Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology: September 2016

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AR Couture in The Age of Hyper Fabrics: Anrealage S/S17

Around January 2013, that is eons ago in fashion history, designer Marga Weimans launched during Amsterdam Fashion Week a collection entitled "Body Archive" in which she analysed the interaction with non-material virtual technology, questioning the reality.

The designer wondered if it was possible to read the messages hiding behind the layer of reality we could see and go beyond them, decoding in this way further information.

To make her point she included in her collection designs made with a special fabric that could be read via tablet devices or smartphones with a special app and that allowed people to explore an augmented reality universe in which three-dimensional geometrical figures literally erupted from a dress.

Fast-forward to our days and to be more precise to last Tuesday when Anrealage opened Paris Fashion Week with an augmented reality collection.

Kunihiko Morinaga has so far got us used to the most original presentations and technologies, playing with reflections, light reactive fabrics, shadows and visual static from analog video and television.

Entitled "Silence" the S/S 17 collection is dedicated to our collective mania to experience real life through screens. To pay homage to it (and maybe criticize it as well…) Morinaga decided to give voice to his designs via augmented reality, as announced also by his cryptic show invitation.

The collection revolved around Morinaga's favourite combination of colours - black and white - and on ample silhouettes including trapezoidal shift dresses, cocooning capes that can be adapted by the wearer, ample skirts, wide trousers, and tops with trench coat detailing, donned by models wearing a black and white mask/helmet headpiece, a crossover between a VR visor and the 1968 metal armadillo-like headdresses by Getulio Alviani.

Black segments were printed on the fabric or they were turned into three-dimensional black blocks, plasticky dashes and underscores appliqued on a cape to form a morse code tapestry.

At times the designs were enveloped and wrapped in stiff wide black bands, crossing out logos and slogans, but when they were scanned by iPads installed in front of them, they revealed hidden messages or sounds (by Ichiro Yamaguchi of Sakanaction), including the words "Noise", "Silence", "High" and "Low".

Photo prints of landscapes, forests, oceans and flowers were instead activated by sounds. The magic was possible thanks to "augmented reality receptors" integrated into the clothes.

Morinaga also announced the release of a special AR app called "Anrealage_AR3", developed with AR expert Tom Kawada (available for free for iPhones after October 3).

The collection is also tied to a line of sneakers produced in collaboration with Asics that includes four designs, two of them with AR functionality, so that by holding a smartphone in front of the upper, consumers will unveil Anrealage's logo or they will activate Sakanaction's sounds. Besides, taking a picture of the shoes with a flash will trigger a special reflective or lenticular pattern.

Arealage's Parisian presentation seemed to reference the release of the much-anticipated PlayStation VR, the virtual reality gaming head-mounted display produced by Sony and scheduled to launch on October 13th (following the launches of rivals HTC Vive and Oculus Rift earlier on this year).

Anrealage actually has a further connection with PlayStation: the designer created the staff uniform for the PlayStation booth at the latest "Tokyo Game Show 2016".

In trademark PlayStation blue and white and in Anrealage's beloved retroreflective materials, the uniform glowed with an abstract pattern representing the controller button symbols when exposed to camera flashes (you will get a chance to see again the uniforms as they will be reused at other PlayStation promotional events in the future).

Commercially speaking, Morinaga's choice to bet on augmented reality for the next season is a very sensible one, considering also the interest that consumers have developed in the last few months for VR headsets.

Besides, fabric-wise augmented reality may end up opening up an entire world of new possibilities and we may even start conceiving textiles as portals characterized by "decor-active" patterns spelling out messages or embodying the DNA of a fashion house or a brand.

You think that this sounds a bit weird and maybe not on-trend when compared with European designers/fashion houses digging through history and mixing and meshing historical details?

Well, in a way, consumers who will be keen on exploring the augmented reality dimension will behave a bit like archaeologists, yet, rather than digging in an excavation site and through history, they will be extracting digital information from the fabric.

The components of Haute Couture - precious and luxurious materials - often eclipse a designer's fantasy, but in cases such as Anrealage's S/S 17 collection, materials become a dynamic excuse to step into another world. Welcome to the age of the hyper-fabrics.

Posted at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring/Summer 17 Details: Shoulder Action

There has been a lot of excitement in Paris in the last few days with Anthony Vaccarello showing his first collection for Yves Saint Laurent, Bouchra Jarrar at Lanvin, Maria Grazia Chiuri leading Dior and Pierpaolo Piccioli going solo at Valentino.

Yet in some cases the excitement didn't seem to be justified: after restoring in the brand the "Y" lost during Hedi Slimane's four-year tenure at the house, Vaccarello proceeded indeed to create a time continuum, moving from YSL's designs from the '80s and following on Slimane's path.

Vaccarello had in mind a precise design from the early '80s, a fun and sexy dress by Yves Saint Laurent, and he adequately (or inadequately) tried to remix it, producing a series of designs in leather, velvet or gold lamé.

His main inspiration produced sexed up mini-dresses, that he then broke down into bits and pieces, coming up with bustier tops or detachable sleeve elements.

