Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Final Bow for Broadway's Costume Queen: Theoni V. Aldredge (1922-2011)

In the last few years the film and fashion connection has become a constant obsession of many people working in the fashion industry.

Quite a few fashion designers and fashion houses recently opted to showcase their collections via films, while online magazines now dedicate entire sections to videos connected with fashion.     

The latest to join in has been W Magazine that recently re-launched its site including a section entitled "Fashion on Film" that currently features runway show videos, Gareth Pugh's new film previewed at the Pitti and the YSL commercial shot by fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

I must admit that, since my educational background is a strange kind of mixture of film, literature, costume design and tailoring, I tend to be more interested and fascinated by those costume designers who actually had an impact on fashion, influencing with their work for the big screen many contemporary fashion designers. One of them is definitely award-winning costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge, who died on Friday.

Born in Greece in 1922, Theoni Athanasiou decided to become a costume designer after seeing Gabriel Pascal’s Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

After moving to the States she studied theatre at the Goodman School of Drama and at the Art Institute of Chicago and married in 1953 Tom Aldredge.

Though she debuted in costume design in 1950, her big break came when she was hired to work on Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" in a 1959 production directed by Elia Kazan.

From then on she moved from production to production, creating costumes for over 300 stage productions and 40 feature films, including Network (1976), Ghostbusters (1984), Moonstruck (1987) and The First Wives Club (1996).

Throughout her career, spanning from the late ‘50s to the ‘90s, she designed costumes for famous shows such as "A Chorus Line" (she came up with the iconic golden tuxedos of the final number that symbolised an exuberant celebratory mood), "Dreamgirls", "The Rink” and "42nd Street", and won an Oscar and a BAFTA in 1975 for the costumes in Jack Clayton’s The Great Gatsby, starring Robert Redford (as Jay Gatsby) and Mia Farrow (as Daisy Buchanan), and three Tony awards for "Barnum", "Annie" and "La Cage aux Folles".

Her creations perfectly mirrored the psychological conditions of the various characters, expressing the personality of the performers and influencing their actions. 

She was famous for her innovations, technical skills and versatility that allowed her to create costumes for the stage, the opera, television shows and the big screen becoming later on also the principal designer for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival.

Aldredge influenced through her work quite a few fashion designers: Robert Redford's white suits, and Mia Farrow's drop-waist dresses inspired for example Ralph Lauren (have a look at this clip and enjoy spotting the Ralph Lauren connections…), who assisted on the Gatsby set.

The film caused such a stir that the characters' wardrobe spawned a line of clothing adapted from the costumes and sold exclusively by Bloomingdale's and, when the studio held its gala premiere on March 27, 1974, people came dressed in flapper beads and feathers.

Three years after the Oscar, Aldredge designed the costumes for thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars, starring Faye Dunaway as a fashion photographer wearing a cape, split skirt and fedora.

The film influenced once again many designers, among them also Marios Schwab who referenced it in his collection for Halston (as highlighted in a previous post).

Even her trick of rubbing buff powder on the costumes (especially on the edges of the lapels) for Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family Values (1993) to give the impression that everything the family was wearing was old and dusty, became popular with some designers who added traces of dust and chalk prints on their garments.

Since the '70s are one of the main inspirations for the Spring/Summer 2011 collections and since this decade was definitely the best in Aldridge's career, you can bet we will definitely be able to spot further references and connections between the late costume designer and fashion.   

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In a Material World: Bronzino’s Brightness and Brocades

It’s very difficult to find beauty among the chaos of trade fairs, fashion weeks and catwalk shows.

Yet, last week, while running here and there during the Pitti trade show, I was lucky enough to find some time to immerse myself in beauty at the Bronzino exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi.

The exhibition – entitled “Bronzino: Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici” and featuring over ninety works of art from the Uffizi Gallery and on loan from leading collections all over the world – is on until tomorrow and I would definitely urge you to go and see it if you love art/if you are a fashion designer and happen to be in Florence this weekend.

If you’re not in Italy at the moment, but you are a fashion design student, go to your nearest library and try to learn as much as you can about this extraordinary painter.

I often did lectures about art and fashion that moved from Renaissance painters, looking at them like the first chroniclers of fashion, and the work of Agnolo di Cosimo, better known as “Bronzino”, always offered me some wonderful examples.

This is actually the very first exhibition organised in the city of Florence entirely dedicated to Bronzino (1503-1572), who held the post of court artist and portrait painter to the Medici family, so it’s definitely an event that should't be missed.

