Romeo Gigli S/S 1990 Paris

[YohjiAddict]

Business of Fashion

 

[YohjiAddict]

Business of Fashion

 

[YohjiAddict]

Business of Fashion

 

[YohjiAddict]

Business of Fashion

 

[YohjiAddict]

Business of Fashion

 

[YohjiAddict]

Tim Blanks’ Top Fashion Shows of All-Time: Romeo Gigli Spring/Summer 1990

BoF's editor-at-large travels back in time to the Italian designer's standing ovation-worthy Paris debut, which took place at the peak of his influence.

The sensations of a fashion show are many and varied: sights, occasionally scents, the odd touch here and there, and sound, always. That doesn’t just mean the DJ’s contribution. Sometimes, the clothes themselves provide an aural undertow, swishing, rustling, crinkling or, for Romeo Gigli’s Spring/Summer 1990 presentation, tinkling, like wind chimes. Kirsten Owen, the model embodiment of Gigli’s fragile, romantic ideal, appeared on the runway in an outfit wrapped in a fringe of large glass beads from the island of Murano, in the Venetian lagoon. With her long pendant earrings and glass diadem, she could have been the Byzantine Empress Theodora. And she chimed as she walked, until the beads began to shatter.

Or did they? The dream-like transport of the entire show, heightened by Liz Fraser’s angelic voice soaring on the soundtrack over the gilded guitars of the Cocteau Twins, was such that my total recall of the night has always been shaky. But I do remember the standing ovation for Gigli’s Paris debut. It set the impassive stone walls of the Cour Carrée, the huge courtyard in the Louvre, ringing. And the cheering resounded down the Rue de Rivoli, so the legend goes.

The “dream” has been the default option for more designers than I care to recall, as though their work exists, in their own eyes, as an exalted alternative to the quotidian world. It’s a fanciful notion. Daunting too. How many really rise to that challenge? Those who do actually master transcendence are marked by genius.

Gigli was intimately acquainted with at least a few such masters from childhood. His mother Alfa, an Italian contessa, was dressed by Dior and Balenciaga. The sculptural form of her clothes appealed to her son, though he settled on architecture as his future. He was 18 when she died, followed soon after by his father Ancora, an antiquarian book dealer. The orphaned Romeo dropped out of architecture school and spent the next 10 years as a global nomad.

He launched his own fashion collection in 1983, after he’d resettled in Italy. Asked to name his favourite designer, Gigli answered “Frank Lloyd Wright,” but his designs drew as much from the art and history in his father’s books. That was the revelation of his Spring/Summer 1990 presentation for people who’d never encountered his work in Milan. Did you ever see a dream walking? Well, we did.

Italian fashion in the late 80s was defined by the rivalry between Armani and Versace. Gigli was so radically different from both he was immediately hailed as Milan’s designer of the future, “the Armani of the 90s,” even. So you can imagine the level of anticipation for his first show in Paris. It’s challenging now to look at the images and try to conjure up a time when such a fantasia could ever have been considered a viable surrogate for the structured “reality” proposed by Giorgio and Gianni.


But the turn of a decade is often a golden transitional moment. Power suits and power shoulders had fallen from favour. Gigli offered a new silhouette: cocoon coats, and cutaway jackets that skimmed the body, with shawl collars and soft, “real” shoulders; high-waisted trousers that were as skinny as leggings; skirts with a tulip, or heart, shape that swaddled the legs. And, always, flat velvet slippers. (One pair was crowned with a silk rose whose stem trailed away up the model’s calf.)

At the time, though, it was the fabrics and the colours that truly blew tiny minds. Jewel-toned silks (“Rothko reds,” apparently), rich, earthy velvets, artisanal crochets, shadowy chiffons and gilded gauzes.…Many of the fabrics were said to be elasticised so Gigli could dispense with seaming or linings.

And then there was Kirsten Owen in her tinkling glass. Her astonishing career, which has now successfully straddled four decades, launched with Gigli and his favourite photographer Paolo Roversi. On that Paris runway in October 1989, Owen really was the face of fashion on a new threshold.

That’s just how it worked out for her, but for him, it wasn’t to be. Within a couple of years, the Gigli dream had evaporated in a fog of legal acrimony. Small consolation for him that he left this moment of supernal beauty. But he did, in fact, leave another, more substantial bequest to the future. Right after his Paris show, Gigli hired a young fashion student named Alexander McQueen as an assistant. Feel free to believe that this was McQueen’s early education in the potential for poetry in fashion.