The latter were a mix of a Tudor sleeve from Henry VIII's times (that will be trending come the next Spring/Summer) and a Schiaparelli leg o'mutton sleeve, with a couple of gladiator/Medieval armour references thrown in.

Some looks were indeed accompanied by a detachable sleeve that called to mind the gladiators' shoulder armours. The show took place in a former monastery, later a military headquarters, so the armour theme went well with the location.

Still, the disused armory in the Left Bank didn't do much to dispel the kitsch mood of the entire collection. The '80s were indeed also channeled via black veiled stockings with a rhinestone YSL logo around the ankle area.

A tacky vision from 1982-83, they were at the time a must have, often donned at parties to show that, no, you couldn't afford the dress, but yes, you could still buy the stockings.

Vaccarello luckily included variations of the iconic Le Smoking matched with see-through chiffon blouses (genderless, as proved by one solitary male model in the show) and featured in the collection tuxedo jackets and biker jackets that looked as if they had been made from a Moroccan rug (surely a nod to Saint Laurent's love for this country).

Relics from the '80s prevailed, though, with an inconsiderate number of asymmetric retro '80s dresses and a one-shoulder leather mini-dress cut to expose one breast.

Maybe if he had rebalanced the kitsch aspects with Catherine Deneuve's YLS wardrobe in Tony Scott's 1983 The Hunger the mood would have been slightly more elegant.

What will be appearing in the shops? Surely logo-mania and branded items with a kitsch-sexy-glamour twist about them obviously derived from the '80s. This message was introduced by the heels and earrings with the "YSL" logo designed in 1961 by Cassandre and was highlighted by the neon sign in the shape of the logo in the courtyard of the show venue.

What will be appearing in high street retailers? Detachable or single sleeves and one armed jackets (mind you, they already exist in sportswear, as patented by Under Armour in the States under the name "athletic arm warmer" - Pantent N. US 8667613 B2 - and destined to pitchers View this photo).

Mind you, it's possible to buy the former from vintage shops, while you can go for the latter by customising one of your garments.

As for Vaccarello, well, at least he didn't copy the Mondrian dress, but to go back to the fundamentals of Yves Saint Laurent and take the legacy of the brand into the future he will have to understand that the world is populated by real women with different needs and not just by girls who want to have fun, wear glitter pasties on their nipples and play at being urban Amazons in a fantasy disco jungle.

Posted at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring/Summer 2017 Details: Utility Pockets (With Some Historical Notes)

"Pockets for no purpose are fashion's newest decoration", announced a feature published in January 1940 on Life magazine. The feature focused on a new trend launched by French couturiers and maybe inspired by the attire of soldiers, hunters, mailmen and mechanics.

The magazine stated that pockets had indeed become the sensation of the moment, some were "as big as pouches" and they were plastered on coats, dresses, slacks and evening gowns.

In Paris, while other designers included military pockets, knapsack pockets and pockets inspired by kangaroos' pouches in their creations, Schiaparelli applied maxi pockets to jumpsuits and dresses and called them "cash and carry pockets", they were indeed supposed to be large bags in which you could store all your needs during air raids.

In Europe women went around carrying gas masks, identification papers and ration cards, so pockets had a purpose; in the United States women would have them used instead only for decorative purposes as proved by American designer Clare Potter who adopted the trend coming up with a dinner dress that featured sandwich pockets hanging from the waist but not attached to the skirt.

The trend continued during the years that followed as proved by a Christian Dior 1949 black wool dress coat characterised by four large utility pockets, by a 1950 purple wool coat by Jacques Fath in which the pocket flaps were almost used to imitate the shape of a peplump jacket and by another Schiaparelli coat from 1952 with incredibly deep pockets.

At the same time the trend started becoming more controlled and, in the same year, Hermès created several trompe l'oeil pieces - from dresses to raincoats - on which the pockets turned from functional and useful into a cartoonish decorative fun feature.

Yet, as seen in a previous post, huge pockets reappeared on the scene with a Yohji Yamamoto black wool gabardine coat from the designer A/W 2004-05 collection.

Besides, Christian Lacroix paid homage to Schiap with his one-off collection for the maison, with a wool crepe jumpsuit and a coat that featured large pockets evoking the functionality of the "Cash and Carry" collection.

Big pockets will make a comeback in the Spring/Summer 2017 season as Consuelo Castiglioni at Marni reintroduced them on the scene.

Her collection, showcased last Sunday during Milan Fashion Week, revolves around basic and functional separates that could be filed in the utility wear category.

Most jackets, shirts, round-shouldered jumpsuits and dresses featured saddle-like bags attached at the waist that gave the impression models wore padded garments around the hip area.

Variation was introduced via dresses in micro florals and modernist abstract prints ruched or gathered at the neck - a trick that seemed inspired by traditional costumes from Eastern European countries - and tied with threaded-through nautical rope, a basic and simple element turned into a key decorative (and functional) motif and also used in the bags .

Further contrasts were created with the accessories such as giant earrings, thick bejeweled bangles, rigid briefcases, and drawstring sacks, while a historical reference hid in the footwear, with pointy flats calling to mind the poulaines from the 14th century (yes, mixing, meshing and combining details from different historical times is definitely a trend for the next Spring/Summer season).