Bronzino’s works are known for their beauty, aristocratic splendour and sophisticated style, and many fashion designers would find interesting the brilliant hues of the garments worn by the painters' sitters, the fabrics employed to make them and the secrets behind them.

Take for example the painting that portrays Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I de' Medici, sitting with her hand resting on the shoulder of one of her sons.

Eleonora looked like a very elegant icon of power in this portrait, yet she never owned the elaborate dress with a thick cord that caused the sleeves to ruche and belt ending in a sumptuous tassel she wore in this painting.

Some historians thought that she had actually been buried in that same dress, but newer researches proved it was another gown, currently preserved at Florence’s Pitti Palace (Costume Gallery section; check it out also in the book Patterns of Fashion by Janet Arnold).

According to the historians who studied the descriptions of Eleonora’s wardrobe, she owned many velvet and steel corsets, feathery headpieces, dresses in men’s styles and quite a few wraps in luxurious fabrics and swan feathers that she wore to keep her stomach warm.

To paint this portrait Bronzino was actually given a sample of brocade fabric (made in Florence) characterised by a pomegranate motif that referred to Eleonora's role as mother.

Silver and gold brocades were very expensive and an ample and voluminous dress like the one worn by Eleonora in this painting would have been extremely expensive.

Fabric took centre stage in the Renaissance and was considered as more important than tailors and style.

Even in Bronzino’s first works, such as the portraits of the Evangelists (works that revealed strong ties with Pontormo, his master), the young painter showed great attention to the use of fabric that draped around the body of his subjects and often studied the effects that the changing light produced on the fabric.

The use of the chiaroscuro and of brilliant and contrasting colours such as violet, red and green, became indeed Bronzino’s trademarks.

Bronzino’s treatment of fabric in paintings such as "Noli me tangere" with Mary Magdalene's dress following the movement of her body, the "Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi" or the "Portrait of a Woman" (probably Matteo Sofferoni's daughter), with their emphasis on the draped and sliced sleeves of the dresses, is simply astonishing.

In Lucrezia Panciatichi’s painting, the sitter’s social status is highlighted by her posture and jewels comprising a belt of semi-precious stones in gold and pearls and a ruby in the centre of a round pendant and a chain with the circular inscription “Amour dure sans fin” (“Love lasts without end”). 

Bronzino also paid a lot of attention to the surface elaboration and the cut of his sitter's garments, as displayed for example in the black doublet worn by the young man with a lute or in the "Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi".

In the Renaissance fabric gave value to a garment (fashion design students pay attention to this point) and the colour and brightness of the different materials was also extremely important.

While the lower classes wore mainly beige garments and coloured scarves around their necks or on their heads (dyes were expensive and they were therefore used only for garments worn on special occasions), the aristocracy opted for luxurious garments in vivid colours and with great attention to details.

Buttons came for example in different shapes and at times they were even decorated with tiny painted motifs (in Bronzino’s works they were depicted in the most minute details).

Perfumes, cosmetics and accessories such as embroidered silk belts, handkerchiefs decorated with tassels and elaborate socks completed an outfit. 

There are actually some accessories used in the Renaissance that I think should be produced once again, among them there are also leather or fabric perfumed gloves (they were essentially gloves drenched in different perfumed essences) with strategically placed slashes that covered one's hands and at the same time allowed to reveal the precious rings adorning delicate fingers.

Apparently, such gloves could also be used as weapons: according to the legend, Catherine de’ Medici, queen of France and wife of Henry II, gave a pair of gloves drenched in poison (crime novelists looking for accessories to use in a thriller set in the world of fashion don’t look further than this…) to her mother-in-law, Jeanne d’Albret, killing her (if that's true, Catherine must have been a rather interesting character à la Patrizia Reggiani, Maurizio’s Gucci’s “Black Widow”…).

The Bronzino exhibition in Florence also features works by Pontormo, Cellini, Tribolo, Baccio Bandinelli, Pierino da Vinci and Alessandro Allori (Bronzino’s pupil) and three absolute rarities, the "Crucified Christ", "St Cosmas" and "Christ Carrying the Cross".

If you're into fashion, just don't forget to bring a brand new notebook, a pencil and a lot of bright colours (knitwear lovers should also linger a bit more in front of the sumptuous tapestries illustrating the Biblical story of Joseph based on Bronzino's drawings and manufactured by Flemish weavers as they feature some wonderful colours and delicate pale pink/blue and gold nuances) since you'll spend most of your time taking notes and sketching.   

