Milan Fashion Week offered two major moods
The runways at Milan Fashion Week showed the appeal of tried-and-true classic dressing as well as having fun during these topsy-turvy times.
What do women want to wear in times of uncertainty? The runways at Milan Fashion Week have shown two modes of thinking.
On one hand there is tried-and-true classic dressing – crisp button-down shirts, a trench coat that can be pulled in tight as though a protector against life’s ill wills (and interest rate rises). This kind of crowd-pleasing fashion tends to do well in times of uncertainty.
On the other hand there were streaks of the skew-whiff, of wit and whimsy – the suggestion that you might as well have fun when nothing else can be counted on. Brands such as Bottega Veneta, Prada and Marni leaned into the idea that fashion should be about personal expression.
It was, to be sure, a palate cleanser to see the animal bean bags used as seats at the Bottega show and the slightly mad combinations at Prada. Fashion, big business that it is, doesn’t have to be so serious.
As Celenie Seidel, womenswear fashion director at online luxury retailer Farfetch told Vogue Business of the shows in Milan this season, “There was a strong undercurrent of a clawing back of personal style, something that has been gradually dissipating in culture due to the sameness that algorithmic conditioning brings about.”
Beating out the insidious nefariousness of the algorithm, that ultimate echo chamber and flattener of taste? Sounds like fashion catnip to me. More fashion catnip? The fact that the “grocery bags” carried by models at the Bottega Veneta show were crafted from real leather. Fashion has always loved an illusion.
Just as fashion reflects economics and culture, so too is it inspired by them.
Ian Griffiths, the long-time creative director at Max Mara – purveyor of incredibly luxurious camel coats and grown-up clothes for grown-up women – says this season his collection took inspiration from the sciences … and the telly.
His muse this season was philosopher, mathematician and astronomist Hypatia, and he said that he also particularly enjoyed the Apple+ TV series Lessons in Chemistry, starring Brie Larson and based on the book by Bonnie Garmus (which Griffiths also enjoyed.)
“That book just got me thinking about science and the problems of women working in scientific fields (like many other fields), being victims to all sorts of prejudice,” he says.
“But it also got me thinking about prejudice against science in the world at large, the way that in creative circles people kind of turn their noses up with anything to do with science, and I was wondering why is it that a person can proudly say ‘I can’t add up’ but would never say ‘I can’t read’. I wanted to re-evaluate the whole notion of science and mathematics, and its place in fashion. So a lot of thoughts derived from watching that TV program.”
How does this translate to fashion? Well, in the Max Mara universe it’s the precision of a pleat, tailored coats with a technical equation to make them just so, the chemistry of the right fabrics – from deliberately crumpled silks to just-so darts. All of it adding up to ready-for-anything polish.
It’s something Griffiths says he believes women are looking for right now. What women want, he says, is “smart and sleek”.
“They want to look together and sexy and groomed and polished to the nth degree. I think they’re specifically looking for jackets because they are extremely modern and useful way of dressing. In a variable climate when it’s hot, it’s cold you can take a jacket off, you can put it on – it gives you a sense of power. Tailoring of jackets is very important. Also, dresses. I felt we should be giving as many dresses as possible. And we did, in this collection.”
In any case, there is some kind of alchemy to be found in those perfectly cuffed shirtsleeves worn under a ready-for-anything blazer.
Crisp glamour was the order of day at Gucci, where the no-nonsense glamour of Jackie Kennedy Onassis (the namesake for one of the Italian brand’s most famous handbags) inspired creative director Sabato De Sarno, who named the show Casual Grandeur – a phrase he once heard to describe Jackie’s much copied style. The front row at Gucci was particularly killer with Daisy Edgar Jones and Dakota Fanning perched next to each other, both wearing sunglasses.
It was at Tod’s, too, under new creative director Matteo Tamburini, where an easy kind of elegance could be found in lush and voluminous leather skirt and top combinations, and coats that swathed the body.
Of personal style, this season it was something that many brands played with – especially at Prada, where designer Miuccia Prada’s personal style has become a source of endless internet fascination. She has become the ultimate avatar for those in possession of style and taste (not everybody has both). What’s more, she’s that all too rare thing, original – something you could see immediately in the photos of her backstage wearing the sleeves of her grey knit jumper pushed up with diamond bracelets.
This translates to her collections also – and originality counts for a lot, it seems, when you consider just how many trends Prada has inspired in recent seasons, and how it’s one of the few brands beating out the luxury slump.
Maybe, the brand is saying, you too could beat out the algorithm if you dared have a little more fun.
What this meant at Prada was an exhilarating pick and mix through its archives – clashing brogue platforms from its autumn-winter 2012-13 collection and gleaming futuristic silver gowns, its ugly chic wallpaper patterns from the late 1990s and bright yellow windbreakers, a beautiful buttery lemon strapless gown worn with enormous space invader sunglasses. There seemed to be no rules, only the sense that in getting dressed there shouldn’t be any. The idea of picking and mixing could be found at Fendi, too, where filmy sheer embroidered dresses were worn with lace-up boots.
There was a similar sense of freedom and whimsy at Bottega Veneta, one of the highlights of Milan Fashion Week, where creative director Matthieu Blazy took inspiration from childlike obsessions – such as trying on your parents’ clothes, pretending to be a grown-up. Except these clothes showcase exceptional craftsmanship – with the prices to match. This brand is for someone who thinks of clothes as an art form. Something still possible in these topsy-turvy times.
Fashion month continues in Paris this week with Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Hermes and Chanel to show.