Milan fashion week used to be so simple. It did sexy. Molto sexy. Revealing, attention-seeking frocks of the it-does-what-it-says-on-the-tin, hormone-charging variety. Some seasons it was sexy-boho, sometimes it was fierce-sexy, sometimes it was Lolita-sexy, but — in the same way that Cherry Coke and Diet Coke are still Coca-Cola — the trends stayed true to the core brand. Sexy.
The first sign that this season was going to be different came on Thursday night, at Prada. Not the lust-stifling A-line skirts, or the nerdy glasses — Miuccia Prada has never marched to the beat of the Milanese fashion drum, and has an elegant-geek aesthetic all of her own — but in the way each dress was given an outsize bosom, either with exaggerated darting or with a quadruple layer of lingerie-style ribbon frilling. There is nothing new in a bit of sex in a Prada show, of course. Miuccia may not do sexy in the bone-headed way most other Milanese fashion designers do, but she often plays with notions of sex appeal. This time, however, she wasn’t dabbling, she was parodying. In her own way, she was taking the mickey out of our culture’s dogged obsession with one type of beauty.
Backstage afterwards, she told fashion editors that the show was about how the ideal of sexy is becoming a narrower one, and about “the cliches that women can’t seem to give up.” At one point she said: “As a former feminist, I find it hard to understand this behavior.” Did you just call yourself a former feminist, another British fashion editor asked. She shrugged and said she didn’t know anymore. “I feel like no one is having this debate.” She sounded frustrated. They are having this debate, of course — although perhaps not so much in Italy.
However, if it hadn’t been for what happened next, this would have gone down as just Miuccia Prada playing for the awkward squad again. Two days later, Gucci showed a new collection that revoked the excesses of the bling era and brought to the fore precise, slinky tailoring and luxurious accessories. Instead of short and tight, there was a return of mystique. Rather than designing for a woman who wants to walk into a room all guns blazing, sartorially speaking, Frida Giannini, Gucci’s artistic director, seemed to refocus on someone who might want to win people’s attention in more subtle ways. Every outfit had a killer rear view — a lace-backed blouse with a pair of bottom-lifting trousers, for instance. Rather than “result” dresses, these felt like clothes for a woman who might conceivably choose to leave a party alone.
And then there was Dolce & Gabbana. Its show was the triumph of the week, a gorgeous, grown-up romance that reminded the 1,000-strong audience why the world fell in love with this label in the first place: not for big hair, tiny dresses and jangly handbags but for a sophisticated appreciation of the female form and of womanly allure, one that starts with hourglass tailoring and with a tailor’s take on the contradictory ideals of femininity — maternal, virginal, sacred, profane — embedded in the designers’ homeland of Sicily. When it finished, there was thunderous applause and then a moment when none of the audience seemed to want to catch anyone’s eye — until we realized that everyone else was blinking back tears too. Doesn’t happen often at a fashion show, I promise.
Milan may be having a change of heart about the overtly sexual aesthetic it had become identified with, but I don’t believe for a minute this is a matter of principle. This is about money. It is no coincidence that the change occurred just when the gradual loss of status that has been chipping away at this city’s position in the international fashion calendar over the last few years was thrown into sharp focus by Anna Wintour’s alleged announcement that she wished to spend only four days in the capital. The who-said-whats of this spat are still being debated, but what the row highlighted was that Milan does not currently have anything like the clout or confidence of Paris, which this season will run a full eight-day schedule, starting today.
There are many reasons for the decline, many of little interest to anyone outside the industry, but one factor has been that the Wag [footballers’ wives and girlfriends] aesthetic — short, tight, bright, sparkly clothes for Cristal-drinking party girls — has played itself out. A look that was aspirational four years ago is no longer so — or not, at least, to the moneyed women these brands need to woo. Take a look at the Queens of Baden-Baden four years ago: Victoria Beckham in her sharp, androgynous, almost David Bowie-esque silhouette is now unrecognizable from her Wag days. Cheryl Cole is a Wag no more. Toni Terry may be hanging on in there, but no one’s looking at her these days and thinking that looks like fun. The currency of sexy has devalued faster than a Zimbabwean banknote; “glamour girl” has distinctly downmarket connotations these days.
In the wake of this, Italian fashion is rediscovering what it meant before it came to mean rhinestones. Tailoring was at the heart of the shows. Giorgio Armani, who has been experiencing a renaissance now that the jacket is once again a key piece in our wardrobes, gave us structured jackets for day, and relaxed waterfall-draped jackets for evening at the Emporio Armani show. At Giorgio Armani, elegant velvet trousers and cocktail dresses softly draped across the hip sat well in the new chic mood. MaxMara had every conceivable coat you might want for next winter, from imposing belted greatcoats to soft hooded jumbo cords, to luxurious blond sheepskin, while Sportmax had a cocoon-shaped jade duffle and a luxe-countrywear coat of the type everyone who saw Burberry last week has been obsessed with, in the form of a silky parka with heavy tweed trim and sturdy gold hardware.
The silhouette at Jil Sander and Bottega Veneta was structured at the top, dissolving into fluidity at the bottom: Bottega had leather shoulder harnesses, while Jil Sander opened with jackets closed in at the neck, with tab fastenings and high collars. The crisp, ultra-deliberate tailoring of Jil Sander and the quality and workmanship shown in the Bottega leather pieces served to remind audiences of the great skill and craft there is at the root of fashion in Milan. Alberta Ferretti was classy and supremely pretty, the tight pintucks and feather-light touch of embroidery another masterclass in accomplished fashion. Marni had all the quirks for which the label’s many fans adore it: chunky ribbon-tied necklaces, funny specs, deliberately difficult styling around the calf area (ankle socks over sheer knee-highs, anyone?), unbonded edges, and gloriously loopy, psychedelic 1950s prints. The colors — egg-yolk yellow, tomato red, mustard, dusty rose and poison green — were a total joy.
If I have got you fretting where on earth you are going to buy your microfrock next season, never fear — there were still designers doing molto sexy. Pucci springs to mind, as it would, being one of the only shows I have ever seen where the dresses were minute enough to show both bottom cleavage and the very top of the inner thigh at the same time. Roberto Cavalli, which started in a promising vein, with some sumptuous black-and-gold printed boho-luxe coats and elegant evening trousers, swiftly developed into a Pocahontas-meets-Little-Mermaid cacophony of floor-length frocks generously decorated with pelts of fur wrapped around ankle boots and hanging from bags and belts. I urge any small furry animals in the vicinity of Milan to consider relocating before this collection goes into production.
But I loved Christopher Kane for Versus, who presented a tightly edited collection of pleat-skirted, strap-bodiced dresses in kingfisher blue and indigo. Short and sexy, yes, but modern and quirky enough to transcend arm-candy and give the wearer a spirit and passion of their own. (And for those of us who can’t wear the dresses — check out the incredible shoes.) Kane came out hand in hand with Donatella, who had presented her own Versace collection earlier in the week. Versace, of course, stayed true to itself this week: Think leather motorcycle trousers, neon biker jackets, and dresses with cut-outs along the shoulder, hip or spine. There was nothing remotely reconstructed about this collection, but at Versace it works, simply because Donatella’s personality permeates the label so emphatically. The designer Marco Zanini, who worked for Donatella for 10 years, put it perfectly in a recent interview with the New York Times: “Donatella is the only person on this planet who can do what she does in a believable way.” Maybe, just maybe, the rest of Milan is starting to realize the truth of this.
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