SPRING ACCESSORIES
It’s a jungle out there
How so many designers end up on the same inspirational page at the same time is one of those oddities of fashion — like the perennial reemergence of drop-crotch trousers and hobble skirts — that can seem utterly incomprehensible from the outside. Yet every season one dominant trend emerges, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the accessory world. Witness the rainforest of tropical shoes and bags that sprang up in Milan last week, where escapism proved the engine of the eye. At Furla, for example, a menagerie of 50 eyepopping and playful new animal prints, from snakes to cheetahs, zebras and monkeys, danced across eco-friendly silk sandals, ballet slippers and the label’s signature sculpted leather bags. At Jimmy Choo, stilettos in burnt pinks and oranges or rich purples (and with a thicker heel than in seasons past) were layered with leather hand-stitched petals and metallic paillettes and had green straps that wrapped like vines up the ankle. Alongside were black lacquer minaudières inlaid with pearly hummingbirds with shimmering wings. Even Álvaro González, architect of the simple flat leather sandals beloved by the fashion elite, offered his classic models with feathery plumes in gold, black, red, green and white or in more subtle downy shades sprinkled with metallics, as well as orange leopard-print slides. And that was just the beginning. Fresh from her second runway show in London, Charlotte Dellal titled her whimsical Charlotte Olympia collection “Let’s Go Bananas!” and took as her muse Carmen Miranda, the 40s singer in the tutti-frutti turban. From there it was but a short (and not terribly original, though charming nonetheless) leap to wicker fruit-basket bags and juicy watermelon clutches; stacked, banana-emblazoned pumps and wedges; and fierce stilettos festooned with bright leaves and fruit salad clusters. Cha-cha in the city. Or salsa on the sidewalks in Casadei’s soaring gold stilettos encrusted with jewelled and enamelled flora and fauna (think frogs, lizards and lily pads), part of a collaboration with the jewellery designer Ilenia Corti; or Giuseppe Zanotti’s strappy sandals with quivering crystalline butterflies, all in a dreamy sunset palette, and all sprinkled among his usual smorgasbord of rockchick rhinestones flare. The point being: If you can’t take some time out in a balmy clime, at least your wardrobe can offer a bit of psychic rest. Indeed, Aquazzura’s sandals and slippers festooned with cobalt blue pom-poms and fringe, elegant raffia espadrilles and laser-cut gladiator heels called to mind nothing so much as a stroll on the beach in the Seychelles, while René Caovilla’s green python skin and crystalline floral sandals and sneakers in ice cream shades channelled coming out of the Blue Grotto into Capri’s bright sunshine. Some urban outliers aside — Elena Ghisellini, who offered her punky leathers in an ever widening array of colours; Valextra, where the classic Iside purse was rebranded the Superbag, and reimagined in a variety of colour-blocked graphics — the overall message had the giddy appeal of mai tais in Mexico, the Maldives or Madagascar. Drink up.