Though critics called it architectural, the collection was a game of dichotomies, with fluid and gathered lines juxtaposed to structured outfits, so it could be interpreted as an exercise in volume exploration and in layering modular pieces like multiple pockets, aprons and tunics.

The palette followed a natural progression of colours that went from white and beige to black, but included bleached lemon, mint, tomato, mauve, navy and chocolate.

In many ways this collection is directly linked to the above mentioned late '30s / early '40s designs, the only difference being that, in this case, the detached and semi-detached pairs of pockets are to be considered as modular elements that can be strapped on any sort of garment (but they are not designed to be overloaded, so watch out...).

The return of this trend is perfectly understandable considering we all carry around several items and objects including technological devices such as smartphones, chargers and headphones that have turned for many of us into vital extensions of their bodies.

You like the utility pocket trend, but think the look of these huge pockets won't suit you? For different pocket inspirations, go back in time to the images showing a fun "pocket competition" from the '40s at the Madison Square Boys Club in New York. The main prize went to the boy with the most miscellaneous collection of things in his pockets.

Timmy won in a jacket by Abe Rosenberg, a volunteer teacher at the club who designed hunting and fishing clothes and who created a suit with 23 pockets and 27 slide fasterners. Little Timmy in the picture hid in them several objects including a photograph, a feather, a corkscrew, a padlock, a ticket, a fishing line, a roll of wire, a bulb, a washer, and even a turtle. Ingenius isn't it?

Posted at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring/Summer 17 Details: Evolution of the Platform Sole

When new creative directors produce their first collection for a fashion house, critics tend to look at its overall mood generated by the combination of fashion and accessories. But, at times, a careful analysis of a key piece in a collection can actually show where that house or brand will be heading in future. Take Salvatore Ferragamo's S/S 17 collection, designed by Fulvio Rigoni, the new creative director since the departure of Massimiliano Giornetti.

The clothes were sporty and dynamic yet elegant; dresses came in floral prints, featured gathered necklines, and ample, puffed out or rounded sleeves. There were also plenty of separates, such as tops made in a sponge-like tech fabric and high-waisted narrow skirts matched with anoraks.

Everything seemed wearable, modernist, though a bit clinical and cold, so the collection mainly revolved around a sort of tailored athleisure characterised by a few Raf Simons-isms (Rigoni worked with him at Jil Sander and Dior).

Yet the clothes weren't the real protagonists of the show as the over-the-knee length of the pieces redirected the eye to the footwear. Some models wore clunky platform shoes that featured a sort of crocheted sock-like sneaker with a bubbly platform sole, others a strappy sandal that looked made with a grosgrain ribbon.

The shoes had a precise inspiration: in the late '30s Ferragamo designed a series of sandals with an iconic cork platform sole covered in kid leather.

Throughout the decades critics have written about the inspirations behind these Ferragamo's models and have also drawn comparisons with interior design pieces and objects produced in later years.

Ferragamo was definitely interested in architecture and loved elegant Art Deco buildings. His multi-coloured 1938 platform wedge designed with Judy Garland in mind is indeed often compared to the neon lights shining outside art deco theatres and cinemas in the USA, a very apt reference to the actress.

His vertical carved cork covered in gold kid leather and his black sandal with a platform made up of convex layers of cork covered with silver and gold calf, are instead often compared to objects such as Kay Fisker's 1947 sculptural sterling cocktail shakers designed for A. Michelsen.

While Ferragamo's futuristic sandals with high heel and insole covered with kid leather found a match in later years in Ettore Sottsass' Elledue bed from his "Grey Room".

Rigoni seems to have moved from all these iconic wedges and references to create new versions of historical shoes. In some cases the colour combination (brown/beige/white and black/white) and the consistency of the sole called to mind Joe Colombo's Elda chair.

Produced in 1963, this armchair was characterised by an enveloping shape covered in seven ergonomic padded cushions upholstered in leather and by a weight-bearing shell that swiveled at the base.

The chair immediately conjures up visions of a minimalist Space Age and thanks to its futuristic image it ended up appearing in many films, including one episode of Star Trek (1966-1969), the British series Space: 1999 (1975-1978), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and, more recently, The Hunger Games (2012).

The colours of some of the shoes and the volumes and shapes could also be linked with Jonathan De Pas, Donato D'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi and Carla Scolari's see-through PVC "Blow" armchair for Zanotta and with Colombo's "Boby" storage trolley.

Interior design has been a constant reference in Giornetti's collections, but Ferragamo was also influenced by art and in particular by Sonia Delaunay and some of the grosgrain sandals echoed the patterns in Delaunay's 1924 sketchbook or the colours from the advertising sketches that Futurist painter Lucio Venna did for Ferragamo in 1930 and that showed the company trademarks.

Trademarks, inventions and models can actually offer a great source to discover further inspirations for different fashion collections as patents offer great opportunities for scientific and technological researches and help carrying out in-depth investigations on the evolution of custom and fashions.

In this case Ferragamo's sole finds another correspondence in the design of the Campari conical bottle with five circular rings on the upper outer wall followed by six crcular rings on the lower exterior (patented in July 1955).

