Italian designers, both at the big Pitti Uomo trade fair in Florence and here in Milan, signaled a determination to ride out an uncertain future by reining in their most flamboyant impulses, focusing on core brand identities and, in general, going small. Naturally, it was Miuccia Prada who articulated the new reality best when she evoked a need for simplicity and what she termed “essentiality” in design. Abandoning the immersive sets often used for her shows, Ms. Prada and the architect Rem Koolhaas’s AMO studio chose instead to install sinuous wooden partitions lined with bench seats not unlike those seen outside confessionals. And they added some beds. Claiming to Vogue.com that her inspirations were too complex and varied to enumerate, she suggested that her current aesthetic disposition was best described in terms of what wearied her: “The big deal of fashion, the big deal of art, the big deal of everything.” That bloat presents a cultural menace is something we can probably all agree on. The demagogues and bobblehead behemoths dominating public life inspire in all of us a degree of soul-searching, an examination of core values. This notion was once taken up by the filmmaker Jean Renoir in a letter to the actress Ingrid Bergman. “The cult of great ideas is dangerous,” Mr. Renoir said, “and may destroy the real basis for great achievements, that is the daily, humble work within the framework of a profession.” Of course, it remains the case that Ms. Prada’s are the big ideas driving her luxury goods label. Yet teams of humble, anonymous people keep her brand and Italian fashion alive, a point that was one unexpected takeaway from her show on Sunday. Slide Show Prada: Men’s Collection CreditGio Staiano/Nowfashion Replete with slacker-meets-normcore affectations — beige corduroy trousers and back-belted jackets, button-down shirts, suede-paneled blazers, pimp-style fur belts, fur shoes, hippie totem necklaces of scavenged horn and shells — the Prada collection looked like a snapshot from a liberal arts college campus of the ’70s. It was a familiar Prada trip, a voyage via hot-tub time machine, vintage in inspiration, yet so shrewdly literal it looked fresh. What elevated the clothes, and kept them from seeming like props from a Macklemore video, is Italian craftsmanship. Here (and throughout the fragile Schengen Area) workers still retain the skills to transform what appear to be bargain-bin finds into covetable luxury goods. Ms. Prada knows that banality as an aesthetic default works only when you have skilled fabricators to realize your vision. Jeff Koons doesn’t make those shiny bunnies himself. The women heading many big brands in an industry dominated by family-owned enterprises often have a particular challenge when it comes to heritage. Take the zigzag knits developed by Angela Missoni’s parents in the 1950s, which probably constitute one of the most enduring brand identities. Better than a logo, the Missoni knit patterns are also something of a design albatross, since if you alter them too radically you become just another knitwear label. Repeat them ad infinitum, though, and stale redundancy yawns. Photo An Aran Island sweater overdyed in degraded rainbow stripes at Missoni, men’s fall 2017. Credit Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times If it has taken some time for Ms. Missoni to grow into a design role she initially took on with some reluctance, the slow-burn confidence she developed is now paying off. One of her best to date, Ms. Missoni’s collection was filled with lushly hued, slouchy, rich-slacker clothing easy to imagine on a Trustafarian playing hacky sack in Paepcke Park in Aspen. But a lot of less privileged (though still prosperous) men would look equally good in one of Ms. Missoni’s zip-up sweaters or jackets; her skater-baggy houndstooth pajama pants; her stitched cashmere coats of many colors (70 different hues deployed to create one jacket); and particularly the heavy Aran Island sweaters overdyed in degraded rainbow stripes so alluring they made this viewer want to revisit his hippie youth. It suggests something about the anxieties induced by the current political climate that Donatella Versace — another powerful woman designing for a storied and family-owned label — elected to bypass the flamboyance of previous seasons (togas and grommets, patterns and patches, stormtrooper coats and bovver boots) to produce a collection focused on suits. Photo Versace, men’s fall 2017, where the mood was one of sobriety. Credit Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times If the cyclical nature of fashion suggests the inevitability of suits staging a return at some point, a consensus among men’s wear designers still holds that the traditional suit has yet to develop much allure for a generation raised on hoodies and sneakers. Ms. Versace is betting otherwise. Or, at least, you would think so after viewing a collection that leaned heavily on suits in a subdued and office-ready palette; on smartly tailored double-breasted topcoats; and on shirts worn with, of all things, a tie. Slide Show Versace: Men’s Collection CreditGio Staiano/Nowfashion Sure, there were trousers notched at the hem to fit over boots with Vibram lug-soles, patent leather backpacks, a few roomy overcoats patterned in an elegant serrated Jacquard weave and others in crinkled, wet-look vinyl. And, yes, there were belted trenches that seemed designed for a gangster with a sideline as a flasher, and trousers in crayon red leather and blanket plaid puffers cinched tight enough to endanger circulation. Yet the overall mood of the new Versace collection was one of sobriety. Forget flights of fantasy and kitting yourself out for an extravagant club binge. Keep that interview suit pressed, Ms. Versace seemed to suggest. Take an uncertain future one day at a time. Continue reading the main story
