Emilio Pucci Spring 2015 Ready To Wear

All of Milan seems to be on a 1970s trip, but the fringe, gossamer goddess gowns, and hippie beading we’ve seen on the runways here have been in Peter Dundas’ bag of tricks since the beginning at Emilio Pucci. On the penultimate day of fashion week, it’s safe to say that he does them better than anyone. He certainly injects them with more sex appeal. Need convincing? Click to Anna Ewers in a beaded macramé minidress and suede boots. See what we mean?

Dundas understands the value of power casting; he had Naomi Campbell in his lineup for the first time today. (“What took you so long?” she ribbed him at dinner later.) Ogling the models is understandable enough—they’re mere inches from your eyeballs at the Palazzo Serbelloni venue. But if you do, you might miss the artisanal details that Dundas has made as much a contemporary Pucci signature as the Florentine house’s famous archival prints.

Ewers’ macramé dress was originally embroidered on tulle, later removed so that only the tracery of beads remained. The embroidered flowers and studs on a sharply tailored pink suede blazer also dazzled, and if the tie-dye tent dresses looked like the real thing, that’s because the prints were based on get-your-hands-dirty trial and error.

Slick tailoring provided a strong counterpoint to this season’s artisanship. A tangerine orange flared pantsuit worn with a burgundy crocheted tank will remain seared in our memory for some time. Ultimately, though, Dundas zeroed in on precisely what women come to Pucci for. The finale series of printed goddess dresses was lush and gorgeous, the best of all suspended from bejeweled metal bib necklaces.

Anthony Vaccarello Spring 2015 Ready To Wear

Anthony Vaccarello took his second bow of the season tonight. In New York he’d walked down the Versus runway with Donatella Versace, trailed by models wearing the label’s most spot-on collection since it was revived five years ago. The experience with Donatella must have had an effect on him. Vaccarello’s team for his own label is four people. Versace’s? Let’s just say it’s a lot bigger. So it’s no wonder Vaccarello was in innovation mode today, thinking about his own brand, and branding. The first look out was a logo sweatshirt, stamped with his name and the season, worn with one of his signature diagonally sliced miniskirts and a shrunken leather jacket. A somewhat banal beginning, but one that Vaccarello made up for later with the cool, graphic manipulations of both his name and the word “Spring.”

The world of ships and sailors was Vaccarello’s jumping-off point. His seafaring references ran from the obvious to the less so—a brass anchor planted on the chest of a neatly cut sleeveless jacket; button-down shirts unbuttoned to the navel, conjuring visions of swashbuckling pirates. Vaccarello also had some sharp-looking denim, tailored in his typical take-no-prisoners way—note the on-theme portholes. But the real news was in the dresses and separates emblazoned with block letters created, he explained, by laser-cutting plastic film and heat-transferring it onto fabric. They twisted around the torso or the hips (occasionally and unfortunately exposing the models’ undies) like a sail wraps around a mast. Vaccarello hinted that the block letters were inspired partly by France’s many protests and partly by the artist Richard Prince. There was also the Versace factor: Those were his first-ever prints, bold and unmistakable. Donatella would approve.

Fendi Spring 2015 Menswear

Silvia Venturini Fendi is the crown princess of surprising subtext. “Nobody gets it,” she said after her latest men’s show. Was she pissed off by that? Was she pleased? One of the most attractive things about her is that she’s almost as unreadable as her collections. Silvia is, for instance, obsessed with Bob Marley. Who knew? “He was so elegant in hisjeans and T-shirt,” she rhapsodized. “I used Jamaican colors in the accessories as an homage to him.”

Nothing is ever what it seems at Fendi; the knack for creating ambiguity is something Silvia shares with Fendi’s éminence grise, Karl Lagerfeld. The fact that today’s lineup was ostensibly about the straightforward everyday—basics like blousons; macs;sweaters; jean jackets; Bermuda shorts; and, the signal look of the Milan season, suits with sandals—was surely a red rag to Silvia’s bull. That distressed jean jacket? Honey, it was bonded leather. The jacket of a thousand pixels? A basket weave of leather so intricate the eye couldn’t pick it apart.

It was as though the real world Silvia was reflecting on the runway existed simply so she could make a statement about escaping from it. Create your own reality, in other words. The instrument of escape she chose was headphones, created in tandem with Beats by Dr. Dre, that company’s latest fashion collaboration (with, promised creative marketing officer Omar Johnson, more on the way). Fendi wrapped the Beats in bold shades of its signature Selleria leather, with croc at the top of the line. When this very limited edition becomes available at the end of the year, the waiting list will be taking no prisoners.