Maybe the sandals in this collection weren't so flamboyant as Ferragamo's ones, and they certainly were more modern and less elaborate platform shoes compared to Gucci's S/S 17 calcagnini, but they looked desirable in the way they elongated and balanced the silhouettes in a young and dynamic way.

Paul Andrew is incoming as design director of shoes at Ferragamo with his first collection due for pre-Fall, but these designs already show the path that the brand will be taking from now on, returning to the origins and to the fundamentals of Ferragamo.

Posted at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Decomposing Matters: Gabriele Colangelo S/S 17 Vs Dianna Molzan

We often hear the word "craftsmanship" mentioned in connection with fashion. Powerful luxury brands use this term almost as a label to hint at handmade garments or accessories in high-quality materials that take days to be made by artisans.

But, if we take into consideration the revolutions in manufacturing and production techniques we have collectively witnessed in the last few years, we could probably state that, at the moment, craftsmanship is something suspended between the hand-made and the machine-made.

The real difference is made by the craftsperson who should be an in-between figure, a sort of artisan and technician, with a passion for beautiful things and an in-depth knowledge of materials. Just like Gabriele Colangelo.

His S/S 17 collection shows consistency with his previous ones and confirms he wants to take fashion into the future via fabrics and textile experiments. Colangelo usually moves from an artist for his collections and for this season he started from the works of American Dianna Molzan.

The latter tackles themes such as deconstruction and the materialization of traditional painting materials and tools. After removing the canvas, Molzan focuses indeed on the empty wooden frame, employing yarns and threads in a sculptural way to create new spaces such as grids and cages. The wooden support of the canvas therefore ends up supporting Molzan's sculptures while also framing the wall's empty surface and creating a new space behind the canvas.

Decomposition was a key theme in this collection: Colangelo cut fabrics such as silk cady and Prince of Wales woolens into strips and then proceeded to reassemble them into fabrics that he used for tops, mid-calf length skirts and dresses and even in a leather coat. The shapes and silhouettes were simple, long and lean, but streamers left dangling here and there created variation and movement in the sleek garments.

Colangelo also covered his slip dresses in a floral motif that seemed to expand on the fabric like a malevolent virus and that revealed itself on a closer inspection as made with a sort of devoré shredding treatment.

The way Colangelo hid narrow trousers (note: Colangelo is among the very few contemporary designers who sends on his runway well-cut trousers for real women) under dresses was another reference to Molzan and to the way she goes beyond the surface of the canvas to explore what's underneath.

Fur made an appearance (Colangelo comes from a family of furriers) adding a note of modernist primitivism: smooth and curly sheepskin burst from seams and merged and combined with the fabric.

Among the timeless highlights of the collection there were a few nappa leather pieces - a dress, skirt and coat - that represent a real investment of the "buy now wear forever" kind rather than "buy now and throw out tomorrow" type.

You could draw further comparisons between Colangelo's S/S 17 collection and Molzan's works: just like the latter could be conceived as a material reaction to our visual culture, Colangelo's garments end up being a way to react to the modern banality of overembellishments or to the lack of textile knowledge of many designers out there.

This is actually another key point that distinguishes Colangelo from other contemporary designers: some critics compared his shirts to Jacquemus', but there is a vital difference since Colangelo knows his materials, creates their own fabrics and starts his collections from textiles, developing them six months in advance with Italian mills.

In a way this is a labour intensive process that at the moment is more Japanese than Italian (mind you, Colangelo has a sort of Japanese sensibility when it comes to textiles...).

Colangelo may not be high on the list of trendy designers pumped up by the fashion establishment (it is often the case that the less knowledgeable end up being the most praised ones...), but he is definitely a modern craftsman. Ah, yes, a final note, as it happened in the past, expect these fabric experiments to be copied sometimes soon by some trendier young designer.

Posted at 06:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fashion in the Brutalist Jungle: Max Mara S/S 17 Vs Lina Bo Bardi

Fact: the same inspiration will lead different people to a wide range of results. Take three designers and tell them to take into consideration a painting of a landscape as a starting point for a collection, and you can bet that one will maybe look at the mood in general, another at the palette, and the third will focus on the content of the artwork.

Max Mara's S/S 17 collection moved from Italian-born architect Lina Bo Bardi, who left an extraordinary legacy in Brazil, obtaining very dubious results.

Bo Bardi was a complex figure since she worked as an architect, set and costume designer, writer, editor, illustrator, furniture designer and curator.

She could have been a terrific inspiration and you can bet that fashion and architecture fans reading about this connection on the show notes before the runway show took place were probably on the brink of crying tears of joy.

But, unfortunately, they were destined to be disappointed: yes, the runway was set among the Brazilian forest and featured a brutalist concrete wall, a location reminiscent of Bardi's Casa de Vidro - her Glass House - in the Jardim Morumbi, the rain forest surrounding São Paulo.

This main inspiration actually led to a refreshing jungle print, but then the latter was applied to light hooded jackets, jumpsuits, leggings and swimsuits.

