Wed, September 25 2019 » Fashion Blog
FENDI SPRING SUMMER 2020 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
SOLAR FLAIR
Drenched in the warmth of an Italian sunrise, the FENDI Women’s Spring/Summer 2020 Collection designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi charts a path of playful opulence through a summer’s day. Impossible blooms and ethereal textures intertwine to trick the eye – shifting in weightless moments of FENDI craftsmanship, invoking the hidden decadence of the everyday.
Roman sensibilities luxuriate in the rub of utility with the frivolous and the ultra-feminine. A sunny palette surges into acid brights from wisps of palest pink, honey and pecan. Emerging from a waking dream, the FENDI woman delights in undone expressions of new borghese energy.
Reveling in the refraction of blown-up gingham and block-cut blanket flowers, flurries of graphic geometry invite a sensual play of transparency, perforation, weaving and knits. Pockets and hemlines float on honeycomb tulle creating artful suspensions, translating precious fur techniques into square twinset tailoring and ample jacket shapes bifurcated with diaphanous panels.
Paperbag shorts and trousers in waxed or organic washed cottons meet double-buttoned shirt coats and jackets in cotton toweling, glazed florals or rich suede. Summer fur is bonded to floral lycra or knitted as a plush check, whilst draped sheer sequins and filmy knits echo the sculptural dimensions of cloudy quilting and cloqué. A kaleidoscope of texture and tone remixes FENDI tradition with a streak of summer rebellion.
The FENDI Spring/Summer 2020 Accessories reprise the Collection’s natural materials, as the Peekaboo is woven in compact raffia, latticework leather and open weave FF logo toile. The Baguette is encrusted with blanket flower marquetry and a new short-handle tote is finished in burnished calfskin and stripe suede. Slinky knee socks match stack-heeled slingback loafers and peep-toe floral sandals.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
BOTTEGA VENETA SPRING SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
“Spring 2020 evolves the codes we are building at Bottega Veneta. Our focus is on process and clarity; immediate and direct.” Daniel Lee, Creative Director.
This collection plays with proportion, soft structure cutting through tension and technique with a clean new ease. The balance of colour is calm, bold, rich and defined in black, chocolate brown, gold, tapioca, orange and tones of blue.
Jewellery disrupts the silhouette, weaving through tactile surfaces. Classicism contrasts modernism with refined techniques: knot, weave and knit. Materials feature in their purest form: Wood, gold, lacquer, stone, leather, cotton and the body.
Accessories resonate with the attitude of beauty and comfort. Uncompromising and unstructured, contrasts are essential. Collage, texture and nuance; each a continuous extension of each other. Bottega Veneta embodies warmth, desire, joy and celebration. An elevated reality to live in.
“Bottega Veneta is about the individual, it’s for you.” Daniel Lee, Creative Director.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
MAX MARA SPRING SUMMER 2020 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
‘Fiction needs more female spies,’ says feminist writer Natasha Walter, ‘after all, women are trained to keep secrets’. Her fiction debut A Quiet Life puts a woman at the centre of a spy thriller. She’s not the first –action adventuress Modesty Blaise has been around since 1963- but she’s one of very few.
The latest is the BBC America phenomenon Killing Eve. It has won a bunch of accolades (with nine Emmy nominations pending) and its writer, woman-of-the-moment Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been hired to polish the script of the new Bond movie. Due to premier next Spring, Waller-Bridge says it will ‘treat women properly’. And hopefully we will get a dash of her tongue-in-cheek humour.
Max Mara imagines the wardrobe for a film yet to be made. All the tropes are there, but turned around. Modesty Blaise is the new 007. She admires Bond’s elegance, but questions his modus operandi. Bumpy car chases, shootouts and cataclysmic explosions -dangerous, dirty and unnecessary, she thinks. With a strategic hint and a well laid trap, she manoeuvers her adver- sary into surrender. No need for a gun then, but the holster makes for a very stylish design detail.
Our film begins in London; a car rides through rain streaked Whitehall, heels click briskly in the corridors of power, the dark hush of a wood paneled office. She wears spy-style trenchcoats and sharp shouldered three-piece trouser suits in ‘sharkskin’ and Prince-de-Galles. Later, lunch at a discreet Mayfair watering hole; she wears a playful mix micro foulard prints in black and white.
To the airport; she never travels without a generously proportioned bush jacket and a perfectly designed Whitney bag. The latest are small, soft and neat or big enough for overnight (you never know). A private jet delivers our heroine to a palm fringed island. She crosses the glittering bay by speed launch to a sequestered hideaway.
