Max Mara© Copyright 2019
THE POLITICS OF GLAMOUR
‘I like glamour. Not afraid of it.’ So declared the iconic supermodel and many times face of Max Mara, Linda Evangelista. She wasn’t, but many were. Sometimes, in the debate about fashion and feminism, glamour took a beating. Right now, everyone’s talking about fashion that empowers women, but how exactly does that work?
Max Mara says it’s all about clothes that allow you to shine. Glamour is the magic ingredient that puts the power into power dressing. More than just ’fashion’, glamour offers an armoury of personae, tricks and tools. Thinkers like Camille Paglia rejoice in that. ‘It’s men who suffer from conventions of dress,’ she says.
Max Mara’s boss lady works that advantage to the full; she is sharper, smarter and sassier than ever. What does Max Mara glamour translate into? A silhouette that’s strong at the shoulder; wider, boxier and leggier. Skirts that look as though they were cut from mens’ pants –above the knee, or ankle grazing- to wear with thigh high boots and svelte polo sweaters.
Plush alpaca, camel and cashmere artfully bound in leather. A new luxe take on puffas –with camel’s hair wadding. In trademark camel, black, white, and tan, heritage prints discovered in the archive. A bold mix of tweed, jaunty checks, proudly faux croc and zebra. And for the working woman, workwear, literally; impeccably tailored utility vests, jackets and cargo skirts with multiple zips and pockets.
The moodboard recalls that early nineties moment when the supermodels strutted the Max Mara runway in threes and fours. Happy and heroic, in tech- nicolour total looks; the kind of bright optimism that we need a bit of now. A Teddy in audacious cyan, cerulean or corn yellow? Why not? It will light up your winter, this year and many more to come. And where better to show than Università Bocconi? A world class institution whose graduates are movers and shakers –nearly half are women, and the number is rising.
‘Dressing like a woman means wearing anything a woman deems appropriate and necessary for getting the job done.’ says Roxane Gay. Max Mara goes one step further; here’s the suit that makes you look forward to getting up and dressed in the morning, here’s the dress that picks you up even when you don’t really want to go to that party, and here’s the treasured coat that you wear to that meeting at which you absolutely have to triumph.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, MAX MARA, MAX MARA FW 2019-20
Sat, February 23 2019 » Fashion Blog
N°21© Copyright 2019
SUSPENSE
Sexiness, way beyond sensual because it’s an aware kind of sexy. Desired, strived after, expressed. Noir, for it operates in the ambiguity, the secret disclosure of a pervading tone of danger. A life unfolding as if in a thriller where the heroines of the story create suspense. The N21 fall/winter 2019 women’s collection embraces unexpected cuts, well-defined slits, the sharpest of lines, fashioning dresses for strong, mysterious women, a bit ambiguous. Hollywood glam femme fatales who give the wink to Italian style bad girls.
Alessandro Dell’Acqua, the creative director. «All comes from an impression I got watching Brian De Palma’s 1980 film Dressed to Kill again. I was particularly struck by the atmosphere the director created both with his voluptuous use of the movie camera and with the passionate, sensual music of Pino Donaggio, mounting a true symphony of terror on the screen.
I wanted to recreate a similar mood, sending down the catwalk a strong woman who clearly craves to come on sexy and who, with equal awareness, exalts her own ambiguity through clothes that reveal her real intentions. No more pretence. I produced a “film noir” where the dress is an authentic clue to the mystery to divulge. I designed transformational clothes, for like the women who wear them. They’re ambiguous.»
The plot of the collection. Everything opens halfway: overcoats, dresses, trench coats, cardigans. Regularly free of any fastening in front, they open and close in back thanks to zippers. Through actual razor cuts effecting an almost Fauvist brutalism, the dress in duchesse, chiffon or faille unveils underneath duchesse top and culottes; or, in alternative, an exquisitely sensual slip-dress consisting of top and latex tube skirt in a matching color. And while the trench coats preserve the look and hue of the classic Mackintosh, they undergo a transformation, either because they reveal a wholly reversible part in gold on the inside or because they have underneath another trench cut in half. As for other dresses, they have random embroidery imperfectly placed and stitched. Not at all in contradiction with the mannish latex shirts, the faux-fur wool coats (featuring an exclusive textile process) and the dyed red long-hair shearlings. Lastly, froissé sequins and lace give definition to dresses with the rumpled allure of a nocturnal adventurer who wants to come out of the darkness; accompanied simply by a melton overcoat that opens entirely in back. «It’s the plot of a story about women with striking personalities, not babes but thinking individuals able to call the shots, lead the way, also through the clothes they wear,» Dell’Acqua says.
