Dolce & Gabbana may be responsible for the childish obsession with star prints and star studded accessories currently being hailed as the next big trend by hundreds of unimaginative publications.
Their Autumn/Winter 2011-12 collection features indeed sheaths, flowing floor-length evening dresses, blouses and tops with starry prints on colourful backgrounds or in black and white.
But what's the origin of the star print? In Italy it was pretty popular already at the end of the '60s. Walter Albini did indeed starry printed silk jersey tunics matched with trousers in 1968-69 for Billy Ballo (first image in this post).
Between the end of the '70s and the beginning of the ‘80s the starry print came back: an example of this trend is the Krizia waistcoat and scarf in the second image in this post, garments taken from my late sister-in-law's collection (and passed to her by an aunt).
When Mariuccia Mandelli - better known as Krizia, a name taken from one of Socrates' interlocutors in the Platonic dialogues - was in her heydays, D&G hadn't started yet. Krizia used to be more interested in culture rather than fame and saw her work as a fashion designer as an almost frivolous betrayal of higher ideals.
After debuting with her collections in Florence, Krizia started showcasing her designs in Milan creating garments in unusual materials and often taking inspiration from different artists including Fortunato Depero, Alberto Burri and Alexander Calder just to mention a few of them.
You could argue that many other designers came up with star prints, but this collection seems to have specific connections with Walter Albini's designs and with Krizia's waistcoat and scarf (the stars in different sizes for example). It is worth remembering that Albini also worked for Krizia, so the starry print in Krizia's collections probably came from him.
D&G's collection also features skirts and dresses with appliquéd gems that call to mind Krizia’s Autumn/Winter 1991-92 bejewelled designs inspired by Gustav Klimt. This looks like another case of Identified Pilfered Fashion Object(s) successfully solved then!
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