At times a three-dimensional grassy texture was added to the jungle prints, but it ended up generating rather impractical and flamboyant looks for a Max Mara collection.

Red, blue, yellow and orange - colours you would easily find in Bo Bardi's notes and sketches - were applied for sporty jumpsuits that looked like uniforms, while the wide range of animals living around Bo Bardi's house (snakes, frogs, armadillos, sloths, and birds) inspired the exotic animal intarsia sweaters.

Rather than looking fresh and fun, the latter called to mind a mythical time lost between the early-to-mid '80s when Krizia's animals reigned supreme on sweaters. But the worst thing was that the fuzzy texture of the sweater surface that turned the intarsia motif into a confused mess.

One major mistake was also trying to replicate Bo Bardi's amoeba shaped windows like the ones carved in the concrete walls of the SESC Pompéia (perfectly echoed instead in Noir Kei Ninomiya's S/S 16 collection) into suede patchworked garments.

Bo Bardi's sketches, drawings, illustrations and studies show how she focused on integrating buildings and nature as proved by the Restaurante do Coaty with its circular walls surrounding a mango tree, but in this collection the design team seemed lost in rainforest greenery and unable to find a proper balance between two equations Lina Bo Bardi mentioned in her writing, one revolving around "climate, environment, soil, and life" and another focused on "technique aesthetic and function".

There was maybe a hint at other garments that may be arriving in the shops come next season, such as a couple of more formal yet functional linen tailored skirt suits, but, as a whole, the collection heavily revolved around athleisure as if a house known for impeccable coats had suddenly decided to go down the Alexander Wang way, bringing in its descent into the darkness of techno fabrics a brutalist architect. Puzzling.

Sure, you don't necessarily need to come up with a rigid grey coat to evoke the concrete structure of the SESC Pompéia, but the design team should have maybe researched their source a bit better, exploring Bo Bardi's furniture, but also her early paintings and drawings or channeling her love and passion for stones and gems and her connections with fashion.

A better research would have led to early illustrations such as the ones Bo Bardi did in the early '40s for Italian magazine Bellezza and, to be honest, they would have been more charming even if they had just been printed on plain T-shirts compared to all this redundant leggings extravaganza.

Posted at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Past Forward: Prada S/S 17

In the last few seasons Milan has become a tale of contrasts: this week we have seen Alessandro Michele at Gucci reworking the past in a maximalist key, while Miuccia Prada stripped down things in search of a minimalist future.

Prada's S/S 17 collection opened indeed with a girl in a scholarly black knee-length skirt and a black tank. The model's attire set the mood for the rest of a collection that was based on ordinary pieces such as trench coats, knitted cardigans, wrap skirts, belted plaid silky bomber jackets, black polo neck sweaters and '40s high-waisted briefs.

At times there were tops and skirts reminiscent of '60s flight attendant/sci-fi film space uniforms, references that maybe hinted at a futuristic dystopia, a mood evoked also by the ominous soundtrack that also featured Julia Kent's "Tempelhof".

This uniformed army of women was clad in a clean-cut wardrobe that could be described as a remixed and updated version of Prada's '90s collections.

Graphic prints in contrasting colours evoked a ‘70s palette maybe borrowed from interior design, while textures and surfaces were reminiscent of automotive fabrics employed around the same decade. The prints provided variation or created a discordant note in some of the uniforms.

Searching for a new elegance, Miuccia Prada also included in the collection Mandarin-collared silk pajamas, some of them in contrasting prints, others in muted colours.

Then she added decadent marabou stoles, that represented a moment of extravagance and fantasy in an otherwise dark world. She trimmed bottoms and shirt cuffs with marabou feathers or used them as decorative elements down the length of a skirt or erupting from bags.

Accessories included giant pendants and medallions and envelope bags that the models carried as if they were folders (work? homework? Who knows).

On the industrial aluminum flooring bejewelled kitten heels contrasted with thick molded rubber sandals.

The latter had the consistency and texture of interior design pieces that Miuccia has probably got in her personal collections or she admired at Milan's Triennale.

The sandals came indeed in pink, orange, yellow, brown and blue, a palette reminiscent at times of Vico Magistretti's lamps (this would actually be a very apt tribute since the architect and designer died ten years ago) or Joe Colombo's chairs (mind you, there were also ugly chic fur versions of the same sandals, but they verged more on the ugly ridiculous side...).

The highlight of the presentation was a film entitled "Past Forward" and shot by David O. Russell, flicking on the multiple screens during the runway.

The 18-minute film - that will be premiered later on this year in Los Angeles - is a sort of silent movie on the lives of modern women and features three female protagonists engaged in simple and repetitive acts like undressing, rummaging through letters and going up an escalator in a terminal.

Overjoyed by the film, a thankful Miuccia ventured down the runway applauding Russell and the film's actors - Sinqua Walls, Kuoth Wiel and Jack Huston.

Yet there was something extremely perverse about this collection that nobody really grasped and to discover it you will have to refer to the programme at the Milan-based Fondazione Prada, the modern art exhibition space owned by Miuccia and her husband Patrizio Bertelli on the outskirts of Milan.

During September Carlo Colla's historical puppet company held workshops and events for children at the Fondazione Prada.