Accessories. They are tools of a sudden, mysterious type of seduction. The Lolita bag, in leather, melton or velvet, has a chain linking it to a smaller bag held on a finger with a ring. The same chain may also come off and become a bracelet. Shoes include crystal-studded high heel mules in blush pink or in black, as well as a pump in ottoman complete with stripe and black jet embroidery.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, N°21, N°21 FW 2019-20
Sat, February 23 2019 » Fashion Blog
Watch the Moschino Fall Winter 2019 Fashion Show in Live Streaming – Milan 21st February 2019 at 8.30 PM CET. Stay Tuned…!!!
#Moschino #moschinofashionshow
Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, LIVE STREAMING, MOSCHINO, MOSCHINO FW 2019-20
Thu, February 21 2019 » Fashion Blog
Watch the N°21 Fall Winter 2019-20 Fashion Show in Live Streaming – Milan 20th February 2019 at 6.00 PM CET. Stay Tuned…!!! #N21 #numeroventuno
Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, LIVE STREAMING, N°21, N°21 FW 2019-20
Wed, February 20 2019 » Fashion Blog
“UNCLASSICAL”
A new view on elegance. For Autumn/Winter 2019, PORTS 1961 Creative Director Nataša Čagalj and her team examine archetypes of bourgeoise dressing, twisting the classic, the known, to become different.
Pared back and precise, the collection is built around cut. Gestures of draped cloth, inspired by foulards and handkerchief swatches, animate silhouettes with flying panels and scarf-effects. Layering evokes an idea of protection, of revelation in the unwrapping. The interiors of bonded fabrics in generously-cut outerwear match the clothes worn underneath, a take on a conservative twinset.
Evoking scenarios of bourgeoisie life, a baroque wallpaper pattern becomes a placement print on cottons and wools, interrupting the surfaces. Sometimes a skirt is literally twisted, to show its other side.
There is play with the age-old building-blocks of a wardrobe: coats, suits, dresses – classics. The clothes are layered up and stripped away, a lady coming undone. The signature PORTS 1961 white shirt is dissected, deconstructed – the collar becomes a decorative device, skin exposed. Knitted dresses are dissected into composite parts, allowing slashes of skin to be revealed. Woollen work shirts are carved out in back.
There is a touch of trompe l’oeil toying – again, a twist on the expected. Jackets appear with double- front, as if layered over other pieces; trousers worn underneath dresses are actually boots, with attached sleeves of cloth; jewellery features locks of hair, the earrings appearing to add length to the wearer’s own. And a sequence of furs are actually created from weightless looped yarn knits.
Fabrics are pure, assured: cashmeres and camelhair, wools coated and bonded, houndstooth and prince-of-wales tailoring, cottons. They are rendered in a hyper-classic palette of grey, camel, black and white, weighted with off-kilter touches of carmine, satsuma and eggshell. Animal patterns – reworked zebras, leopard – are recreated in jacquards and knit. For evening, stretch and double face duchesse satins in striking black and white evoke masculine tuxedo dressing, but feminised.
The whole is an emotional journey – pulling apart, putting back together. Twisting, turning, voyaging. A layered exploration, each outfit offering a fresh port of call.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, PORTS 1961, PORTS 1961 FW 2019-20
Mon, February 18 2019 » Fashion Blog
Mon, February 18 2019 » Fashion Blog
Mon, February 18 2019 » Fashion Blog
Mon, February 18 2019 » Fashion Blog
Roland Mouret© Copyright 2019
“In the last 20 years we all have become prisoners of sizing and gender, and I see this collection as a way to free ourselves, by exploring diversity and liberating our style. I really want to challenge the way we wear clothes and reduce the way we insatiably consume. To use clothes in a more responsible way and limit the single-use pieces in our wardrobes.
I think back to when I was 18 years old and exploring my identity: I would find clothes in flea markets that were often too big, but I’d make them work. I learnt how to define myself through styling the pieces I loved. You see a jacket. It’s not your gender and it’s not your size. But you like it, so who is to say that you shouldn’t wear it?
‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, the clothes aren’t oversized – they’re just bigger. And just to clarify I’m not introducing a new category- I’m using this opportunity to share my approach to redefining an identity. It’s fun. It’s a moment of expression.” – Roland Mouret
Roland Mouret offers a highly personal and unique experience for the Autumn Winter 2019 collection, inspired by Lee Miller.
Lee Miller, whose journey from model, to fashion photographer and ultimately World War II reportage photographer, is an icon of the 20th century. She refused to be defined by gender, age or beauty. Mouret has drawn inspiration from her resilience and enthusiasm for her creative career and from her indomitable spirit during a period of trauma, recession and uncertainty.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2019-20, ROLAND MOURET, ROLAND MOURET FW 2019-20
Mon, February 18 2019 » Fashion Blog
Sun, February 17 2019 » Fashion Blog
