Scattered thoughts about Milan Fashion Week
Unpopular opinion: September is the most beautiful month of the year. And I know, I'm definitely late in saying that, since it's already pretty much over (although it feels like it never started to me: how time flies lately?). Excluding the list of good resolutions that I punctually won't keep or, at least, not all of them, the less stifling temperatures and the return to everyday life, after weeks when day and night were the same thing, put me in a good mood. Last but not the least, September is fashion month. Sorry February, but the mood during this period is definitely more effervescent.
Milan Fashion Week has just bid us farewell, and I say this not without a dose of premature nostalgia. I spent the last week with the Vogue Runway app always open, to keep myself in the past with the collections and console myself with the missed fashion show invitations (which, evidently, all ended up in Anna dello Russo's inbox), and wandering around the city, trying to breathe in as much fashion as I could between the few events open to the public, the very few to which I was invited, but for which I am grateful, and the very many private that, locked in their impenetrable crystal ampoules, allowed themselves to be peered at from outside.
I wish I could manage to narrate Milan during Fashion Week, but the truth is that I don't really know where to start, nor where to end. It may be that I've never read anything about it either that could prepare me for what only this year I've been lucky enough (or privileged enough) to experience firsthand and a little more directly than usual. If I really had to find an image that would best represent the last week it would definitely be a bubble, in which time and space blur together, ready to burst as soon as the lights of the last show had gone out so that everything could resume its natural course. I know, it's a somewhat trite and didactic image, but that's really how I felt.
And after this parenthesis in which I romantically let my boundless love for Milan, which during fashion week rises to the cube and fills my heart (and eyes), let's come to us. It was definitely a Fashion Week of promising debuts at the creative direction of historic fashion houses, who brought a breath of fresh air and the right amount of contemporaneity. We are talking about Filippo Grazioli and Marco De Vincenzo, who have taken over from the historic family managements of brands such as Missoni and Etro, for which they have been able to work by calibrating innovation and tradition, and Maximilian Davis, who presents his first effort at the helm of Ferragamo in a thoughtful and certainly well-done collection.
These three would be enough to complete my very personal podium, but I cannot remotely refrain from mentioning some of our dear old acquaintances, if only because Gucci is among them. Those who know me know how weak-hearted the brand under the creative direction of Alessandro Michele makes me, and not even during the last fashion show were my (very high) expectations disappointed. Doubles have fascinated Michele in unsuspected times, when he walked the red carpet of the Met Gala with Jared Leto sporting an identical look or in the brand's latest campaign release starring the perfectly matched Shining twins, but during the show last Sept. 23, the theme was declined in a brilliant way. If at the beginning of the fashion show the models were alone, when the last three looks came on stage the music suddenly became insistent, announcing that something was soon to be revealed. And lo and behold, a wall in the center of the room went up and revealed to the viewers that at the same time, on the other side of the wall, an identical and perfectly mirrored parade was being staged. As many as 68 pairs of twins have been chosen by Gucci to bring to the stage this oxymoronic idea of dual never equals, aided also by careful attention to detail: as a reference for this collection Michele chooses the peluche Gizmo, a dual character from the famous Furbys, best-selling electronic toys of the 1990s. What can I say, Alessandro Michele for Gucci is on another level, but I am ready for contrary judgments that may redeem me. Or maybe not.
On decidedly more minimal concepts fall the choices of my last two protected for this Milan Fashion Week: Jil Sander and Bottega Veneta. Monochromatic dresses and soft silhouettes, warmed by rhinestone and crystal embroidery, in a collection that blends both sexes, winking at the concept of fluidity, for Luke and Lucie Meier; elegance that meets practicality the key words, on the other hand, for Matthieu Blazy, who did not want to create a collection for celebrities and lofty salons, but to dress his clients for every occasion, and that seems to be the right bet to make at a time when the fashion system is trying to come down from its pedestal to join us mere mortals here on earth.
Well, now all I have to do is come back to reality, with the wishlist more loaded than ever and the countdown already started for the next Fashion Week. In the meantime, let’s enjoy Paris!
