What Is Essential Is Visible To The Eye – But Not To Everyone. Tod’s SS24

September 24, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Probably the worst thing about the fashion industry and its people with big pockets is that there’s no patience. Designers who are appointed as creative directors of luxury brands that need a dust-off are given far too little time to develop their sensibilities and seduce new clients, and after about two, at most three years, become disposable in the eyes of the houses’ owners. That’s what unfortunately happened at the Diego Della Valle-owned Tod’s, where designer Walter Chiapponi was on a really great path of making the brand actually mean something in contemporary times. His last collection for the brand was at the same time his best, and you can just imagine where he would take it next. While taking his final bow, the designer’s white worker’s shirt was emblazoned with the following adage: “The essential is visible to the eyes, but not for everyone, nor even to understand everything”. The subject of the phrase is drawn from The Little Prince, but when applied under the context of Chiapponi’s departure, it has a new dimension that can be easily applied to the entire industry.

Presented against the mise-en-scene of unfinished set pieces and production for an upcoming performance of Don Carlos, Chiapponi placed this collection in-situ amongst scenographers, sculptors and carpenters to highlight the innate workmanship inherent to every Tod’s piece. The collection drew on masculine codes prominent in the 90s, where minimalist tailoring, leatherwork and knitwear reigned supreme. Over 44 looks, the designer – with some help from stylist Brian Molloy – reimagined wardrobe staples – a pleated skirt accented by harness motifs or shirting with inverted collars to appear like they’re worn backwards – through a softly feminine lens. As always, the accessories are exemplary of the Made in Italy prestige, including lurid chartreuse mules, Gammino moccasins and a new woven sandal that smooths the harsh interlacing fisherman sandal for a metropolitan appeal. However, it is the labour’s work belt reenvisioned as a utilitarian accessory that serves as the proverbial pièce de résistance for a collection advocating for a craft-led approach to fashion. This saddle-shaped style featured in almost every look, featuring two distinct pockets and a gilded clip suitable for hanging your leather gloves when you grow tired of wearing them. This definitely was one of the best line-ups we’ve seen this Milan Fashion Week.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Comfort Zone. Tom Ford SS24

September 24, 2023September 24, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Peter Hawkings‘ debut as Tom Ford‘s creative director felt like yet another re-edition of Tom’s all-time classics. We had all the Tom Ford signifiers on the Milan runway. Velvet blazers and sculptural belts from the Gucci years (quite ironically, Sabato De Sarno’s Gucci debut happened on the same day, leaving a similar impression of bleak plainness). Silk fringed dresses from the Yves Saint Laurent days. Meanwhile, slinky, floor-sweeping knitted maxi dresses and croc-embossed leather pencil-skirts with hot slits were Ford’s mainstay offer for seasons at his namesake brand. It’s understandable that Hawkings, who worked with Tom for decades as his right hand, wanted to keep all the house-codes and make a sort of tribute to the master of sexually-charged fashion. However, the spring-summer 2024 collection looked more like an in-store version of the runway deal. This brand has its unique language and vocabulary that can become a base for a truly creative venture. Hopefully, Hawkings will take a step away from his comfort zone.

Radical Reduction. Gucci SS24

September 23, 2023September 24, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Sabato De Sarno‘s highly-anticipated debut at Gucci promised a lot, but in the end, felt like a plainly flavored meal. Proof: today in the morning, when I thought of the collection, I literally couldn’t remind myself of even one distinct look from the spring-summer 2024 line-up. It was just that… neutral. Yes, Gucci needed a restart: Alessandro Michele’s brought a lot of great things to the brand, but his last seasons were just too suffocating and tired. Still, in the end De Sarno’s radical reduction read more like a mediocre collection with touches of Prada, Old Céline, Valentino (the designer worked there before Gucci), Bottega Veneta and even Courrèges, than a clear new vision of the Italian brand. The designer wanted to create a random sequence of looks that would feel like outfits of people on Getty Images. But it was hard to spot the spontaneity of the paparazzi-caught celebs of the 2000s that De Sarno had in mind. The rumors were rumoring throughout months before the show that De Sarno would lean into the Tom Ford archives and turn out a super-sophisticated, sexy retort. Even the Daria Werbowy image suggested that. But that didn’t happen on yesterda’s runway. The collection wasn’t even Frida Gianini-coded: her Gucci had substance. Except for hoodies and denim pants, the new Gucci has in offer oddly-fitting pinafore dresses in sugary shades of pale green and peach – some trimmed with ostrich feathers, others covered in glittering Swarovski crystals – layered under boxy cropped jackets, while semi-see-through polo tops were tucked into high-waisted flares. The lingerie-influenced section was all about vinyl slips in black and scarlet trimmed with lace and dipping dangerously low on the back. Outerwear came trimmed with long tassels that oscillated as the models stormed through the space, while chunky platforms came high and sturdy, Jackie bags in bright sweetie-wrapper colors, and stilettos encrusted with layers of crystal. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great. But in today’s fashion, it’s hard to go by, doing very-whatever stuff.