An Update To The Puka Shell Necklace Is Here, Thanks To Prada
Remember when we told you puka shell necklaces were coming back to wreak havoc on the hairs of your neck and add some '90s nostalgia to your wardrobe, #Saltbae style? Well, we weren't joking then, and we're not joking now: Prada just brought back the conch shell necklace, too. That's right, because if one shell necklace revival in the span of a couple months wasn't enough, now you've got two torturing devices to proclaim your affinity for throwback accessories. But hey, styled correctly — you know, ideally with a chic buffer cloth of some sort in between your precious neck and the necklace itself, of course — it doesn't look half bad. The Italian brand sent the surf staple down the runway at its fall 2017 show in Milan yesterday, along with a slew of fur belts and a necklace or three with sticks on them. (Again, we're still being very serious here.) But all shock value and Game of Thrones vibes aside, there was a strong presence of fur and leather on the catwalk. A strong '70s feel ruled the runway, but those damn '90s-esque shell necklaces could not be unseen. That said, a few questions remain. Will Prada's luxury version be more wearable than the versions of our tween years, which felt more like wearing a chain of barbed wire than a selection of the ocean's finest shells? And are we going to be able to stomach the pain (and the price)? If it's too hot to style with a mohair sweater, as Miuccia Prada has suggested, will it be acceptable to wear with, say, a sensible tank top? Or is that too Raymundo Rocket and not enough Elvis? Who knows. But one thing's for sure: we're just glad the latest trend in neck jewelry doesn't invove a choker. Begin Slideshow
Prada explores the 1970s in a 'naturally enigmatic' collection
Miuccia Prada says there is an important ‘sense of normality’ to her latest collection. Photograph: Victor Boyko/Getty Images “I didn’t want to do the 1970s,” said Miuccia Prada backstage at her fashion show in Milan on Sunday night. “But it just came out, naturally. It was an important moment for protest, for humanity. Which is now very necessary.” As Italian style’s most intellectual designer – a self-proclaimed “leftist feminist” and former Communist party member and mime artist – Prada always has something complex to say about the state of the world through fashion. At her autumn/winter 2017 show her perspective was particularly unsettling. Prada’s autumn/winter 2017 show put 1970s suits into a concrete art installation. Photograph: Maestri/WWD/REX/Shutterstock The show was considered thought-provoking before a single model had even stepped on the catwalk. It was staged in a cavernous concrete space-cum-art installation where sharp-cornered beds in creepy motel colours of sludgy green and mustard were spotlit from above, like slabs in a mortuary. If this was some kind of a comment about domesticity, it was not a blissful vision. The clothes were less chilling and gentler than the setting, however, focusing on tropes of mundane 1970s commuter belt life in strokeable fabrics. Men wore orange corduroy suits and trenchcoats and held brown leather briefcases. Women were dressed in mohair twinsets with socks and sandals. Their clashing colour combinations and weird patterns – deep teal offset against dappled white and pink floral patterns – transformed a prissy silhouette into something awkward and high fashion. There were also what Prada called “naive gestures” threaded through the collection: shell necklaces on men and jumpers that were decorated with ship paintings, calling to mind the work of the untutored Cornish painter and fisherman, Alfred Wallis. Prada remains the most influential brand in fashion, from an industry perspective, and backstage journalists and well-wishers hung on to every word and slyly decoded her outfit. Even that was a whirl of contradictions: a sherbet yellow skirt with marabou trim, a grey silk blouse with a mandarin collar, an ornate gold necklace and earrings and a grey V-neck jumper that looked very much like something from Uniqlo. A model during Prada’s show. Photograph: Maestri/WWD/REX/Shutterstock “It is impossible to summarise,” she began in typically opaque style. “The main sentiment is to go from bigness to smallness. Of going from something very big to something more human and simple. There is a sense of normality, which is very important. Everybody has too much to do, to follow. Somehow we lose out normal nature.” There was also, she agreed, a sinister air. “A crudeness. It was nasty. With flowers.” Despite the industry’s continued reverence, Prada has fared less well with customers, posting a slump of nearly a quarter in net income in the first half of 2016. Analysts have laid the blame on over-expansion of stores and on overpriced handbags. Its woes are thrown into sharp relief by the success of fellow Italian megabrand Gucci, whose new creative director, Alessandro Michele, has transformed the brand into something a lot more nuanced and esoteric – something a little more like Prada. A key part of Prada’s fightback plan is to focus on digital efforts. Before the show the brand posted a series of unsettling videos on Instagram that purported to explain the show’s narrative, featuring smashing crockery and hazy bedroom scenes, with tag lines designed to inspire chin-stroking: ‘Privacy is a luxury’ and ‘The revolution starts at home’. How very enigmatic. How very Prada.
