Multi-coloured jacquard knits, zigzag stitches, chevron motifs, light and transparent knits sparkling with Lurex yarns – it was business as usual on Missoni's S/S 18 runway.
The large tent-like hats contributed to give a festive mood to the collection, after all the S/S 18 season marks Angela Missoni's 20th anniversary as creative director of the family house and the 65th anniversary of the Italian knitwear maison as well.
Among the party clothes there was something intriguing: a fitted sweater and legging combo and a men's cardigan (men and women's designs were showcased together on the same runway) featuring smiling faces that called to mind Erwin Blumenfeld's iconic Vogue, January 1 1950, cover .
Then the faces were distorted and broken up in Cubist style, transformed in fractured stained glass window-like motifs and finally they were recreated on a jacquard top and a long multi-coloured cardigan.
That's when it became clearer where the inspiration came from: the faces were indeed very similar to a famous 1958 picture of opera legend Maria Callas in a performance of Medea.
This could have been a brilliant reference, considering that Callas' fans remembered her last week on the day of her 40th death anniversary (on 16th September). Besides, in the past Missoni created costumes for the opera, so the reference worked.
Yet the image was recently employed in another fashion collection, it was indeed transformed into a repetitive pattern and replicated on a skirt suit, a long skirt and an opera coat in Marc Jacobs' S/S 16 collection.
In that case Callas' face was also mixed with that of Janet Leigh in Psycho and replicated in a style borrowed from Andy Warhol's Pop Art silkscreens that produced an effect very reminiscent of Versace's iconic Pop Art gown from his S/S 1991 collection.
In Missoni's case the faces were sadly distorted by the knitted pattern, creating grotesque interpetations of Maria Callas. The results were surprisingly unsatisfying for a company that has got such a long history in producing multi-coloured jacquard pieces, in a nutshell this was a nightmarish epic fail that may be traumatic enough to convince your average knitwear student to give up their career.
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