Saturday's Milan Fashion Week was marked by two shows focused on movement; although with radically different approaches. Ferrari lit up the day and Bottega Veneta finished it.
Bottega Veneta: celebrating charm
Sometimes the most important question to ask ourselves about any collection is: “How new are these clothes?” And nothing felt newer or more original this week at Milan Fashion Week than Bottega Veneta.
Without prints, without embroidery, but made with true originality and with a tremendously improbable but always cool silhouette, these were the freshest garments in Italy in the last five days.
“Reduce, reduce and not to the minimum but to the maximum. To celebrate the idea of the everyday, the idea of charm,” explained Bottega Veneta’s cerebral designer, Matthieu Blazy.
Their first passages were cocoon-shaped jackets or coats, all cut with seams and raised hems; The leather doublets had bat wings, a high collar, and long cuffs. Everything was a little out of proportion, which was what gave charm to each look.
Bottega Bajo Blazy has always focused on unexpected leather, treated and cut to be malleable or rigid depending on the sculptural shape the designer demands, from flamenco skirts with mega ruffles to elongated coats with low pockets.
Held inside a warehouse in the south of Milan, renovated with elegantly stained wooden boxes as seats, the cast paraded at high speed down the runway in a figure of eight. Backed by a beautiful soundtrack starring master cellist Yo-Yo Ma's famous Gabriel Oboe, imparting a sense of majesty to the event.
Blazy's interpretation of deconstruction was also very novel. Like dresses assembled from gray trenches and olive green dresses, connected diagonally from the right shoulder to the left ankle. The offset seams, super-high noble collars and mutton-style sleeves gave the large sweaters a sense of volume and movement that was very attractive to both boys and girls in a mixed fashion show.
“I started watching the news. Not represent it but have a point of view. I wanted to make a monument of the everyday. That was the point, so we removed all the decorations,” Blazy explained quietly backstage.
He explained that he developed the unusual volumes after walking his dog at night and watching the silhouettes gradually turn into shadows.
“Day clothes during the night, where you don't see details, just a shadow. “That's what makes people chic: their attractiveness,” he added.
Therefore, its palette also became nocturnal: olive, ash, charcoal and a small flame at the end.
This partly explains how the collection kicked into high gear with a female Yeti that looked like it was composed of a circuit board that had suddenly grown hair.
“I like the idea of a certain form of resilience and the idea of hope. “When you walk through the desert and you see fire,” he reflected, before his fellow designers and former bosses, Pieter Mulier and Raf Simons, embraced each other in praise.
The reflective power of Ferrari
Every look at Ferrari's latest show seemed built to reflect light, a shimmering collection of iridescence, reflective surfaces and shiny fabrics.
It took place inside a show set made entirely of synthetic leather, from the tubular seats to the wavy walls, to better reflect the light again.
In this latest collection from designer Rocco Iannone, presented on sunny Saturday morning in the south of Milan, the opening looks were all in Ferrari's signature fireball red.
Most looks tried to suggest speed and power, and many of them did so successfully. Like off-the-shoulder sweater dresses, dimpled surgeon's gowns, or spy coats, all made from technical wool or patent leather, and all in the car's signature deep red.
In a coed program, the women were largely the party type; with gray blazer worn as mini-dresses-coat over liquid metal as tights; Black bustiers worn only with the board president's gray flannel ankle-length coats. Plus, classic looks with a twist often made a big impact, especially veteran Natasha Poly's suit, a double-breasted banker's suit with a full, multi-pleated skirt.
Rocco certainly has a fertile imagination, as seen in his distressed silver series of pantsuits for men and women.
He called the collection “an expression of sensuality and dynamism, of precise shapes and sinuous lines, of sharp contours and soft curves, of intrinsic energies that bubble on the surface to decompose and recompose silhouettes in tailoring par excellence.”
But, at times it seemed like the collection was having a hard time deciding what kind of bran it really is. A full-fledged fashion brand or an advertising campaign for Ferrari brand extensions. Like the launch of their new sunglasses that was held in the same space after dinner on Saturday.
How else to explain the transparent metallic light blue shirts and jumpsuits, pure catwalk looks?
Copyright © 2024 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