An Update To The Puka Shell Necklace Is Here, Thanks To Prada
Remember when we told you puka shell necklaces were coming back to wreak havoc on the hairs of your neck and add some '90s nostalgia to your wardrobe, #Saltbae style? Well, we weren't joking then, and we're not joking now: Prada just brought back the conch shell necklace, too. That's right, because if one shell necklace revival in the span of a couple months wasn't enough, now you've got two torturing devices to proclaim your affinity for throwback accessories. But hey, styled correctly — you know, ideally with a chic buffer cloth of some sort in between your precious neck and the necklace itself, of course — it doesn't look half bad. The Italian brand sent the surf staple down the runway at its fall 2017 show in Milan yesterday, along with a slew of fur belts and a necklace or three with sticks on them. (Again, we're still being very serious here.) But all shock value and Game of Thrones vibes aside, there was a strong presence of fur and leather on the catwalk. A strong '70s feel ruled the runway, but those damn '90s-esque shell necklaces could not be unseen. That said, a few questions remain. Will Prada's luxury version be more wearable than the versions of our tween years, which felt more like wearing a chain of barbed wire than a selection of the ocean's finest shells? And are we going to be able to stomach the pain (and the price)? If it's too hot to style with a mohair sweater, as Miuccia Prada has suggested, will it be acceptable to wear with, say, a sensible tank top? Or is that too Raymundo Rocket and not enough Elvis? Who knows. But one thing's for sure: we're just glad the latest trend in neck jewelry doesn't invove a choker. Begin Slideshow
Prada explores the 1970s in a 'naturally enigmatic' collection
Miuccia Prada says there is an important ‘sense of normality’ to her latest collection. Photograph: Victor Boyko/Getty Images “I didn’t want to do the 1970s,” said Miuccia Prada backstage at her fashion show in Milan on Sunday night. “But it just came out, naturally. It was an important moment for protest, for humanity. Which is now very necessary.” As Italian style’s most intellectual designer – a self-proclaimed “leftist feminist” and former Communist party member and mime artist – Prada always has something complex to say about the state of the world through fashion. At her autumn/winter 2017 show her perspective was particularly unsettling. Prada’s autumn/winter 2017 show put 1970s suits into a concrete art installation. Photograph: Maestri/WWD/REX/Shutterstock The show was considered thought-provoking before a single model had even stepped on the catwalk. It was staged in a cavernous concrete space-cum-art installation where sharp-cornered beds in creepy motel colours of sludgy green and mustard were spotlit from above, like slabs in a mortuary. If this was some kind of a comment about domesticity, it was not a blissful vision. The clothes were less chilling and gentler than the setting, however, focusing on tropes of mundane 1970s commuter belt life in strokeable fabrics. Men wore orange corduroy suits and trenchcoats and held brown leather briefcases. Women were dressed in mohair twinsets with socks and sandals. Their clashing colour combinations and weird patterns – deep teal offset against dappled white and pink floral patterns – transformed a prissy silhouette into something awkward and high fashion. There were also what Prada called “naive gestures” threaded through the collection: shell necklaces on men and jumpers that were decorated with ship paintings, calling to mind the work of the untutored Cornish painter and fisherman, Alfred Wallis. Prada remains the most influential brand in fashion, from an industry perspective, and backstage journalists and well-wishers hung on to every word and slyly decoded her outfit. Even that was a whirl of contradictions: a sherbet yellow skirt with marabou trim, a grey silk blouse with a mandarin collar, an ornate gold necklace and earrings and a grey V-neck jumper that looked very much like something from Uniqlo. A model during Prada’s show. Photograph: Maestri/WWD/REX/Shutterstock “It is impossible to summarise,” she began in typically opaque style. “The main sentiment is to go from bigness to smallness. Of going from something very big to something more human and simple. There is a sense of normality, which is very important. Everybody has too much to do, to follow. Somehow we lose out normal nature.” There was also, she agreed, a sinister air. “A crudeness. It was nasty. With flowers.” Despite the industry’s continued reverence, Prada has fared less well with customers, posting a slump of nearly a quarter in net income in the first half of 2016. Analysts have laid the blame on over-expansion of stores and on overpriced handbags. Its woes are thrown into sharp relief by the success of fellow Italian megabrand Gucci, whose new creative director, Alessandro Michele, has transformed the brand into something a lot more nuanced and esoteric – something a little more like Prada. A key part of Prada’s fightback plan is to focus on digital efforts. Before the show the brand posted a series of unsettling videos on Instagram that purported to explain the show’s narrative, featuring smashing crockery and hazy bedroom scenes, with tag lines designed to inspire chin-stroking: ‘Privacy is a luxury’ and ‘The revolution starts at home’. How very enigmatic. How very Prada.
No comments:
Post a Comment