Some of the picture from Colla's archive accompanying the event on Prada's site show thousands of marionettes standing still, their basic wooden bodies covered in multi-coloured scraps of fabrics (they are usually dressed in sumptuous costumes during Colla's shows).

It is somehow uncanny but some of the attires of marionettes (such as the flowered shorts or the patchworked tabard) in the pictures call to mind a couple of Prada's S/S 17 looks. A terrific coincidence or just Miuccia telling us that, despite the global luxury spending slump and fall in sales at Prada, she's still the satanic puppet master of fashion?

Posted at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Legacy of the Renaissance: Gucci S/S 17

History has taught us that sampling, layering, collaging and piling could be interpreted as fine arts that need to be perfectly tuned before being put into practice. The best sampled tracks in the history of music were indeed produced by visionary artists with a vast musical knowledge and an ample music collection.

The same applies to fashion, even though, too often, designers who engage in such exercises have shown they do not have the necessary extensive knowledge needed to become fully-fledged remixers.

Alessandro Michele at Gucci has so far proved that the more you know, the more you can mess around with, the more you can use to confuse consumers, detractors and the very few fashion critics and commentators left out there.

Gucci’s S/S 17 collection, showcased on Wednesday in Milan in an all pink environment (walls, curtains, velvet banquettes...was that because pink is "the only true rock'n'roll colour" or was this a Lucille Ball moment at the Ziegfeld Follies? The doubt remains...) was another extenuating journey into Michele's mind and through all the "buone cose di pessimo gusto" (good things of awful taste) he surrounds himself with.

Michele sprinkled millions of coloured sequins on evening gowns worthy of Madame Satan, carved zebra intarsia on an orange fur mink coat, decorated another coat with colourful jellyfish sprouting organza tentacles.

He mixed '80s power looks such as one shouldered ruffled dresses that Joan Collins would have favoured in 1983, and also came up with tiered tinsel coats, and wacky silk pyjama sets followed by studded suede trouser suits.

Michele's tigers, snakes and dragons - a bestiary of animals that seems to be recurring in his collections - were printed, embroidered and embellished on evening gowns and in one case a snake was embossed on a bustier.

At times the animal illustrations were bejeweled versions of drawings by Jayde Fish (who is also very much inspired by hallucinating visions like the ones in Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain").

The Far East was channeled via fans, kimono-like coats and cheong sam-like gowns, dragons, and lucky cats; here and there the Asian references were filtered through a Hollywood light.

Slogans such as "loved", "modern future", "l'aveugle pour amour" (blind for love) and "Hollywood Forever Cemetery", embellished some of the garments and accessories.

Accessories included gigantic glasses and earrings, aviator hats, jewel-toned turbans, floral headscarves, printed fans with slogans in Gothic fonts and intricately decorated handbags and brocade backpacks.

Current Gucci collections are a bit like following Rainbow Brite dressed up as La Casati in a journey through different eras and places, from the Renaissance to a '70s nightclub to a plastic Fiorucci-land from the '80s and a rave in a Baroque Church in the '90s.

The show notes at Gucci were as fractured and rambling as the collection: they opened with a quote from Vladimir Nabokov about the birth of literature, and highlighted how "the narrative principle is non-linear; it is made of ruptures, digs, leaps, cross-references and unpredictable connections", it mentioned "an archipelagic and metamorphic approach in which the thought overflows undisciplined and doesn't follow in the wake of tradition" (whatever that means...).

In the meantime Florence Welch read the poems of William Blake on the soundtrack (Michele posted on his Instagram account a picture of the cover of Songs of Innocence and Experience as a clue).

It is easy to be mesmerized by the hemorrhaging richness of Michele's imagination, and most critics seem to be baffled by it.

Yet there are very logical explanations behind all this rich phantasmagoria that is convicing most critics that Italy is entering a new phase of maxi-maximalism.

Michele had a different formation from that of other relatively young designers out there at the moment: he spent years working behind the scenes (with nobody calling him a genius/the next big thing or a fashion savior when he was 25), developing his own vision and an obsession for (kitsch) antiquities (in a way it's as if he were more interested in the present and the past rather than the future...), filling his eyes with historical and art references while maybe trying to control his instinct for costumy looks (Michele originally wanted to be a costume designer).

In a nutshell he had more time to develop and grow up, piling up experiences, images and ideas. Besides, there is another thing that plays in his favour: he remixes obscure things from the past that are not strictly copyrighted and openly collaborates with contemporary artists, avoiding in this way making the same mistakes that some of his colleagues are committing, that is randomly copying and pasting images found on the internet.

But if you sit and carefully analyse details from his collections, you will definitely spot the references: the red embroidered heart pierced with a jeweled dagger points towards statues of saints; the numerals "XXV" indicate Michele's lucky number (also featured in his Instagram account - @lallo25); hooded looks and shining evening gowns call to mind Adrian; glamour elements redirect to Elton John's flamboyant style and pictures of David Bowie photographed in 1973 by Masayoshi Sukita, while the infamous "Cemetery" sash and a print of cenotaphs and effigies was a remix of historical Italian graveyards and Michele's recent trip to L.A. where he took part in a celebration party for Johnny Ramone at a local cemetery.