I See Angels. Blumarine SS24

September 23, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

This week, angels (and swarms of butterflies) landed on the Blumarine spring-summer 2024 runway, which itself was surprisingly a white box setting. This is minimal according to Nicola Brognano, who this season leaves behind the bold pinks and indulges in shades of neutrals and… nakedness. “I just felt it was time for more light, more lightness, more butterflies”. Butterflies, which in a previous collection were emblazoned on a skimpy top, came out in force this season, together with a parade of feathered wings. Butterflies are synonymous with frivolity. And angels, well, they’re angels. Blumarine’s were languid, lanky, handsome winged Adonises strutting down the catwalk in low-rise gold-leather trousers from which emerged smooth, naked torsos dusted with glitter. Brognano’s singular idea of purity and airy luminosity expanded into other literal translations: colors were pale, jerseys were flimsy like hosiery, ribbons and trains trailed breezily on the back of ultra-short sexy numbers. Bustiers and pencil skirts in clear PVC, studded with an abundance of rhinestones and crystals, were the pinnacle of Blumarine’s ode to very naked lightness. They didn’t leave anything to the imagination.To make the waters even murkier, models walked to the beat of The Idol’s Lily-Rose Depp’s World Class Sinner/I’m A Freak.

Culture About Clothing. Prada SS24

September 22, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Until Prada‘s show yesterday, I feel like I’ve been in a coma this fashion month (maybe for a few very rare exceptions). Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons proved they are in their top game with the spring-summer 2024 collection, an offering charged with so much feeling, meaning and intelligence. As Miuccia said, it’s an ode to “culture about clothing“. Perhaps something that’s on verge of extinction in times of clothes made for Instagram and TikTok. This was also a very earnest line-up focused on clothes. “I got tired talking about ideas – let’s talk about clothes.” Aren’t all runway shows about clothes? Well, yes, but as Raf Simons went on to explain, “craft isn’t something that gets talked about a lot at Prada, at least not as much as at other houses. We wanted to show what we could do.” It wasn’t a matter of how many hours it took to embroider this and how many petites mains were involved in making that. “That’s irrelevant,” he said with a wave of his hand. “The figuring out if it can be done” was the part that got him and Prada going. Two techniques, in particular, got special mention from Simons. The first was the printed fringe they used on floral shirts that gave the individual blooms a shifting depth. And the second was the long skeins of metal fringe used for skirts “built like jewelry.” They’re conversation starters, for sure. But that’s just the beginning of this delightful menu.

Like the gritty men’s spring show, the foundation here was a tailored silhouette: broad-shoulder shacket (with the cuffs of a shirt and the lapels of a jacket) tucked into the belted waistband of high-rise shorts or front-pleat, tapering-to-the-ankle pants. Some of these odd suits were swathed in sheer printed scarves that the show notes described as “fragments of dresses.” Their ethereality provided a link to the collection’s other key shape, sleeveless shifts with 1960s-via-the-’90s lines made from organza and gazar of such gossamer fineness they seemed to float down the runway. A couple of other things that got people talking: the already-worn-in barn jackets (why not wear one over a Jazz Age flapper dress?) and the hand-carved mythological-man clasps adorning evening bags that reproduced a shape first designed in 1913 by Prada’s grandfather, who traveled the world picking up unique baubles like those carvings. These bags are heirlooms in the making.

This collection was charged with one more, extremely crucial factor. Fabio Zambernardi, the design director of Prada and Miu Miu and Miuccia’s closest collaborator who resigned this year after three decades at the company, joined the designers for a bow, doffing his cap, embracing them both, and inspiring a standing ovation in the process. Two questions emerge: how will Prada (and Miu Miu) look without Fabio’s input? And where is he headed next?