Dogging the Fashion Scene in Milan
Buon giorno, Los Angeles.
Here, in Piazza Duca d’Aosta it’s way past midnight, and buxom Marilyn Monroe is drop-dead bellissima in a tight and very fleshy black beaded number on late, late night TV in “Some Like it Hot”--dubbed Italian-style.
Of course, everything here in Milan is about style, the Italian way. And MM, in this classic 1950s movie, looks as if she were dressed by one of several dozen designers who kicked off the Milan ready-to-wear collections (111 shows in all) this week.
Designers, it seems--natch--are showing their fair share of black and lots of it in sheer variations, some of it so translucent that it looks like a second skin. Sexy goes beyond black with Anna Molinari’s exquisite Blumarine line of sheer romantic dresses with geometric hems and fabric swatches that appear like flames and seem to have a life of their own as they flutter and float with the slightest step.
But enough fashion babble, let’s make the scene, Italian style.
Who could be more Italian and stylish than blond-tressed and Versace-dressed Donatella V., sis of deceased fashion giant Gianni Versace?
She sat front row at the Gucci show on Tuesday, next to brother Santo, who days before graciously greeted the press at the exhibition “L’Anima e il Volto” (“The Soul and the Face”) at Milan’s Royal Palace.
Donatella Tells All--Well, Almost
“I’m a good friend of Tom’s [Ford], and if I had to pick one show to come to, it had to be his,” said Donatella, a Gucci groupie who before the 20-minute show, was, herself, groupie-ized by a battery of Italian television crews in search of the Donatella sound bite.
“Tom is a very talented man, and I look forward to seeing his show. I love his work. It is always feminine and sexy, and I like that,” she said, away from the glare and commotion of the Other Media, now swooping down on an Italian celeb, strategically placed seats away from the divine Miss V.
As for her own work, Donatella said that women also can look forward to a more feminine look in her Versus, signature and couture lines.
“It will be much less stuffy and lots more romantic, perfect for wonderful occasions,” she says.
Such as the Oscars?
“I know what you are thinking, but I can’t say what stars we are dressing.”
C’mon, just a hint, signorina.
“No, sorry,” she smiles and shrugs her blond-covered shoulders. “I can say this much: I am dressing several stars, that’s for sure, but I really cannot reveal who just yet.”
Well, what can you spill? we wondered.
“I’ll be in L.A. soon,” she said, of her trip West for business and personal appearances. “I love L.A., the weather, the feel of the city. There is so much energy there.” And then comes the real news, the cha-ching that real estate agents dream about: “I would love to buy a house there. I’m looking for one.” Well, she’d fit in quite nicely. She does, after all, have the quintessential L.A. accessory: a fitness trainer.
Wag the Fashion Dog:
A True-Life Tail
Fashionistas here are just wild about Jack Cerf de Dudzeele. Everywhere he goes he becomes the buzz. He is pointed at, pointed out, kissed, touched, adored.
“Jack! Jack! Jack! How are you!” fans swoon, followed by the very European kissy-kissy face routine.
Never mind his understated approach to his style. He couldn’t care less about fashion. He only--and always--wears the same outfit: a white and brown fur coat, accessorized with an L.L. Bean canvas tote bag with green trimming. He sweeps in quietly and without a ticket, which is quite a feat with the Ticket Polizia always guarding the one and only door at shows here. And get this, he always sits front row center, eyeballing slinky, braless, thong-wearing models, while dozens of other fashion-crazed fans have no choice but to stand and squint.
That could possibly explain his wagging tail. Jack, you see, is a dog, a couture canine, a fashion Fido of the Jack Russell kind who has managed to show up at just about every show that his owner, Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, fashion director for Marie Claire magazine, attends.
Dudzeele--the mistress--who works in New York and is a well-known fashion figure here, has had Jack for two years and never goes anywhere without the 22-pound pooch.
“He’s with me always,” Dudzeele says in her French accent. “I carry him everywhere in this [L.L. Bean] bag,” she says, adding that she used to schlep him around in an Hermes bag, “but it got to be too heavy.”
For sure, Jack doesn’t seem to mind putting on the dog. Like his owner, he is air-kissed and takes it all in fashionably, nary a bark or whimper as he is carted around, his nose poking out, his ears alert for the start of a show or the rustle of a food wrapper. At the D&G; show Thursday, Jack was more interested in the fish in a pond in the tented garden where the show was held. In between shows, he bounces out of his bag, stretches and answers nature’s call.