 

[Phuel]

Had the lighting been just changed to spotlights along the runway in a darkened room, the mood would be so much more appropriate for his brand of ethereal beauty (... but then the photographers would be cursing the presentation for poor lighting LOL).

 

[Lola701]

I’m kinda surprised of this being part of Tim’s favorite shows.
Personally, I love the Fall Winter 1990 collection. It was more my taste and the presentation really made sense.
Gigli is a color master and it’s interesting to find some links to his work in Alber and Haider’s work.

Gigli is a bit like Montana for me. It’s a pity that despite their talent, they haven’t managed to make the transition from the 80’s to the late 90’s. Gigli was maybe more versatile and managed to survive from a technically POV but I feel like the essence of his work kinda disappeared over the years.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Somewhere and sometime by the mid-90s, he seemed to have lost his unique essence-- or just straightup abandoned it. Which is surprising since his brand of deeply multicultural aesthetic remained relevant throughout that decade— just look at Gaultier’s work from the 90s-2000s… along with Galliano and McQueen). And in that sense, he was very one-note and couldn’t translate beyond the signature of dreamy Byzantine princesses. With Montana, I could understand the stale and irrelevancy since he spiralled further and further into substance abuse. It’s obvious how much of an influence he was on McQueen; the latter’s The Girl Who Lived In A Tree collection may as well be called Tribute to Gigli. I wondered if Romeo just lost interest in fashion???

 

[Lola701]

^^
He had issue with his business partner in the 90's and maybe it influenced his work. Considering that he continued to consult and teach fashion over the years, I don't think he lost interest in fashion. He was maybe more against the practices of the "fashion industry".

That being said, the 90's weren't particularly kind to independent designers. The success of Karl at Chanel changed drastically the industry in the 80's but the massive success of Versace or Armani at that time also changed the paradigm of the industry. Suddenly the possibilities of expansion of independent brands became insane. It was harder to keep up and very few of them survived.

 

[YohjiAddict]

Romeo more or less lost what made him so special after F/W 96, he experimented with other aesthetics but it was never the same again, I do believe his versatility was limited to begin with. He understood the early 90s better than some of his peers, but the decade was quickly evolving...it doesn't help that he lost ownership of his name. Montana is a great example because his signature style stopped making sense after the mid-90s, even if at the start of the decade it was stil desirable.

Karl's great success is that, better than anyone, he knew how to adapt and respond to current styles, there's a radical change between Chanel at the start and end of that decade.

I'm on the photographers side, I detest fashion shows where the lights are too dimmed...the beauty of this pictures is how clear they are, he has other shows in darkened rooms and the pictures are grainy beyond belief.

P.S: Tim's article should be corrected, Gigli's Paris debut was not this season but the one before. If you want, I can upload some pictures.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Yes, please upload!

^^
He had issue with his business partner in the 90's and maybe it influenced his work. Considering that he continued to consult and teach fashion over the years, I don't think he lost interest in fashion. He was maybe more against the practices of the "fashion industry".

That being said, the 90's weren't particularly kind to independent designers. The success of Karl at Chanel changed drastically the industry in the 80's but the massive success of Versace or Armani at that time also changed the paradigm of the industry. Suddenly the possibilities of expansion of independent brands became insane. It was harder to keep up and very few of them survived.

Romeo teaching fashion is at once exciting and sad. When I was in school, I always had this attitude that teachers at a design/fashion school were individuals that just failed in the industry (… and that none of my teachers were remotely inspiring also contributed to my attitude…). If I were a student now, I’d be so excited to drink in everything he had to teach.

Romeo, Rifat Ozbeck and Martine Sitbone comes to mind of promising 80s-talents that sadly never realized their full potential. Montana is a strange one: looking at his mid-80s designs and show, they were literally the blueprint of 80s-fashion caricatures. He only had a few brief years of design genius— ending in his snow queen-esque tenure at Lanvin. Then it was over. Romeo’s fashions were never of the moment, and at their best, so transcendent beyond mere high fashion. I’d like to think that had he continued, his designs would have evolved similar to the most romantic of McQueen’s. But that's likely being too generous and nostalgic for his brand of gentlewomenly beauty.

 

[YohjiAddict]

^Also the press didn't help even Yohji or Gaultier who we now think as defining forces of the 90s were called out for not being like Helmut or whomever, critics weren't playing games like nowadays...

Martine Sitbon shows I liked but she had no sense for editing, everything but the kitchen sink. It didn't help that Ann D was her cooler, chicer and more of-the-moment rocker cousin.