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And Fashion Told Death, “I am your own Sister”: Mugler Menswear A/W 11-12

The connection between fashion and death has been widely analysed in previous posts in this blog.

Bizarrely enough, death “resurrects” itself season after season on the runways, through clothes with banal skull prints or in jewellery and dresses inspired by the complicated configurations of bones.

Yet, while in the past this macabre reference was often used almost to exorcise the fear of death, in the last few years there has been an emphasis on more oppressive and apocalyptic moods, in a nutshell on a “requiem style” with some disturbing - yet at the same time very fake (I often wonder if some of the designers who explored such themes in their collections ever saw a corpse in their lives...) - connotations.

Throughout the decades we have seen fashion shows mimicking a funeral wake, bruised and battered models wrapped in clingfilm or emerging from the darkness of the runway like ghosts of murdered women or car crash victims; we have witnessed glamour being turned into horror, pleasure into sickness, high fashion into violence and logos being transformed into bleeding wounds.

So far, though, designers focused on the life-in-death nature of fashion, exploring the possibilities of seeing life through deathly themes, intertwining decay, decadence, sex and money together.

The current and future trends have instead gone beyond the “mourning phase” to explore a more disturbing stage in the representation of transience and the ephemeral essence of beauty.

There was great anticipation for the Thierry Mugler’s menswear show in Paris, since this was the first one by newly appointed Creative Director, stylist and fashion editor Nicola Formichetti.

Yet from the dark and macabre teasers by photographer and filmmaker Mariano Vivanco posted on Formichetti’s blog in the days before the catwalk and showing a young man shedding a second skin-like latex black mask to reveal skeleton tattoos all over his face and body and from the title of the Autumn/Winter 2011-12 collection itself, “Anatomy of Change”, you already guessed that the focus has shifted from the old life-in-death metaphor to the death-in-life realm.

As Lady Gaga’s played in the background, models with heads and faces covered in black paint and latex masks that only revealed blood-shot eyes walked on a runway covered in a grey sand-like material that looked more like the cremated remains of thousands of bodies.

The collection mainly focused on black and dark blue with bright splashes of neon orange used for suits or for the details of the gloves, a strong colour that broke into the darkness like a fresh wound bleeding on porcelain white skin.

Drama couldn't be detected in the designs, though, but in the styling and in the models, especially in Rick Genest, covered in scary and deathly tattoos.

Formichetti, Romain Kremer and Sébastien Peigné seemed not to be able to decide if they wanted to go for streamlined or relaxed/baggy silhouettes, long/oversized or cropped jackets (at times matched with metal breastplates), so they included both.

Latex aprons and skirts called to mind Alexander McQueen’s leather aprons from the A/W 2009-10 season, and even the accessories – pearl necklaces as white as bones, latex gloves and arm pieces that wouldn’t look out of place in a murderer’s wardrobe – went well with the oppressive and dark atmosphere. 

The translucent and floating veils that covered the faces of the models towards the end of the show called to mind instead the veiled mourning figures crying on tombstones or Giuseppe Sanmartino's Veiled Christ (even though they weren’t used to symbolise any kind of hidden or poetical meanings such as the body as an obstacle to real spiritual freedom...).

From the post-mortem femme fatale - a skeletal object of terror still oozing some kind of erotic power - we have now passed to the post-mortem homme fatale, embodied by Genest covered in skeleton tattoos and wearing ripped leather trousers as if he had just climbed out of a grave.

Visually speaking the show was undoubtedly rather strong, yet there wasn’t enough in terms of innovation for what regarded the designs (in fact some of the clothes featured wouldn't have looked out of place in a magazine from 1991 - I'm sure that if we all tried to, we would actually remember where we actually saw twenty years ago those trousers with padded motifs between the knee and the ankle...).

The impeccable styling distracted a lot from the actual clothes and Mugler’s strong tailoring went somehow lost in all the deathly references.

There were echoes of Mugler in the sharp and strong shoulders, and rigid materials, but, rather than hinting at Mugler’s cyber universe populated with ambiguous superheroes, futuristic materials such as plastic and nylon evoked the disturbing consistence of plastic sheets left to cover a brutally murdered body.

