A red-lit elliptical track at the Triennale design museum was covered in mirrored floors, setting the tone for a mischievously sensual Sportmax show.
Eroticism has been a recurring theme for Sportmax during recent seasons. After previous boudoir-inspired shows, the fall show, titled “Camera Obscura” in a nod to singer Nico's famous 1985 album of the same name, brought reverse thinking into play.
Badges of punished femininity, such as corsetry, military outerwear, and white-collar workers' uniforms, including the tie, became tropes of darkly tinged sensuality.
Obi and corset belts cinched wasp waists, drawing a slender silhouette emphasized by the pointed or square shoulders of military-inflected buttoned coats straight out of an '80s wardrobe.
Corsetry constructions served to highlight body shapes without revealing them, in gunmetal gray wool midi dresses, strapless half-knit, half-knit jumpsuits, with boudoir-inspired marabou shawls and casually tossed tinsel cache-coeur.
Bright red vinyl and leather accents added an even sharper edge to the armholes of fitted knit dresses with sheer panels that flashed the midriff or on oversized shirts with elongated sleeves that peeked out from under men's coats.
Press releases named '80s music icons like Nico, Debbie Harry, Annie Lennox, Siouxsie Sioux and Grace Jones as muses of the season, feminist icons in their own right.
One could easily imagine the latter artist in a draped minidress of shiny technical fabric with a panel that fans out on one side, or the marabou minidresses.
Those icons were celebrated with album cover-inspired prints subtly sprinkled throughout the collection, one of which read “create beauty.” There was a lot of that at play here.
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