This collection also included gigantic platform shoes that echoed French chopines or Venetian calcagnini, footwear favoured by prostitutes, of the kind you may see in illustrations, engravings or paintings from Vittore Carpaccio's "Due dame Veneziane" (ca. 1490-95) to Cesare Vecellio's "Habiti antiqui et moderni di tutto il mondo" (1590), Gerolamo Forabosco's "Donna Venetiana" (1600), Cigoli's "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife" (1610) or the anonymous "Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra", with a wealthy Venetian woman portrayed as the Queen of Egypt with a poisonous asp in her right hand.

The calcagnini are the ancestors of modern dangerous, unstable and fetishistic footwear that restrain or physically impair women, but here they were reinvented in a modern version: Michele's calcagnini featured inside a flat slipper that allows the wearer to detach the sole and walk on a flat ballerina shoe.

In a way Michele's "more is more" vision can be summarized by a panting such as a Pamigianino's portrait of a young woman also known as Antea (dated from around 1535).

In this work Antea is magnificently dressed in a luxurious gown in the French fashion, a marten is draped over her right shoulder that looks disproportionately magnified; she wears one glove on her right hand, and a ring on the other one. Her necklace reaches out to her high waist, she sports egg shaped pearl earrings dangling from her pierced ears on gold chains, and a black thread decorated in gold is knotted through her hair characterized by an elaborate hairstyle. So the final look is a result of a perennial addition of details, elements, rich motifs and accessories, not to mention a distortion in proportions and volumes.

It would be possible to describe Michele as a Renaissance man: during this period of time, people looked at the past in search of guidance, insights and inspiration. Michele does the same, and so far his sampling style has been working pretty well judging from the 11.5 per cent increase in sales registered last year at Gucci. At the same time, this intense journey through the past has its problems: first and foremost there doesn't seem to be any distinction between Michele's collections, but the story he has been spinning is a whirling undefined continuum of remixed time with no real and clear landmarks.

He remains a decorateur extraordinaire capable of combining in the same look antiquities, reliquaries, the Latin and Greek classics, paintings and tombstones, the dusty and musty archives of museums (Gucci S/S17 fashion show invite was a three-dimensional theatre with animals and flowers that seemed borrowed from the V&A collection of paper peepshows...) with glam.

If he keeps on going like this, Michele may end up leaving fashion for costume/set design and permanently move to Hollywood to work in the film industry. In his future collections Michele will therefore have to strip away one or two excessive layers of his richly historical exuberance or we will soon be seeing Renaissance ladies vomiting rainbows on Gucci's next runway.

For the immediate present he should instead release an affordable series of Gucci colouring book for fashionistas with all his crazy drawings and prints. It may not bring sales to extraordinary levels, but it would quench the thirst of all those Michele fans who will never be able to afford Gucci's S/S 17 calcagnini.

Posted at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sun Also Rises: Laura Theiss S/S 17

Memories of the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona from early modernist novel The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and the art of religious portraits by the "Spanish Caravaggio" Francisco de Zurbarán, mix and combine in Laura Theiss' Spring/Summer 2017 collection.

Entitled "The Sun Also Rises", the collection - showcased during London Fashion Week at the On | Off Vinyl Factory - is entirely made with a fine lightweight cotton yarn, and features functional separates such as cropped tops, blouses and skirts, dresses and a selection of versatile accessories.

Theiss crocheted all the pieces, infusing in them the main themes of her collection: one of the trademark element of this new collection is a heart-motif inspired by the elaborately engraved silver ex-votos, tokens of a believer's faith, and by the heart held in the hands of Zurbarán's "Allegory of Charity", employed here as a symbol of a sensual passion and a forbidden love; other designs feature instead blooming clusters of intricate white flowers on a black background, hinting at hope and rebirth, combining mysticism and realism.

The neutral tones of the collection palette, the ethereal powdery and dusty pinks, and the gold intarsia elements, are borrowed from Zurbarán’s portraits of saints and by his dramatic use of chiaroscuro. The deep reds of the densely crocheted long dresses and skirts, evoke instead passion, the blood of bullfights and of the thick wine drank by the main characters in Hemingway novel.

Accessories such as crocheted crowns and veils hint at devout women, widows in mourning, but also empowered women playing a sensual peekaboo game.
"This collection represents my passion for a traditional craft – crocheting – elevated to almost religious devotion," Theiss explains. "Keeping in mind modern and dynamic women, I always come up with sensual silhouettes and shapes, designing innovative patterns created using traditional tools combined with state-of-the art techniques."

Last, but not least, the title of the collection is an optimistic message: just like the sun will rise again even after the darkest night, it will keep on shining on all those designers working with dedication and devotion.

Posted at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remixing the Historical Drama with the Spy Who Lost Her Clothes: Erdem S/S 17

There has been a trend for historical pastiches during London Fashion Week, where collections weren't inspired just by paintings or archeology. Erdem Moralioglu moved indeed from a news piece from a couple of years ago when divers in the North Sea found off the coast of The Netherlands a 17th-century drowned wardrobe that, historians established only a few months ago, belonged to Jean Ker, Countess of Roxburghe.