This dystopian deathly world with just some superficial tailoring also called to mind Walter Benjamin’s “frivolity/death” dichotomy, though it reinterpreted, dissected, transformed and repackaged it for the digital generation, hungry for strong and unsettling visual images, but unable to define, spot and recognise substance, quality and traditions. 

Who knows, maybe the future of fashion stands in this sort of Baudelairian "Danse Macabre" without Baudelaire’s allegories; maybe being "fashion forward" means to be able to put up a circus-like facilis descensus Averni - to put it in Virgil’s words - for the Facebook and Twitter generation.  

For the time being Formichetti has confirmed he is an extraordinary communicator, able to capture the attention of artists, creative minds and fashionistas.

It remains to be seen if not having any proper tailoring skills can actually take you anywhere in the fashion world even in our instant and fake Facebook world.

I have a feeling, though, that if Giacomo Leopardi were alive today, rather than writing his “Dialogue between Fashion and Death”, portraying them as sisters continually employed in the destruction and change of all things, he would go for a “Dialogue between Fashion, Death, Facebook and Twitter”, children of transience, born out of decadence and decay.

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Konchalovsky’s Directorspective at the Barbican: Glyanets

There have been quite a few films revolving about the world of fashion in the last few years.

The Devil Wears Prada is probably the most famous one, but, if you’re looking for something less mainstream, try Andrei Konchalovsky’s Glyanets (Gloss, 2007).

The film – screening tonight at London’s Barbican as part of the Konchalovsky’s Directorspective (8.45 pm) that features work the director chose especially for this event – follows the vicissitudes of a naïve young girl, factory worker Galya (Yuliya Vysotskaya), who moves from a small village near the Black Sea to Moscow dreaming of becoming a high fashion model.

Galya – who has an obsession with fashion magazines that the director shows by intertwining the story with shots of glossy pages portraying models and advertising beauty products – first tries getting a job at fashion magazine Beauty where she ends up being laughed at by the editor-in-chief since she lacks the beauty and style needed.

She eventually finds a job as a seamstress for a designer who looks like (a fatter version of) Karl Lagerfeld (and who is surrounded by more shady characters, among them a guy in a kilt and bleached hair à la Gaultier).

After accidentally managing to model for the designer during a disastrously kitsch catwalk show, Galya graduates to another job, ending up working for a matchmaking agency specialised in organising marriages between models and rich men.

Though the movie reminds me of Antonio Pietrangeli’s Io la conoscevo bene (I Knew Her Well, 1965), especially for its main character naively dreaming of becoming famous but ending up trapped in a fake world made of illusions (though in Pietrangeli’s film the young protagonist wanted to become an actress rather than a fashion model), Konchalovsky gave his story a stronger satirical dark edge, populating his film with designers who look and behave like neurotic tacky gagsters.

The film tries to make a social critique of the vapid and superficially glamorous world of fashion, but also looks at the bitter reality of the "elite brides" in Russia through the main character's transformation from Galya into a doomed Grace Kelly/Catherine Deneuve look-alike.   

The screen captures I did from a copy of the film my brother got me a while back may not make it justice, but may give you an idea about what to expect.  

Tonight’s screening will be introduced by Konchalovsky himself who will hopefully tell the audience more about the inspirations that led him to this film and maybe reveal if he ever got sued by Lagerfeld for satirising him in this film.

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Brief London Detour

Updated reviews of menswear shows will follow in the next few days as job commitments called me back to London.

If you're around the city centre but you're skint, get your fashion fix from the Selfridges Oxford Street windows.

Until February you will be able to admire in the department store's window shops the work of 20 designers - including jewellers, milliners, illustrators and set designers - selected by Selfridges Buying and Visual Merchandising teams.

The project is entitled "Bright Young Things" and all the designers included - the first ten are Charlie Le Mindu, Sophie Stephens,  Kei Kagami, RP/Encore, Alex Noble, Li-Lee, Simone Rocha, Frances Conteh, Craig Lawrence and Kirsty Ward - also created exclusive pieces for Selfridges available in pop-up shops in store and online.

My favourite window is Kei Kagami's (check out the extravagant shoes in the image) since it displays an interesting mixture of fashion, interior design and architecture (which is only natural since Kei Kagami first studied architecture in Japan, working as assistant to Kenzo Tange, before enrolling at Tokyo’s Bunka College to study tailoring and continuing his studies at London's Central Saint Martins).

