Burberry Prorsum
Just when you think Christopher Bailey has done everything that can possibly
be done with a beanie, a trench-coat and a loosely fitted dress, he makes
you fall in love with them all over again.
A couple of mitigating points. First, he tweaked his beloved style props
slightly. The beanie is now a brimmed cloche, the shift dress is in gauzy,
dip-dyed chiffon.
Secondly, he does what he does very well. When a model mooches wistfully down
that catwalk in a sweetly subdued grey, gently flared coat, her sandy
coloured chiffon dress fluttering slightly, her chunky wooden jewellery
(this is a brand steadily evolving its accessories) nicely underplayed by
her dun-coloured ankle socks, for a moment this almost looks like the
fashion equivalent of cinéma vérité.
But the high-waisted tulip skirts and skinny long cardigans have been
pre-crumpled, the muddy hems on those coats are an expensive trompe l'oeil,
courtesy of state-of-the-art dyeing techniques.
So where next? Having successfully reconfigured Burberry for the über-luxury
market, Bailey's personal preference for understatement sometimes seems to
battle with the imperative to produce high-end luxe for the flash set. What
we get is a charcoal snakeskin trench with a washed, lived-in feel that's
embellished with metalwork and will cost a fortune: beautiful, but will
muted bling prove too much of an oxymoron for Burberry's customers? LA
Alberta Ferretti
Searching for grittiness or even the remotest connection with reality on the
catwalks of Milan is a bit like looking for sophisticated banter among the
Harry and Wills set - unfair, because it's just not what they do. While
Italy's designers privately express disquiet at current financial
turbulence, there's little sense of sobriety in the shows, unless you count
the sighting of some exotic skins dyed a depressing colour.
Combat pants did put in an appearance at Alberta Ferretti, but they were lined
with satin and worn with rose appliquéd tops and chiffon wraps. The cocktail
set will always need something to wear, and this is where they come for
sweet and refined prettiness as opposed to the more direct T-and-A approach
of Roberto Cavalli.
Ferretti loves chiffon and silks and glowing sweeps of purple, forget-me-not
and petrol blue, oyster, burnt orange and raspberry sorbet. When she's at
the top of her game - as she was for part of this collection - she makes
poetic and lovely eveningwear, slicing chiffon into flyaway ribbons,
twirling it into huge, lacy roses or pleating and gathering it into
Fortuny-inspired lantern dresses.
Sometimes her very skilled workrooms seemed to get carried away into a land
where nothing is too much trouble: a pleat, a rose, a spot of ruching, a
fringe... But when it was kept under control - a grey satin bias-cut maxi
skirt with a simple ruffle rippling up the back seam, a backless silk
chiffon long dress twisted at the front, or those rose appliquéd tops with
slim trousers - it came together beautifully. LA
Bottega Veneta
It’s hard to imagine the discerning and discreet Tomas Maier (whose motto,
“When your own initials are enough”, illustrates his dislike of the designer
logo) would ever let himself be Tango-ed, but that’s what happened
yesterday. Was showing every shade of orange and peach on the Pantone chart
such a good idea?
There’s a lot to admire in Maier’s deft cutting and the fluidity of his
dresses as they waft along past you, but an opening series of outfits
constructed entirely from tan shades of soft, nappa leather felt gimmicky.
Even with a year-round spritzing of St Tropez (a priority for his jet-set
clientele) these colours were never going to be easy to pull off.
After triumph of last season, this show felt a little disappointing. The cape
dresses with concealed belting and their play on volume were plausible
enough, but Grecian pleat columns in sickly tones seemed uninspired. Ditto
the sleeveless jackets that were also reworked into slightly bulky dress
coats, or the striped, bustle-detailed skirts. Accents of burnished bronze
on woven leather bags and heels also felt a little heavy-handed.
Exhausting one segment of the colour spectrum, even if your dresses do come in
fanciful shades of caramel, copper, saffron and marble, does not an
innovative, fashion-forward collection make. CA
Moschino
If London is the capital of conceptual, wacky invention then Milan is the
filter through which next season's trends spring forth. Luckily for
Moschino, its offbeat aesthetic means it has had more practice than most in
redefining the ruffle and flounce that has been spotted on every catwalk
this week.
While most of Milan has spent the past few years getting to grips with
bondage-style dressing and mean, lean warrior machines, this is a label that
has never been afraid to adhere to its signature detailing. And finally it
has come into its own.
Swishy swing coats in monochrome with exaggerated bows were a strikingly
confident opening statement. And the clothes only got louder. Next up were
bright emerald, raspberry and cornflower blue drop-waist dresses featuring
tiers of frills, and slim-fitting coats that were worn either as eye-popping
colour clashes or left to stand alone as bold colour blocks - all the better
for elongating the body.
Those seeking a neutral palette (stone, mushroom and black) were equally well
catered for. The taupe, techno-fabric trench coat with its ruffled
epaulettes succeeded in being quirky and yet still commercial. And which
woman doesn't appreciate the forgiving cut of 1950s couture-ish shaped tops,
skirts and cocktail dresses?
Overall, this collection was pretty and feminine. But certainly not for
wallflowers. CA
Jil Sander
Raf Simons, creative director at Jil Sander, knows how to put on a seductive
show, that's for sure. He even knows how to make fringing (rapidly emerging
as a spring trend) look chic - no mean feat.
Still, for rigorous minimalism with a 2008 slant, he's the man. That means
ruthlessly pared-down jackets, some cut away high over the shoulderblades at
the back and worn - let's assume this was for dramatic purposes only - over
ribbed wool catsuits, others with graceful asymmetric hems grazing short
skirts or shorts. It means variations on the sleeveless shift dress, some in
pearly white leather, most gently egg-shaped, some with a curtain of shiny
fringing spiralling from the nape at the front to the hem at the back - a
sophisticated alternative to the jewelled embellishment so common on Italian
eveningwear. It means kimono-inspired wrap coats, unadorned apart from the
slits beneath the arm holes. And it means a colour palette borrowed from
uniforms: black, midnight, dark wine.
Problem is, it's unlikely that much of what made this a dramatic show - the
bold cut-outs and fringed panels - will ever hit stores. We'll be left with
a return to the skirt suit (at Sander at least) and more shift dresses,
albeit superior ones. LA
