men’s fashion world in Sander’s Italian headquarters across from the Castello Sforzesco.
It would be cruel, and inaccurate, to describe this colleciton as bad. It was just plainly predictable. One could actually find some rather wearable clothes in the show, worn as again by the Sander house look – Aryan virgin models. It was easy to imagine men looking hip and presentable in the excellent putty-shaded seer-sucker suits – cut with one button and back vent – the natty flat gray jackets and the crepe gingham suits that reeked of easy money and self-assurance.
However, over all, there was nothing of frau Sander’s magical minimalism, none of her assured sense of dressing a new ruling class. In fact, many of the looks – ill-fitting stiff jeans, sad white linen bermuda pants and some truly appallingly ill-chosen print summer shirts – were better suited to a department store buyers presentation than a Milan runway. Moreover, a selection of unlikely accessories – white leather ballet slippers and satchel bags so small they could barely fit a cell phone and digital camera – were hard to understand.
The collection did at least look like Sander’s color palette, but one left the show thinking that the sooner Raf Simons gets on board the better. Simons is due to make his Sander debut in six months time in next January men’s season.
Asked his view on the show, Simons, who was literally surrounded by Prada communications executives keen that he did not actually communicate, paused and responded: “Em, errr, maybe not today.”