She favours tropical military uniforms –shorts that graze the knee and multi-pocketed shirts in eau-de-nil, shell pink, and powder blue. Perfect for keeping cool when chasing through the jungle. She is prepared for every eventuality. Cocktails with the subject of her assignment? A grand affair at the Governor’s mansion? She has long pale paisley print bias cut skirts and fluid pastel gowns with tough looking braces.
She walks across the lawn to a waiting helicopter in a flurry of diagonally placed silk volants. In this film –and in real life- Max Mara never lets her down.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
N°21 SPRING SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
EMANCIPATED EROTIC MOOD
This is N21’s first co-ed women’s and men’s show. The collections come from the will to stretch beyond won ground; from the desire to talk about a natural erotic inclination; and from the need to rethink attitudes so as to indulge a notion of fashion that promotes renewal.
“I wanted to do a co-ed show with the women’s and men’s collections because I care about giving a narrative unity to my idea of fashion. I think Fashion is a unique and global concept and that only a person who wears the clothes expressing it is able to personalize it, namely accord it a gender identity and transfer to it a distinct personality: her or his own. This conviction has always been the springboard for my work method. That’s why the initial inspiration behind this collection is a sense of eroticism that cuts loose from exclusively sexual expressions and becomes a means for speaking through the body. That’s also why I designed the same clothes for women and men, without falling into the no-gender trap, yet having the two genders — female and male — meet in a continual intersection of references re lines, volumes and fabrics. This also affords me the chance to express a disruptive viewpoint: one contrary to the conformism and moralism that in current years have been imposing too many rules on people’s lives and therefore on fashion as well”, says N21 creative director Alessandro Dell’Acqua.
REFERENCES Micro floral print fabrics create androgynous outfits where jackets with wide lapels and ventilated sleeves make a smart match with shorts layered over pants. Print nylon forms parachute dresses. Duchesse serves to define voluminous anoraks with keyhole opening in back. Cady shirts have high collars plus long bow closures at back of neck; both men and women wear these shirts with baggy bermudas. Chiffon plissé skirts are washed, as are leather shirts and gazer jackets, so as to obtain imperfect effects and lighter weights. The masculine weight of knit sweaters is contrasted with allover crystal beading.
ATTITUDE Very elegant, the collection features made to be styled in the wearers own way, making keen use of atelier tricks of the trade: jacket sleeves open up; tops play a morphing game on the torso thanks to clever buttoning; a chiffon dress forgoes sleeves and takes on a slip-dress pose; floppy bows work to construct sheer dresses while flat bows on baby-doll dresses have the look of passementerie; plissé skirts in part leather part chiffon add sensuality to movement; men’s jackets and pants preserve the same cut and fabric in the women’s version; other plissé skirts have wide hems the specific result of washing.
ACCESSORIES Cubic is the name of the sandals with cubic-sculpture heel and split-in-two sole that present the same prints and crystal beads as the clothes in the collection. There are also short pointy-toe medium-heel mannish boots in black, green and brown. A leather envelope bag, often with micro floral print, comes in micro and macro sizes.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
PETER PILOTTO SPRING SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
An arrival in Milano becomes an escape from the city. Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos present their Spring Summer 2020 collection with a dose of solar optimism, swirling with the smudged florals and acid pastels of symbolist painting. Nostalgic, carefree inspirations accumulate in saturated colour and palpable textures, imbuing fresh separates for women and men with a playful elegance somewhere between the ballroom and the beach.
From iridescent to towelling textures, a focus on elevated fabrics in boyish workwear shapes joins the Peter Pilotto vocabulary of ultra-feminine drape – playing crisp and matte cottons off hammered silks, japanese wools, sandy knits and plush terrycloth.
Riffs on polos and bowling shirts contrast the sophistication of corsetry and belted sash volumes, whilst roomy jackets in topstitched damask or stonewash denim are layered with ruched, asymmetric skirts.
Pleated shorts or straight pants push all-over print stories to new heights, as petals and leaves blur against aquarelle washes. Engineered knit pieces breathe as ribbed lurex column skirts, mockneck crop tops and crochet-effect cardigans.
The Peter Pilotto leather goods collection arrives in myriad ice cream tones of nappa and satin, from crescent satchels and rounded backpacks to printed floral totes and double duty mini pouches. As though floating off the body, crystals or opaque stones congregate in celestial jewellery and adorn sparkling stiletto sandals.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
ALBERTA FERRETTI SPRING SUMMER 2020 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – MILAN FASHION WEEK
Making clothes that embody a sense of uniqueness by applying the rules of a renewed tailoring to make every day dressing special. Alberta Ferretti’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection is dedicated to women of character, women who want to identify themselves in a narrative that uses fashion to stand out.