 

[Lola701]

^^^ Yes, please upload!



Romeo teaching fashion is at once exciting and sad. When I was in school, I always had this attitude that teachers at a design/fashion school were individuals that just failed in the industry (… and that none of my teachers were remotely inspiring also contributed to my attitude…). If I were a student now, I’d be so excited to drink in everything he had to teach.

Romeo, Rifat Ozbeck and Martine Sitbone comes to mind of promising 80s-talents that sadly never realized their full potential. Montana is a strange one: looking at his mid-80s designs and show, they were literally the blueprint of 80s-fashion caricatures. He only had a few brief years of design genius— ending in his snow queen-esque tenure at Lanvin. Then it was over. Romeo’s fashions were never of the moment, and at their best, so transcendent beyond mere high fashion. I’d like to think that had he continued, his designs would have evolved similar to the most romantic of McQueen’s. But that's likely being too generous and nostalgic for his brand of gentlewomenly beauty.

Oh! I’m so into what you said about designers teaching fashion. But I also think that part of the path of being a designer is the moments of low or failure...But I think you need a great deal of introspection and peace to teach and face the fact that at one point, somebody is going to remember to you that you are here because you failed.

But I remember in a interview, Karl said that he reached for a short period of time in Germany (in the 90’s I think) and he expressed how he hated how entitled the students were and how it made him not wanting to do it. Maybe having a designer who « failed » is a great way to humble students...

Out of all the designers you mentioned, the most heart-breaking is probably Montana. I saw him one time in Paris at the time when he worked with Paul and Joe and it’s really heart-breaking to see him physically.

I think what happened in the 90’s/early 00’s was very violent. You had a whole generation of designers that defined the idea of newness and who at one point made irrelevant a lot of designers of the 80’s (the 80’s killed all the surviving Couture houses of the 70’s), who quickly became irrelevant themselves.

I think the pressure of expansion (those RTW designers suddenly had to do perfumes to survive) and the twist when Luxury became the word to define Fashion ultimately killed a lot of those talents.
The success of Helmut, Prada, Gucci changed the whole perception of fashion. Helmut made people look edgy with jeans, a shirt and a blazer...No femme fleur à la Mugler or Cyber-glamazon.

But do you really think Romeo could have evolved like that (if he wanted). His fashion was very rich in fabrics, in tones, in volumes. What I think was amazing about McQueen or Galliano was the attitude and how, they have managed to give more with less. And that’s why maybe their work felt more relevant...

 

[Phuel]

^^^ No— I don’t feel Romeo had the dangerously sharp ambition nor design vision of McQueen. Not many do: That brand of extraordinary, potent, visionary storytelling and worldbuilding. combined with innovative tailoring skills to conjure this magical aesthetic is matched only by Gaultier. And maybe Galliano. Helmut and Tom I adored and were most drawn to, but they were never even close to the level of those three. And Romeo could never match McQueen’s creative vision nor his masterful, inventive construction. We are very fortunate to have experienced McQueen/Gaultier/Galliano in our lifetime.

 

[paulobabboni]

^^^ No— I don’t feel Romeo had the dangerously sharp ambition nor design vision of McQueen. Not many do: That brand of extraordinary, potent, visionary storytelling and worldbuilding. combined with innovative tailoring skills to conjure this magical aesthetic is matched only by Gaultier. And maybe Galliano. Helmut and Tom I adored and were most drawn to, but they were never even close to the level of those three. And Romeo could never match McQueen’s creative vision nor his masterful, inventive construction. We are very fortunate to have experienced McQueen/Gaultier/Galliano in our lifetime.

My comment comes a year late, but I'd like to share the opinion of someone who lived through this Gigli moment, even from a distance.

This Murano-specific collection was, and continues to be, one of the most beautiful and inspiring of all I know about fashion. The image of Kirsten Owen dressed in golden glass has been with me ever since as a reference at all times. At the time I was working as a fashion producer for a magazine, and in my naivete, I wanted to do an editorial like that, full of glass goddesses and golden chiffon...

Something worth remembering is that a part of the press did not understand and did not accept this dream shamelessly. Consumers even less. Clothing practically made by hand, very expensive, with a load of elitist historical information, which in the decade of the cult of the body, was hidden, were for few people.

I agree with your comment. Gigli cannot and could not be what Gaultier and McQueen once were. Gigli was a breath of dream and madness that lasted a short time. A little god who didn't know how to live among men. Another...

This Murano collection, and perhaps half a dozen others, lives in me forever.