A short, hot winter
There are some designers you just have to love. Fashion Week came to a close here with a communing of the cult of Donatella Versace at a TV studio on the outskirts of town. When models appeared looking like the queen bee herself, with ironed hair and extensions that grazed around their derrieres, well, one just had to chuckle. DV, in all her cartoonish, bottle-blond glory, has never shied away from putting herself in the picture.
Riding in on stilettos, her urban cowgirls did laps around the oval runway as if it were a rodeo. Second-skin blazers, pencil skirts and flared pants in shades of butterscotch and cream got the Western treatment with embroidery and cross-stitching that was subtle enough to keep models from looking like extras on “Lonesome Dove.” Coats in buttery leather or sheared mink also had sexy swagger, with embellished yokes or fringed sleeves. And with corset lacing on the bodice and a flurry of fringe from the waist down, a milky white leather gown could easily win a shootout on the red carpet.
Although Versace stayed in the here and now, many designers have been thinking about the future this season, perhaps as a reaction to political unrest. The trouble is, very few of them have had an original thought. Roberto Cavalli set his show against the backdrop of a giant screen, flickering with images that evoked the films of “Metropolis” and “Blade Runner,” with a few scenes from Brazilian Carnival and red carpet awards shows thrown in. Sound familiar? Sean “Puffy” Combs did it last month in New York.
Oh well, at least Cavalli’s clothes were feisty. Multihued Formula One jackets and leggings came vroom-vrooming down the runway, along with a leather gown kustomized like a car, with an airbrushed image of a sexy siren down the back. The designer was at his best at night, with racer-back minidresses in traffic-stopping pinks and oranges, dripping with oversize rectangular sequins or fluffy ostrich feathers.
Karl Lagerfeld had a more tribal vision of the future at Fendi, where “Planet of the Apes” met “Barbarella” on a runway flanked by streams of water. A model from the past, Pat Cleveland, whose bulbous afro is by far the biggest feature on her slender frame, was there to see the catwalk debut of her 13-year-old daughter, Anna Van Ravenstein. The 1980s cover girl jack-in-the-boxed from her seat with camera in hand at the sight of her daughter, dressed in distressed brown leather thigh-high boots and an eggplant suede shirtdress, with a metallic backpack sliding off her shoulders.
The Fendi show was, as usual, mostly about fur -- sprouting from plastic on a jacket, cut into discs Paco Rabanne-style on a coat, or dyed green and fashioned into a shaggy bomber that, unfortunately, brought to mind Chewbacca, the wookie of “Star Wars.” This may be hard to visualize, but metallic leather minidresses embedded with armor-like insets or brightly colored zippers, silvery leather biker jackets with a cellophane finish and soft hobo bags with a dusting of Titian gilt were more down-to-earth.
Sometimes one wishes Giorgio Armani would return to his comfort zone of sophisticated suiting rather than continuing to work the hot-panted gamine angle.
Kal Ruttenstein, fashion director of Bloomingdale’s, defends the designer on grounds that customers are looking for something new from Armani. Maybe so. But too often his efforts at tapping into the next generation feel awkward, like an adult trying to hang at a college frat party.
This season, Armani played with texture and a waist-conscious silhouette in a mostly black collection. An organza skirt with a swirl pattern akin to the brushstrokes in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” was a nice touch. But the heavy-handed approach -- piling a latticework skirt on top of floral patterned tights, with a burnout velvet blouse and a mantilla-like shawl -- made it hard to discern the hits from the misses. Even the celebrity wattage was dim; Kevin Kline’s was the only famous face. The actor was in town to be fitted by Armani for his upcoming film, “The Cole Porter Story.”
Alberta Ferretti, Consuelo Castiglioni and Miuccia Prada are three designers who have no trouble hitting on what bright young things want to wear. Ferretti may have had the 1920s in mind when she was designing her romantic collection, shown under a tent at the public gardens. Delicate, pleated chiffon mini dresses in soft purples and blush pinks were belted low on the waist with ribbon sashes, and ladylike coats gleamed with color-blocked burgundy and plum patent leather. For evening, the designer channeled “Chicago” murderess Roxie Hart with wispy chiffon flapper dresses laden with pearl fringe or aflutter in soft feathers.
Gone were the flirty chiffons and florals that have characterized Castiglioni’s past Marni collections. There was still a bohemian spirit this season, but it was more gallery girl than flower child. One-sleeved dresses and slouchy tops were printed with black lines and spare, geometric shapes in primary colors that brought to mind the mobiles of Alexander Calder. And a zebra-stripe, hair calf skirt and coat worked in the same exotic-yet-modern way that an animal skin rug would on the floor of a Frank Lloyd Wright house.
In her lower-priced Miu Miu collection, Prada continued the theme of masculine and feminine dressing that was so effective in her signature line, even giving models gender-bending hairstyles, with pomade-slicked waves at the top of the head relaxing into soft tendrils below. Her pieces had a vintage feel, notably the canvas, fur or leather coats with gold screw-pull fasteners, that were reminiscent of the American sportswear designer Bonnie Cashin.
Bold, red-and-black houndstooth miniskirts were worn with wingtip shoes and mink stoles with man-tailored trousers, giving one the sense that Prada’s girl isn’t quite sure she’s ready to shirk off her tomboy past and dress for womanhood.
Wooly stockings, metallic ballroom dancing shoes and leather bags with handles wrapped in silk scarves were not mere afterthoughts. Accessories were key to the look here, as they were at most shows in Milan. After all, these designers are no dummies. They know that when the going gets tough, the tough still go shopping ... at least for the little things.
