Eric Wilson is InStyle’s Fashion News Director. Sit front row at Fashion Week with him by following him on Twitter (@EricWilsonSays) and Instagram.
“Fashion is in a strange moment,” says Ennio Capasa, the designer who created the Costume National collection nearly three decades ago and who recently returned to showing his collection to Milan after years in Paris.
Capasa has seen it all, so I was curious to hear his perspective on the burgeoning resurgence of Italian fashion, or at least the efforts of designers here to bring it back to a state of glory.Quoted
“Fashion is in a strange moment,” – Ennio Capasa, designer of @CoSTUMENATIONALTweet This!
“The quality was there, but the emotion was not,” Capasa says, identifying perhaps the biggest issue facing fashion today, and not just in Italy. With all the technology advancements and fabulous textiles designers have at their disposal, all the communication through Instagram and Twitter, how do you remind customers that their clothes come from the minds of real live human beings?
Thus far through the spring collections, we’re beginning to find answers in collections that have resounded with assertive voices in each of the fashion capitals. New York embraced fashion with a joie de vivre (and also gingham). London’s rising stars showed their technical prowess, and in Milan, there has been a clear effort to remind us what Italian fashion is all about.
Gucci, Prada, Versace and Costume National each explored the past but in different ways, whether nostalgic for the 1970s, or in Capasa’s case, a return to the slick urban looks he made popular in the 1990s, punctuated with super-novel laser-cut silk tunics and dresses seemingly made entirely of black fringe.
Or there was Miuccia Prada, who looked back all the way to antiquities, or at least to brocades of the last century, commissioning their creation from historic mills and splicing them into bare-bones dresses and superb leather coats that looked like they belonged both in a museum and your closet at the same moment.And the pillars of Milan came roaring back loudly this week, as Donatella Versace reminded us that sexy does not equate with vulgar. She restyled and remixed her classic wardrobe of Miami Beach worthy dresses with clever insets and brushstrokes of fabric that abstractly spelled the letters of Versace or the Greek key motif in the seams. For example, a white pantsuit was laced with red along the front, forming a pair of pocket V’s (pictured, above). And the collections wrapped up on Sunday with a delicious Italy-meets-Spain tribute to toreadors by Dolce & Gabbana, whose sexy senoritas wore fitted black suits or bejeweled jeans along with enough attitude to stare down any form of bull.
Roberto Cavalli? He’s still sexing things up, but with a bold new attitude of acid-colored hippie dresses that are determined to become a trend of the season. If you couldn’t find the right one there, try Emilio Pucci’s versions from Peter Dundas, or the supremely trippy paisley versions from Etro, which were shown to a soundtrack by The Doors. For a sweeter take, Missoni styled soft maxi-dresses with matching turbans (all pictured, top, from L-R: Cavalli, Pucci, Etro, Missoni).
Giorgio Armani, approaching his 40th anniversary in business next year, is not holding back right now. His Mediterranean sand-inspired collection featured one regal red-carpet worthy gown after another, concluding with a spectacular crystal covered wrap with flashes extending into the model’s Cleopatra hair (pictured, below left). Mr. Armani, you sphinx!
Over at Bottega Veneta, Tomas Maier jumped on board the athleisure train, and we’re coming right along with him, since his relaxed sweatpants, sneakers with ballgowns and particularly some amazing denim dresses and suits looked first class all the way (pictured, above middle). Alessandra Facchinetti, at Tod’s, turned the iconic driving moccasin into inspiration for pebble-studded bags and mirror-embroidered blouses, and talk about technology-enhanced—her laser cut leather looks were future perfect (pictured, above right). And Marco de Vincenzo took the fringe trend to its furthest extreme, making color-rich dresses and suits from tiers of the stuff, swishing and swaying like modern flapper dresses as the models walked by.
Ferragamo’s Massimiliano Giornetti looked to the house’s famous rainbow wedge sandal for inspiration and recreated it in natural ivory tones, matched by beautiful capes and fitted dresses in a pale, spare tone (pictured, below left), while Marni’s Consuelo Castiglioni went the opposite direction with a riot of floral prints pieced together in intricately constructed coats and dresses.
And finally, a shout-out is in order to Jil Sander’s new designer, Rodolfo Paglialunga, a Prada protégé and former Vionnet designer, whose first collection looked like Jil Sander back on her first go-round (pictured, above right). The color sense was terrifically minimal, navy, burgundy and white like schoolgirl uniforms, and the pants, maybe a little baggy in the seat, had a nice masculine-feminine vibe. The top look was a fitted dress shirt tricked out with a drawstring waist, worn with a skirt slung just low enough to show off that detail.
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