Dsquared² Spring 2015 Menswear

Dean and Dan Caten have always been fashion’s most entertaining double act, propelled by barbed tongues, drag hilarity, and an appetite for camp so unholy it has often obscured just how much they’ve actually achieved. “We sold almost 5,000 suits last season,” crowed Dean on a walk round their massive Milan headquarters yesterday. Via Ceresio 9 is a temple to their ambition. It’s where they have consolidated all their activities: floor after floor of everything relating to the design, production, and promotion of fashion, and then, on the roof, a pleasure dome as stately as anything decred  by Kubla Khan, with his-and-his swimming pools  Wait, didn’t Andy Warhol turn a building into the expression of an aesthetic? Snap! The Dsquared² men’s Spring show was called Stud2io. It was the twins’ twist on Warhol’s Factory, and it marked a timely move away from the increasingly overwrought psychodramas that were becoming such a drag (and not in a good way).

Not that this morning’s show wasn’t a spectacle in the grand Caten tradition. It was just more…er…restrained, though how can you say such a thing about a presentation whose soundtrack began with Edie Sedgwick trembling on the edge of a Breakdown, and whose passing parade came to a Close with a ludicrously perfect male specimen in the merest suggestion of a hot-pink Speedo? But in reality, the Catens taking on a Warhol subtext lent their collection a solid through-line, with enough graphic high points to merit a show-of-the-day gong. Warhol was the Pope of Pop, and the twins grabbed his brightly colored ball and ran with it all the way to the pink Speedo. The artist’s candy-colored camo patterned a nylon shorts suit; his cat drawings provided the motif of a buy-it-now sweatshirt (fuzzy inside out). Who’s to say there wasn’t wit in a gray marl T-shirt that read “ANDY” where you’d usually expect to see “ARMY”? Warhol acolyte Stephen Sprouse’s graffiti prints and fluoros were winningly co-opted by the Catens, but when imitation comes from a place of love, again, who are we to judge?

Incidentally, the Adonis in the Speedo posed center stage, life-class-style, for the entire show. And that is at least one thing Andy would have respected in the Catens: Their reverence for the male body beautiful.

 

Michael Bastian Spring 2015 Menswear

“The Southwest is a little bit of a challenge,” said Michael Bastian at his studio in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. “I really wanted to avoid all the clichés—no cowboy, no poncho, no fringes. You know, how real guys in that part of the U.S. would dress, or my dream of how they would dress.” For Spring 2015, Bastian took his collection of sportswear to Arizona. “Maybe because I grew up in Rochester, but the desert Southwest to me is exotic,” the designer said.

Clichés were mostly avoided, but not entirely. There were embroidered Western shirts, suede outerwear, and bronze feather accessories from the George Frost x Michael Bastian collaboration. The best expression of the theme was in the dusty hues, soft, textured fabrics, and faded denim. As always with Bastian, the tailoring stood head and shoulders above the rest of the collection. Sharp suits in a linen-blend “denim,” plaid, herringbone, and windowpane were the highlights. All kinds of trousers were reimagined in typical Bastian fashion. Riding pants and cargos were stripped down; motocross pants were made summery in faded canvas and denim; and slim, tapered sweatpants were done in gray piqué.

Bastian’s vision for guys in the Southwest favored glamour over ruggedness. There was something louche in the mostly unbuttoned shirts, short shorts, and, of course, the quintessential Michael Bastian racer swimsuit. But the ease of the collection was almost too easy. The designer might have successfully avoided clichés, but all of the softening and fading seems to have removed the grit that makes the Southwest special.

J.Crew Spring 2015 Menswear

“I like imperfection,” said Frank Muytjens, J.Crew’s menswear director, at the presentation for the brand’s
Spring collection. “I don’t like when things are too perfect. I like when things are beaten up.” He was
referring to the gently rumpled, vintage-looking collection on the models standing around us. If by ”
imperfection” Muytjens meant “character,” a unique quality that makes something stand out, then mass
production doesn’t seem like the best way to achieve that. Yet J.Crew pulls it off.

The best pieces were in fact remixed vintage items that will be produced in limited numbers for J.Crew’s
boutique-style shops—a pair of denim shorts made from vintage English military sleeping bags, and basic
chinos in navy with well-worn vintage denim inserts added at the knees. But there were standout pieces
throughout the line. Pleated trousers looked surprisingly relaxed and casual. Shawl-collar knit cardigans
emerged as easy layering pieces. Baja hoodies were lightened and slimmed down with shirting fabrics.
An oversize poncho with lace-up detail looked like a fun umbrella alternative. Bombers in navy and mixed
army green were easy essentials for guys who don’t already own too many. Crusher hats on many looks
added a cool, youthful vibe.

Muytjens said the inspiration came from the idea of a Mediterranean fishing village—fishermen on the
wharf mending their nets. But that’s just his take. What makes J.Crew special is that the range of influence
runs wide—nautical, military, Ivy League, it’s all there—and the individual pieces hold up as well as the
collection as a whole.