« I started working on this collection with the idea of creating a contemporary story, trying to find a balance between the feeling that women have for fashion and the carefree attitude of today. I decided to deepen my search for customization, to make each garment the chapter of a story and transform everyday clothing so that it can be applied for many special occasions. »
Alberta Ferretti
The collection, framed by an emotional video installation created by the artist Fabrizio Plessi, maintains the integrity of design precision while simultaneously communicating the same emotion and feeling through atelier techniques to ready-to-wear.
Small embroidered capes turn into tops and are paired with suede trousers or washed and dyed denim with a tie-dye technique that mimics the inlay; washed silk dresses are constructed with patchwork of colors alternating with crochet work, fabrics with black and white animal prints with psychedelic graphics make up the dresses, jackets and trousers; white or black shirts in embroidered muslin combine with chiffon: elements that define a refined day attitude to inspire dressing well every day.
The evening offerings transition to blue, through a degradé effect that sinks into black. Chiffon ruffles create “tremblant” surfaces; dresses consist of fluid and layered lines stand alongside those embroidered with micro- beads and varying sequins.
This quest to personalize every look also addresses accessories. Suede bags inlaid with a patchwork effect are combined with flat sandals with leather straps and jewel details.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
BURBERRY SPRING SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK
EVOLUTION
‘My first year at Burberry was about understanding and refining the new codification for the house. With that foundation in place, I feel ready to start exploring what’s at the heart of this incredible brand.
In the archive, I discovered this beautiful story at the origin of our past. Thomas Burberry was a young pioneer and a self-made man who built his company during the Victorian era – a time in Britain for great change and progress and an era that has always inspired me and my work. He chose to present his company with an emblem of a knight on a horse, but for his family crest, he instead chose a unicorn. Thomas Burberry was a daring innovator but also a romantic and a dreamer.
This is the story behind this collection, a collection inspired by our past and dedicated to our future. It’s the evolution of our Burberry kingdom.’
Riccardo Tisci, Burberry Chief Creative Officer
Burberry presented its new Spring/Summer 2020 collection in West London tonight. The collection, called Evolution, is a celebration of new house codes and is influenced by the time Burberry was founded – the Victorian era.
The show was presented in a vast theatre which was transformed to feature a giant mirrored cube at its core, which lifted as the show started to reveal a Victorian-inspired sound system installation with rust flooring and ceiling. The space reflected the palette of the collection with hues of white, grey, silver and neutral earth tones.
The collection mixes innovative techniques with classic fabrications. Victorian-inspired silhouettes create cinched waists and elaborate sleeves for both men and women, while fluid fabrics and hybrid details such as detachable and extendable hems feature throughout. Introducing Anne on the runway, our equestrian-inspired style detailed with Thomas Burberry Monogram hardware and bridle straps. Signature unisex bags are reinterpreted – from Lola, in miniature and bum bag iterations, to the giant Pocket Bag.
Tue, September 24 2019 » Fashion Blog
CHRISTOPHER KANE SPRING SUMMER 2020 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK
ECOSEXUAL
For Spring Summer 20, Christopher Kane continues to explore and break down the taboos around desire.
Make Love with the Wind, Sleep with the Stars, Feel the Flowers… this season, the Ecosexual collection encourages us to become intimate with nature by indulging in earthly pleasures.
Mon, September 23 2019 » Fashion Blog
CHALAYAN SPRING SUMMER 2020 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – LONDON FASHION WEEK
post – colonial body
In the midst of our daily lives, we take behavioural codes and the invisibility or the confidence of the body for granted. At times we are lost in euphoric exoticisation of the body, but we barely question how the physical presence and demeanour can be affected or moulded by various historical events which took place in the world.
In this light “The Postcolonial Body” is a study of dance and movement amongst various ethnic groups which have been colonised by Western forces. America and Japan have been the two focus points of inspiration. South America as the example of deeper infiltration of colonial attitudes stemming back to Spanish and Portuguese occupation between the 16th and 19th century, whilst Japan as a much shorter-lived example, but one which has become subject to remarkable consequences, where the economic, cultural, and social landscape has been heavily moulded by the US occupation during 1945-1952.
The collection fuses dance and movement from South American dance genres and Japanese ritual enactments celebrating seasonal rites of fertility and abundance. Part imaginary, part a study; the clothes are conceived in a spirit of enforced joy and protest at the same time.
The clothes and the fabrications:
The structure of the clothes is inspired by drapes mimicking moving bodies from genres which fuse dance of the European immigrants, former slaves and working classes of people, as well as looking at contemporary dance which instigates a sense of physical discipline and restraint.
While the collection is imbued with the above themes, the shapes and surfaces of the Chalayan wardrobe remains wearable and practical.
Mon, September 23 2019 » Fashion Blog