Ker was a Scottish courtier and lady in waiting to Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. In 1642, the countess accompanied Princess Mary to The Hague after the latter's marriage to Prince William of Orange. The real reason of the journey was actually to sell the crown jewels through Elizabeth Stuart's contacts and raise money for the Royalist army.

While crossing from Dover to Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands in February 1642 one of the 12 ships of the royal fleet sank in bad weather and what remained of its cargo was discovered in 2014 by divers off the Dutch island of Texel.

The dress was found together with a number of other items, including a comb, a Bible with the stamp of the Stuart crest, an intricately embroidered purse and pomanders (or "perfume balls", spherical objects used to hold sweet-smelling flowers and herbs). As they were buried in sand on the seabed, the pieces were protected by erosion.

At the time the dress was described as one of the most important maritime discoveries ever made in the Netherlands. Thanks to a letter, this year historians managed to attribute the dress to Ker, a historically intriguing character since she had been a spy in the court of James I, Charles' father, passing on information to the King of Spain.

Remarkably well preserved, the silk gown, in the style depicted in paintings of the late Elizabethan era, features loose-fitting sleeves, a bodice, an upright collar, sleeve caps, and a pleated skirt that has a front opening.

The gown - that was then displayed at the Kaap Skil Museum - turned orange, green, yellow, black and brown with the centuries, but was originally characterized by a floral motif in gold and silver thread and an intricate design.

This background story perfectly explained the mood of the set, with models walking on a wood boardwalk and among sails, digital projections of sea rolling on the runway, sea paintings, and book pages and accessories frozen in pools of water.

The clothes featured details that the designer borrowed from the 1600s, but Erdem also decided to combine ths story of the shipwrecked dress with a fictitious time relocation, imagining Ker the conspiring spy transported to another time and another place, landing on Deauville's beach in 1930 together with an army of ladies. The main idea for the designer was indeed that the 1640s and the 1930s were times on a brink of a war.

The collection opened with a selection of garments - a jacket nipped at the waist matched with cropped trousers, and long-sleeved high-waisted ankle-length dresses, fastened or held by black grosgrain ribbons, all accessorised with raffia sun hats (that actually looked quite distracting) and thick and clunky platform sandals that at times evoked perilous calcagnini.

The fabrics in the first part of the show - floral brocades and jacquards in particular - seemed more interesting than the actual designs, while the selection of frothy sheer tiered dresses in coloured lace came instead via the photographs of Jacques-Henri Lartigue portraying his wife and friends at Deauville in a palette reminiscent of Gustave Gain's pictures of his wife and friends at Flamanville. Some silhouettes dropped off the shoulders providing variations to a collection that at times proved to be a tad repetitive.

It was actually a shame Erdem emphasised the elaborate background story too much as the attention should have been maybe refocused on the fabrics and on other details and inspirations.

Silks for the designs were woven at Vanners, one of the companies still designing and weaving silk fabrics in England (originally established in the early 1700s); other textiles integrated distressed sections into the fabric; the opening blue jacket was inspired by a 17th-century garment from the Bath Fashion Museum; sparkling jewels decorated some of the garments here and there, hinting at lost and found treasures, and at the crown jewels hidden in seams of her dress by Jean Ker, while the Roman numeral XII was also a feature of the prints as the ship that sank was the twelfth in the fleet.

The designer evoked in some of the lighter dresses in muddy colours and in the slashed and re-collaged textiles the effects the sea and sand played on the lost gown, while raw fabrics called to mind sails. The final white dresses, in particular one made of bias-cut strips, were worthy of a ghost bride haunting the wild seas (shame there were no experiments here à la Sigalit Landau's salt bride in this collection…).

Though as a whole this wasn't a bad collection, it was unfortunately marred by some unnecessary Dolce & Gabbana/Chanel-isms, not to mention a certain Antonio Marras edge and by the collective hysteria some fashion magazines have developed for visually rich costume dramas à la Outlander, Poldark or Queen Victoria. Besides, the story of the spy who lost her clothes in the sea was already intriguing and didn't need to be complicated by fictitious armies of amazons landing on a beach.

Posted at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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September 2016

September 30, 2016

AR Couture in The Age of Hyper Fabrics: Anrealage S/S17

September 29, 2016

Spring/Summer 17 Details: Shoulder Action

September 28, 2016

Spring/Summer 2017 Details: Utility Pockets (With Some Historical Notes)

September 27, 2016

Spring/Summer 17 Details: Evolution of the Platform Sole

September 26, 2016

Decomposing Matters: Gabriele Colangelo S/S 17 Vs Dianna Molzan

September 25, 2016

Fashion in the Brutalist Jungle: Max Mara S/S 17 Vs Lina Bo Bardi

September 24, 2016

Past Forward: Prada S/S 17

September 23, 2016

Legacy of the Renaissance: Gucci S/S 17

September 22, 2016

The Sun Also Rises: Laura Theiss S/S 17

September 21, 2016

Remixing the Historical Drama with the Spy Who Lost Her Clothes: Erdem S/S 17