Style lessons from the Milan front row
From modesty dressing to fake fur, Italy’s fashion culture has seen a fundamental change of heart. Lisa Armstrong reports
Traditionally, Italian fashion doesn’t do selfcontemplation. Perhaps because its modern fashion industry was forcibly fused together by a new breed of emerging industrialist fashion houses in the post-war years (before then Italian fashion had been a patchwork of tiny, family-run artisanal businesses, often from the front room), it has always chosen to present a sunny, la-la-la-la-la view, even when things haven’t always been that bright.
Miuccia Prada became the exception that proved the rule, and even then, her dystopian views tended to be so luxuriously executed, that the bleak messages behind her collections were generally lost by the time they made it into her stores and were snapped up by the ladies-who-limo set.
But something seems to have shifted quite fundamentally here. Partly it’s the skyline of the city itself, which since it hosted Expo in 2015, has erupted into a series of jagged brave-new-world skyscrapers that are emitting sparks of energy in hitherto sleepy or deserted parts of a city whose pulse until recently seemed to be flatlining.
With change comes questions and Milan’s designers finally seem ready, not just to listen but to formulate some answers. Miuccia Prada wanted to “reclaim the night”, a response of kinds, to the #Metoo and #Timesup movements. Her show, unfolded on several floors in an extension to the Prada Art Fondazione in a semi-industrial part of town that the brand singlehandedly seems to be turning into a des-res area.
OK, the Rem Koolhaas lifts proved wholly inadequate to transport the surge of hundreds of guests (including
Bill Murray and director-auteur Wes Anderson) who after waiting in a crush for some time, finally decided to challenge the security team and take the stairs. Sometimes technology fails and the only sensible step is to move on (and up).
The collection itself, which took place against a huge wall of glass that looked out on to the city’s changing scape and a neon-light installation of insects, monkeys and dinosaurs, featured a bunch of commercial trends – checks, shiny, wipe-down coats, layering and experimental boots with drawstring shanks, also in neon (the welly is having a moment in Milan). But there was also a series of padded black nylon coats and jackets and dresses that referenced the black nylon rucksack that catapulted Prada from a luggage house into the fashion stratosphere in the early Nineties. Was she saying that sombre utilitarianism (with semi-concealed flashes of colour) is the sensible way to deal with the male gaze? Or that mass produced functionalism is the most relevant way to think about luxury?
Both points are worthy of discussion, although the amount of plastic consumed by this show – and the invitation to it – seemed oddly out of tune with the rest of the world. Gucci’s plastic ticking clock invitation
(sent to all 800 guests), designed to go off at the show’s allotted hour, seemed surprisingly cavalier, given how serious its inhouse sustainability team is. Don’t they show
Blue Planet on Italian television?
Still, Gucci made a big impact last year when it announced it would no longer be using fur because it has become that thing the fashion industry most dreads being: “not modern”. Marni, which, way back, before it launched its fashion line in the Nineties, was a fur house, had no fur on its runway. Emporio Armani and Philosophy by Lorenzo Serafini had fake (although the latter also used real) … this is a radical step for Milan. Animal prints prowled into the vacuum, from conventional tiger stripes and leopard spots to zebra and giraffe markings at Dolce & Gabbana.
While others publish earnest manifestos about diversity, Dolce & Gabbana – with their ever-proliferating catwalk shows – just do it. The night before their main one there was a “secret” catwalk happening that everyone seemed to know about. Like the label’s previous “secret” shows, it featured a mix of models, clients and Instagram stars (aka influencers) of all ages and shapes. Missoni’s show was another fist bump to multiculturalism as this quintessentially Milanese label paid homage to eclectic, Seventies soul style, with models nonchalantly splashing through carefully styled puddles on a catwalk set that looked like Notting Hill or the Lower West Side circa 1971 – and more hats than we’ve seen in years.
Versace’s headgear was partly a statement about modest dressing
– the voracious fashion appetite of a youthful Middle Eastern market (60per cent are aged under 30 in Saudi Arabia) and fashion in general is increasingly covered up. But when those headscarves were worn with tilted berets, the models looked less demure and more like vigilantes.
Was Donatella Versace also reclaiming the night with her hoods and headscarves? Her response was clear and simple. “There are different ways to look sexy,” she said. “Not everything has to be about big hair.”