When asked about the whereabouts of Jack at the Versus show, a late-night extravaganza headlined by a decibel-deafening concert by Lenny Kravitz (where many buyers and members of the media had to squat on the floor at Tubourg Alcatraz, a nightclub on the outskirts of Milan), Dudzeele said the dog was where she was headed: her hotel room--to rest her dogs, what else.
Mad About Max: His Clothes and Cheese
MaxMara Chairman Luigi Maramotti hosted a dinner for the American news media Saturday at the quaint and luxurious Bice Ristorante (where Jack the dog sat next to him and chowed on risotto alla Milanese and steak. We told you this dog gets around).
Even though fashion is Maramotti’s passion, it’s Parmesan cheese that is really, shall we say, his bread and butter.
“I own a farm in Reggio Emilia, a town south of Milano. We have about 250 cows. We make cheese, Reggio Parmesana, which is sold throughout Italy. We age it for a year. Clothes, really, is my hobby,” said Maramotti about the cheese, textile and fashion businesses his father, Achille Maramotti, founded.
While in Milan this week, Maramotti opened the first Sportmax store on via della Spiga in the Beverly Hills of Milan, known as the Monte Napoleone district, in a two-story space of white brick and stone floors that once was a bookstore. (The secondary line, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, will be available at MaxMara, Beverly Hills.)
Of his Beverly Hills boutique that opened in December, Maramotti, who lives in a 10th century castle in Reggio Emilia, said, “We had a great January and a great February. Now we wait for a great March.”
That should not be a problem for the design firm that prides itself on delivering clothes that “stay with people forever,” he said. “I like the paradox of fashion. You know, we are the consumer society, and ideally we, meaning those who dictate fashion, should make clothes that don’t last. But I am the contrary. I believe that we make clothes that people want to hold on to for a lifetime.”
He is interested in clothes that have a history with their owners, clothes that recall stories, both sweet and sad, when the wearer slips them on. A case in point is his company’s simple six-button peacoat known as the “101801 coat,” which has been a bestseller for more than 20 years and has never changed its look.
“Why should we change it when it is just perfect?” he asked (and then sketched it in my notebook and autographed it). “Just imagine the stories that coat could tell if you owned it for five or 10 years. Maybe it’s been with you on a stroll along the shore, or maybe when you had a fight with a boyfriend in a cafe, or when you covered your son on a freezing night.”
A garment, he said, should have stories, should mean something to its owner and not just be about creating the hottest must-have item.
“We don’t want to be hot” as a company, he said. “But we are also not about being boring. We are very much about creating something that works for a body, that is taken care of much like a living body, that has soul.”
Don’t Touch That Dial, This Is Serious Business
Long known for its devotion to coverage of supermodels and fashion--and regarded as the House of Joan, as in Rivers--the Los Angeles-based E! Entertainment TV cable network is on the trend trail in Milan with E! News Daily co-anchor Gina St. John, her producer Colette Shelton and E’s fashion/style manager Elycia Rubin.
At the D&G; show, held at the fabulous palazzo of hip style gurus Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the trio sat in the library and took in the denim-inspired collection as it zipped past them in a runway maze throughout the house.
It was a first for St. John and Shelton, who both fessed up to the eye-opening experience of being on the scene.
“Most people at home tuning in are beginners when it comes to this kind of fashion, so in a way, I’m also seeing it through a beginner’s eye,” Shelton said.
“I never realized that this industry was such a world and a culture filled with shows and publicists. I didn’t understand the magnitude to which this existed. It’s been very bizarre.”
St. John and company were asked by the network to come to Milan six weeks ago. They will produce several segments, from interviews with designers to a behind-the-scenes look at shows--for later viewing.
St. John, a strikingly beautiful statuesque woman who could easily be mistaken for a supermodel herself, confessed that “it’s hard to feel grounded here because there is so much going on.”
What has she gleaned so far?
“Fashion is a business and people are very serious about it,” she said. “You come here and you know how little you know.”
But days later, St. John and crew were old hats on the job, darting throughout Milan for shows (and window shopping at Prada and Gucci) and in search of the ever-important celebrity sighting to send back to the states. At the Gucci show Rubin had her cameraman busy for Oscar gown reaction from Ford, Donatella and other fashion biggies. But everyone was tight-lipped.
Speaking of celeb sightings, we finally spotted some. Ashley Judd, Jeff Goldblum, Sophia Loren, Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix were at the Giorgio Armani show. Other sightings included Maxwell, the singer; Italian actress Paola Saluzzi, the Jennifer Lopez of Italy; Valeria Marini, a dead ringer for Cameron Diaz and the sex symbol of the moment; and Countess and socialite Marta Marzotto.
With that we called it a night. Arrivederci.
