Milan...Versace
The screens that surrounded Versace's circular runway played scenes of melting ice caps falling into the ocean, while Prince was heard overhead encouraging the models to "do your dance." With a conflicting signal on what global warming must mean to Donetella Versace, it soon became clearer when a group of winter whites warmly moved around the runway. Some of the
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Milan...Etro
Kean Etro is never afraid to use his men's collection to prove a point. In this case, he has moved on from spring's point of nourishment from all things rooted in the earth to nourishment from wine and good conversation with friends. The show's theme, In Vino Veritas, supplied a runway full of rich, beautiful tones that had their origins
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Milan...Salvatore Ferragamo
Massimiliano Giornetti, Ferragamo's Creative Director, was inspired by the paintings of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi's that have a self-described "luminous stillness," and are very muted in tone. Just as Hammershøi's work consisted of a mainly limited color palette of neutrals, Ferragamo was mainly monochromatic with an overall impression of coolness, restraint, and quietude. Accents of rust and ink blue
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Milan...Roberto Cavalli
There's enduring fascination for the iconic elements of the Wild West amongst the Italian designers and this season Roberto Cavalli, like Dolce & Gabanna and DSquared before him alluded to it. Who can resist thinking of that most American of designers, Ralph Lauren, when presented with a bold Navajo pattern? It showed up throughout the collection, on belts and
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Milan...Gianfranco Ferré
There's been a lot of buzz around Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi's taking over the Gianfranco Ferré brand. For their first outing, the duo seemed a bit too self-conscious in their efforts to take the brand "into the future,". There were too many concepts without establishing a central voice. On the plus side, with architecture and innovative fabrics always
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Milan...Neil Barrett
Neil Barrett is fast becoming a personal favorite of the Fashion Office and we were pleasantly surprised to see that this talented designer did not cave in to the pressures of playing it safe because of the economy. Instead, he approached the season by exploring all things hybrid, and the notion of reconstruction. His "abstract eccentric" man of fall
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Milan...Bottega Veneta
Tomas Maier's response to the recent hard realities of the world was to go soft. For the F/W 09/10 Bottega Veneta collection, he had the comfort factor of a cardigan in mind ("Not an actual cardigan, but that attitude," he pointed out in notes), and so, the knits were the foundation in everything from sweaters and cut and sew
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Milan...Prada
The message of Miuccia Prada's latest men's collection was "survival of the fittest," and if anything, the fashions she presented were unusually somber and restrained. In previous seasons the collection toyed with the fragility and changing role of the modern male. This time, however, it was the notion of what it means to be a strong, effective male in such
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Milan...Costume National
"Mysterious, romantic, sober" is how Ennio Capasa defined the man behind his new collection for Costume National. Influenced by David Bowie around his White Duke period, Capasa expressed extreme romanticism with this mostly black and grey collection. The key item shown was the waistcoat, featured in almost every exit, usually worn over tonal turtlenecks and t-shirts and paired back
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Milan...Missoni
Props to Angela Missoni for continuing to modernize and elevate her family's design aesthetic. Against a back-projected image of blazing filaments, the models rushed by in an avalanche of quilted fabrics and patterns on the house's signature knitwear, washed-out cropped pants, and scuffed biker boots. What worked so well was the modernized combination of classic and quirky, while still remaining
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Milan...Jil Sander
For F/W 09/10, the genius that is Raf Simons continued his exploration of the elements of construction and how they affect the concept of men's tailoring. One of the silhouettes he presented was almost Edwardian: a high-closing, longer jacket with a waist so suppressed it produced an hourglass effect. Rounded hips were echoed in the rounded shoulders of tops,
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Milan...Dolce & Gabbana
Overhead screens displayed videos of intrecciato, the basket-weaving technique that produced the most spectacular pieces in Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana's latest collection, amazing tailored jackets with abstract notions of "over and under" patterns. An almost emotional subtext existed, pointing to the importance of staying connected to what one does best in times of peril, and for this
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Milan...Burberry Prorsum
Songs such as U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" and Muse's "Apocalypse Please" established a rather conflicting tone for the collection, which makes sense in this time of so many triumphs and tragedies. In his show notes, Christopher Bailey tipped his pageboy cap to the England of Bill Brandt, the photographer whose images captured the country's austerity in
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Starting this weekend, check this space for on-going coverage of the men's F/W 09/10 collections from Milan.
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