In Gianni's memory, shiny and somber
In sober coats or dark suits, with clerical collars circling their throats, the Versace models marked a fashion moment: 10 years since the murder of Gianni Versace, whose work will be honored posthumously next month. Along with his sister Donatella, the designer will be added to the Rodeo Drive "Walk of Style" in Los Angeles. A Versace exhibition at Milan's Palazzo Reale will follow in June. "Austerity — but elegant, I wanted it to be rigorous," Donatella Versace said to sum up her show and the new military mood of the fall/ winter season. Milan menswear is showing a change of pace as the futurism of silvered fabrics and graphic inserts collide with somber tailoring.
Whether they are in the shadow of the Iraq war or just searching for an unequivocal masculinity, designers are taking a military route, highlighted with shine. While on Monday, Bottega Veneta endorsed the sartorial trend with a focus on tailoring.
The drumbeat of change was powerful at Burberry, where Christopher Bailey sent out a streamlined collection that took the house back to the trenches and its origins as a military supplier. Along with perfectly constructed coats with multiple buttons and half-belts came the kind of furry gauntlets that the British explorer Ernest Shackleton had on his Antarctic explorations.
"We went completely back to the archives, but changed the proportions using lots of felt and making knits hugely important," said Bailey, who opened the show with a knit version of the signature Burberry trench.
There is always something poignant about the call to arms of a young generation. The designer has a knack of catching that emotion while giving a youthful freshness to traditional pieces. Sweaters crept over the wrist under jacket sleeves and knits were layered in an easy, modern way.
Thick cable knit sweaters and dense, matte khaki contrasted with highly polished shoes and gleaming silver or copper details — without either side dominating the other. It was a very fine show, masculine, powerful and catching a fashion moment.
"I'm very emotional — and I am very happy," Versace said of the painful preparation for the "Walk of Style" award, as she put together a video "about Gianni and living together his moment."
His sister feels that Gianni Versace's
fashion daring and risk-taking were not always understood or appreciated in his lifetime, which makes the joint recognition that much sweeter.
"I think Gianni especially deserves this award," Versace says.
After her successful personal struggle to regain control of her life, Versace faces an awkward fashion choice. While young designers are in thrall to the brash Gianni style of the 1980s, she has to reinterpret the original vision of a man who would be age 60 today.
Wisely leaving alone flashy color, wild patterns and broad- shouldered bravura, Versace focused, after a spring season of long, limp shapes, on clean tailoring. Coats were paramount — double- breasted, slim cut and with a white collar ringing the neckline. Suits — sometimes three-piece — had a similar strong simplicity. But, by taking a shine to sobriety with reflective fabrics and gleaming shoes, Versace lightened up. Black-and-white butterfly ties with formal evening wear looked spirited. And if the show lacked the dash that was once synonymous with Versace, the designer knows from the transformation of her once-glitzy friend Elton John that there is a time in life to be sober.
Dolce & Gabbana picked up on the extravagant 1980s, giving their sharp tailoring and super-shiny fabrics an eerie echo of Thierry Mugler's inter- galactic world. The show encompassed the best and all-too-brightest of the designers' spirit. It opened and closed with silver and copper spacesuits, sometimes worn over tailored suits, creating what looked like a re-make of "Star Wars" staged in a men's store. A rotating platform, apparently ready for liftoff, only added to the weird space- age feeling.
At their best, pieces were sleek, as a quilted silver bomber jacket formed a mushroom cloud above slim pants or a shimmering trench walked the runway. Outsize sweaters formed vast cocoons, with Lurex sparkling knits and vast gilded rapper pants also making a wild statement.
The show was punctuated with the impeccable formal tailoring for which Dolce & Gabbana are known. But in this massive display of designs, a clear fashion trajectory was lost.
Raf Simons is making a fine job of recreating the Jil Sander label. There is something humble and unhurried about his approach, as he carefully builds an image for the house based on sharp lines with a soft touch.
Out came coats in straight shapes, traced with a single graphic line and a pair of vertical pockets. Or the same linear stroke was drawn on a shirt. The effect of checks morphing into simple stripes was modernist, yet never soulless.
The futuristic music of Johann Johannsson of Iceland soared with the onset of iridescent shine. That meant an eerie, iridescent blue parka; a cardigan edged in silver; a sweater with metallic flecks; or a giant circular bag with the effect of tortoiseshell. Other tailored pieces were just examples of linear tailoring, as in a sharp-cut toggled duffel coat or a suit. Without either hinting at the past or embracing a space age future, the designer is re- making tailoring.
"For me, the future is romantic," Simons said. "Thinking what clothing might be and could be."
Super-shiny fabrics, sweaters elongated below brief jackets and fat hip bands gave Costume National the current sci-fi look. It was achieved mainly with the fabric inventions in which Italian textile manufacturers excel — but the designer Ennio Capasa did not let the reflective effects get out of hand. The silver that gleamed from buttons, jackets or from the surface of a coat was balanced by a furry finish to a bomber jacket or by knits that softened the crisp tailoring.
There may be precious little snow on the Alps, but ski wear was the theme at Missoni, where the addition of nylon hoods and backpacks containing rolled-up blankets gave a sporty feel to the iconic sweaters. They, too, had become less dense in pattern and more graphic, with their sharp lines suggesting a new fashion dynamic.
You have to admire Luca Missoni for making the technical side seem so easy, so that a nylon cape melded effortlessly with the knitwear and intarsia patterns were worked with an offhand dash. The giant sweater — Missoni's with cable patterns — seems to be back in style. The only misstep in this fine collection was the soft jersey suits, which just seemed too limp in this sartorial moment.
Tomas Maier said that he started his Bottega Veneta collection with a pencil stroke. That thin line was the silhouette of a collection based on Neapolitan tailoring. Add a dash of the London City in the 1960s, with bowler hats and the most stylish briefcases — in crocodile, ostrich or woven leather — ever seen in the financial quarter.
Maier's vision is exceptionally clear, especially for the essence of what is upscale. The multibutton vests, the precisely stitched sneaker/shoes and a cashmere cardigan worn like a shirt all oozed luxury, not to mention the elegant accessories. If it sometimes seems provocative to make a felt or a pony skin coat that looks like streetwear to the uninitiated, Bottega Veneta's balance between casual and formal was artfully handled. That ultra finesse is making Maier a major luxury player, with a new Bottega flagship store opening in Tokyo's Ginza this spring.
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