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The Antonioni Way: Bottega Veneta A/W 11-12

I've explored in a few previous posts the connections between Michelangelo Antonioni's films and fashion (especially womenswear)/contemporary society, analysing the way the clothes and accessories worn by the different characters somehow helped taking the narration forward or had an almost psychological impact on the lives of the characters.

Yet, so far, I never explored Antonioni's universe in connection with menswear.  

I'm glad, though, that Tomas Maier at Bottega Veneta did it in my place the other day during the Milan menswear shows.

Suspended between the formal and the informal, the collection was based on a tight fitting yet unstructured silhouette and on a muted colour palette, but with splashes of colours that seemed to imitate Antonioni transition from black and white to the neurotic colours of Deserto rosso (Red Desert, 1964) or the yellow/orange nuances of the explosion scene in Zabriskie Point (1970), though the soundtrack was courtesy of David Lynch.

Neutral tones prevailed at the beginning of the catwalk show with light grey shirts contrasting with charcoal wool suits in distressed fabrics.

Details - such as horizontal zips around the waist - proved important as they represented the focus in this part of the collection.

Splashes of bright colours were added little by little with orange, yellow and green trousers (imagine Monica Vitti's pea green coat in Deserto rosso turned into lime green trousers and tops) and electric blue coats.

It was interesting to see that Maier didn't focus strictly on the costumes in Antonioni films, but on the sets as well (check for example the video embedded at the end of this post and look at the colours of the industrial plant where Vitti moves).

Leather was obviously the main focus for the iconic intrecciato bags, but also for the tops and trousers that added a bit of a dark edge to the collection, while the final evening jackets in soft velvet brought back the collection towards the realm of elegance.

The most interesting point of the collection remained the way Maier tackled his cinematic inspirations, without falling into stereotypes, but looking at the moods, sets and backgrounds in which the characters moved, rather than just focusing on the costumes. 

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Gareth Pugh and the Descending Parable of Fashion

A truncated military tower, Orsanmichele (View this photo) is the oddest-looking church in Florence.

The first building erected on this site was a small oratory secreted in the orchard of vegetable garden (orto) of a Benedictine monastery and open loggia with a grain warehouse upstairs.

A larger church stood on the site from the 9th century, San Michele ad Hortum or San Michele in Orte (contracted in Orsanmichele).

The church was replaced by a grain market in the 13th century but the place retained its religious associations.

Giovanni Villani, a chronicler, wrote indeed in the 1300s that “The lame walked and the possessed were liberated”, after visiting a miraculous image of the Virgin painted on one of the market pillars.

Unfortunately, no miracle happened last Thursday during Gareth Pugh's presentation at the Pitti event organised inside the Orsanmichele church.

Upon entering the ground floor the visitors were introduced to a room with a giant golden cube hanging from the ceiling surrounded by the impressive 1300s restored statues that once filled the niches of the building and that were built with the money of the rising middle class of merchants and their guilds.

Though the setting was supposed to create contrasts between the modern, futuristic and mysterious golden cube and the ancient statues, it was painful to see Nanni di Banco's Quattro Coronati, Donatello's St George and St Mark, a gothic Madonna and Child, Ghiberti's John The Baptist and Verrocchio's Christ and Thomas surrounded by melting hot candles (any art historians and restorers reading this screaming already?). 

After going up several flight of stairs, visitors reached the top floor where a new film directed by Ruth Hogben was projected onto two screens hanging from the ceiling. 

The film featured models in Gareth Pugh designs interspersed with shots of a group of dancers and called to mind the video that accompanied Pugh's S/S 11 collection.

Screened in two different sessions (one for the main press, the other for the pariah press and other assorted guests...), the film was cleverly shot and assembled, showing a sort of obsessive phantasmatic vision based on a main dichotomy, abstraction Vs physicality, and accompanied by Matthew Stone's dramatic score.

Yet, though seductive and sensorial, this hypnotic barrage of images left you rather cold. Besides, the mini-collection Pugh created for this event - comprising six designs revolving around a basic palette of black, cobalt blue and gold allegedly referencing art, architecture, religious iconography and Florence - wasn't really that strong or memorable. 

A neoprene coat with angular tails with a matching suit, a mini-dress with gloves covered in gold scales plus a theatrical headdress (View this photo), armbands (View this photo) and shoes (View this photo) in the designer's trademark triangular pattern, were typical Pugh designs.

