On trend: cancelled shows and strictly no air-kissing
HEAD OF FASHION
This may be the last time we can greet each other like this, observed the editor-in-chief of Italian Vanity Fair on Saturday evening at a dinner to launch Vogue Italia’s sustainable design start-up competition. He was being sardonic about the air-kissing, which until recently was endemic in the fashion industry but is now threatened with extinction, thanks to fears about the spread of coronavirus. Already, wealthy Chinese clients, influencers and retailers are conspicuous by their absence – and then came the red button decision. A few hours after the conversation about mwah-mwahing, Giorgio Armani announced that he would not be going ahead with his live show, planned for yesterday afternoon, because of concerns about the infection.
This is the first European show to be cancelled at such short notice because of the virus, although Prada had already announced that its cruise show, due to take place in Japan in
April, would be rescheduled in another location. Some New York designers, the first to show during fashion month, had also had problems with non-delivery from shuttered Chinese factories.
Instead, the 85-year-old Armani, who controversially claimed on Friday that making sexually provocative clothes for women was tantamount to raping them, staged his show in an empty auditorium (Armani’s own, purpose-built theatre) and livestreamed it. With big Eighties power shoulders, plenty of black, anklelength skirts (no sexual provocation here), and flashes of fuchsia it ticked a lot of Milan’s trend boxes.
In direct contrast, Dolce & Gabbana’s show not only went ahead with real people watching it (albeit with almost none of its tiara-wearing Chinese clients present), but also embraced everyone in a giant metaphorical hug. In the foyer of the designers’ theatre (you are no one in Italian fashion without a dedicated cultural landmark) Dolce & Gabbana had installed a group of women knitters and embroiderers, not just as an Instagrammable tableau but to emphasise the craft of this largely hand-knitted collection.
You name it, a nationwide network of Italian knitters had recreated Dolce
& Gabbana’s house codes in knits or crochet. Bridget Jones-style big knickers and bras, oversized jumpers tumbling off one shoulder, boxy skirts, Sicilian-widow (by way of Monica Bellucci) dresses, boxy suits, oversized shaggy coats, stiletto sock boots, socks (only Dolce could make a knee sock sexy) and embellished handbags were all reimagined in the softest, most comfortable, shimmery, flecked or cable-knitted cashmeres. Apart from a few camel knicker suits and white lace blouses, most were in black – that most Dolce & Gabbana of hues – and just in case the point had not been made sufficiently strongly, they chose Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black as their music while black-and-white film of Italian artisans played in a loop.
As a statement about modern luxury it was perfect: graceful and free of the preachiness that fashion houses often find themselves adopting nowadays in the race to demonstrate their environmental pedigree and inclusiveness. It also neatly preludes a big exhibition called From The Heart to
The Hands, which is due to open in Milan this summer.
“The idea isn’t necessarily to sell more stuff,” says Stefano Gabbana, “but to inspire.” He would say that, and since they have no shareholders to placate, he may even mean it.
Wealthy Chinese clients and retailers are conspicuous by their absence