Yet the mini-dress with a blue cape at the back (and seams that had come apart on one side of the dress - View this photo - didn't anyone in the Pitti offices have any thread and a needle?) together with a long gown in a slashed stretchy fabric reeked of déjà vu.

Apparently, Florence inspired and informed the collection - mainly based on contrasts, darkness and light, soft and hard, structure and fluidity, masculinity versus femininity - yet you got the feeling that, rather than referencing Florentine art and architecture (that vaguely appeared at the very beginning of the video), Pugh was referencing the tacky golden furnishing of the Cavalli Club.

The designer also mentioned Caravaggio among his influences, though the only reference to the painter was in the use of chiaroscuro in the video that actually displayed in the final images showing the dancers forming statuesque groups some connections with Pontormo's figure groups.

You wonder why the quality of the pieces wasn't that impeccable especially on a tailoring level.

Was it because the collection was put together without really caring about what the press may have said since Pugh showcases anyway his designs in Paris?

Or was it maybe the worrying proof that young designers must be allowed to grow up and develop before being pumped up as "the next big thing"?

Who knows. It's a shame though that nobody with a proper background in Florentine art and architecture sat down with Pugh and tried to explain him something about Florence as in this case I'm sure the results would have been a bit more exciting and coherent and they would have also displayed a bit more research.

No wonder then that senior fashion critics and journalists who know more about the technicalities of fashion and tailoring (think about Suzy Menkes) went around the Pitti event with a rather perplexed expression on their faces.

Will Pugh be back in shape for Paris Fashion Week?

Let's hope so, since, after the previous collections, the few designs created for the Pitti represented an anti-climax in his career, proving that everything that goes (very quickly) up must definitely come (very quickly) down.

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In a World of Cinematic Accessories: AI_ by Andrea Incontri A/W 2011-12

This edition of the Pitti tradeshow will probably be remembered as one of the worst ones for what regarded fresh ideas or strong and memorable events.

Yet, at the same time, it will also be remembered as the first edition in which the film and fashion connection was timidly introduced to the Pitti audiences. 

Gareth Pugh unveiled on Thursday night a new video by Ruth Hogben (more about it later...), while Andrea Incontri - winner at last season's Pitti of the “Who Is On Next?” competition - presented his new line at the beautiful Cinema Odeon, just around the corner from Florence's Palazzo Strozzi, with a stylish film by Yuri Ancarani.

Entitled “Waiting Room” and shot in Milan, the film followed different characters as they waited  for someone or something to happen.

Stuck in a road block, sitting on a bench, nervously pacing a room or simply standing at a gate lost in their thoughts, the characters found themselves surrounded by their accessories - bags, cases and wallets - that turned into the silent companions of their travels and their journey through life.

After the film, male and female models of different ages - among them actors, dancers and artists - walked into the cinema in tweed, micro-bouclé and herringbone trousers, jackets and skirts, carrying Andrea Incontri's natural and macro-printed buffalo leather or waxed calf leather accessories. 

Opening the bags, searching for mysterious lost objects like a set of keys or a mobile phone, or reproducing simple everyday gestures, the models also presented the audience Incontri's capsule collection of small accessories such as belts that, anchored to the clothes, can change and transform a garment.

As a whole the presentation was rather refreshing and it was good to see models walking in an actual cinema rather than just looking at them on a runway.

The main themes of the film - the passing of time, long waits and change - were also well tackled, while Milan was presented as a fragmented city, broken into different stories.

There was one main problem with the film, though: at times the camera lingered a bit too much on the designer's logo (AI_).

The unnecessary close ups turned the film into a sort of advert and disrupted the poetical relationships that had been established between objects and thoughts.

Well-done to Incontri though for bringing a catwalk show into an actual cinema. 

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Dior's (Mini) Super-Kamiokande

I was walking around Florence's Via dei Tornabuoni yesterday morning and couldn't resist taking a picture of Dior's window.

I wasn't really interested in the dress or the accessories in the window shop, but in the silvery props. 

The floating baloons were obviously inspired by Andy Warhol's 1966 Silver Flotations at the Leo Castelli Gallery, yet the silvery spheres at the back looked very similar to the photo-multipliers of the giant Japanese stainless-steel tank filled with 50,000 tons of ultra pure water called Super-Kamiokande.

Launched in 1991 Super-Kamiokande is the world's most sensitive subatomic particle experiment.

Studying the neutrino properties through the observation of solar neutrinos, atmospheric neutrinos and man-made neutrinos, the experiment should enable us to understand how matter was created in the early universe.

Surely, seeing this mini super-sensitive neutrino-detecting globe in a window shop wasn't the highlight of the Pitti tradeshow, but, since this season's Pitti was rather uninspiring, with very few ideas and very few emotional moments, a glimpse of Pop Art and science in a window shop was definitely welcome.

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Future in the Past: Trussardi A/W 2011-12

Discovering or re-discovering our roots is usually the best way to understand who we are and where we are going.

Trussardi Creative Director Milan Vukmirovic based the research for Trussardi 1911's A/W 2011-12 menswear collection - presented yesterday during the Pitti Uomo event at Florence's Stazione Leopolda - on this truism.

The Dante Trussardi glove factory opened in Bergamo in 1911, so this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Italian fashion house, and, moving from the maison's heritage, Vukmirovic tried to rediscover the past to get a glimpse of the future.

Leather-working has been the essence of the Trussardi fashion house since its early days, so reinventing some musts from men's wardrobe using leather was a very logical step to start this exploration of a “future in the past”.

High quality was the keyword in all the pieces, from the ones entirely made of leather such as the ultra-light chamois T-shirts, biker jackets, lamb ponchos and pony trench coats, to the garments - among them Western style shirts or tops - in which leather was used only for small details like pockets, appliquéd patches around the shoulders or matte lapels creating contrasts with the shiny black fabric used for the jackets. 

Surface elaboration revealed as the best thing about the entire collection: simple inserts, elaborate zigzag patterns on deerskin jackets, textured woven leather motifs, leather ribs or printed leather were cleverly added here and there in the garments.

There was obviously a strong focus on the accessories, from briefcases to weekend bags, in fabric or suede, to the boots, crisscrossed by belts and straps, a trick that allowed Vukmirovic to play and combine different kind leathers and fabrics in the same design.

Everything was polished, stylish and well-done but there was a major problem,  there was no innovation for what regarded the silhouettes.

The collection verged at times towards Rick Owens moods, though Vukmirovic toned down the darkest and most oppressive atmospheres.

In a nutshell, there was a study in the possibilities that leather variation could offer without including too many dramatic variations, since everything was more or less already seen and rather safe in terms of shapes, though there were occasional sparkles of hope in the leather coats with woollen inserts around the waist.

The most revelatory moment of the evening came at the very end of the catwalk show when a collage of images chronicling the history of the maison was projected on the six screens surrounding the huge walls of the Stazione Leopolda.

Moving from the very first ads about Dante Trussardi's gloves, the images showed iconic moments from the history of the fashion house, from the catwalk show organised at Milan's central railway station in the mid-80s and attended by 3,000 people, to Trussardi's collaborations with Alitalia and Alfa Romeo.

Images of  Pavarotti, Dario Argento and Rita Levi Montalcini were also screened, while the voice of the late Nicola Trussardi could be heard on the speakers stating “There is a relationship between culture and fashion”.

As the focus moved from cases, trunks and assorted accessories to Trussardi’s restaurants and art exhibitions organised by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi and while another sample reminded us that “fashion allows you to experiment with creativity”, most Italians in the audience were probably hit by a terrible revelation, in the last few decades Italy has lost its creativity, craftsmanship and will to launch interesting and brave collaborations and events. 

In the past, Trussardi showcased his collections in places such as La Scala, Piazza del Duomo, the Milan Triennale, the Palazzo della Borsa, the San Siro racetrack and the Accademia di Brera, and didn't despise collaborating with different people from the world of culture, even with horror directors such as Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava, things that aren’t happening anymore even though the Trussardi fashion house currently seems to be enjoying new commercial strength. 

A final appearance of the Trussardi family scions, Vukmirovic and, the ultimate Trussardi accessory, a greyhound, on the runway, brought back not only more melancholy, but a bit of bitterness for what Italy has lost since Nicola Trussardi died. 

Probably there were quite a few members in the audience going back with their minds to that distant 9th March 1986 in Milan's Piazza del Cannone, when the A/W 1986-87 Trussardi Action catwalk show was presented with a re-enaction of the opening from Argento's Suspiria that culminated with a maniac killing the models right on the runway.

Maybe, if we could “kill” fashion once more, then we could reinvent it from scratch, keeping in mind the real lesson that historical fashion houses and companies really taught us, a lesson based on high quality, craftsmanship, research and on a strong link with art and culture.  

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