Getting through four days of men’s fashion shows in Milan is both an obstacle course and a race. Show tickets turn up late, or not at all. I lost my driver on the corner of Via San’Andrea and Via Montenapoleone among 80 identi-kit chauffeurs and navy sedans - twice. And some stylish Milanese is, ratcheting up an off-the-scale bella figura, probably wearing my Persol 714 limited edition sunglasses which I left on my seat after the Roberto Cavalli show. Dammit! And let’s not forget the pbarrel of Chianti on my last night due to the relief of getting through it all, ensuring I could scarcely focus on any moving object the following day.
Reassuringly though, many designers returned to the core values of their brands which Gucci’s case led to a show of such understated elegance – vintage silk scarf-lined beige jackets, narrow pants and classic snaffle loafers - that the folkloric bling of the last few seasons were quickly forgotten like last month’s Xmas decorations. Frida Giannini, creative director said by looking in the archives she’d found a way of pushing the brand forward which could be a motto for this winter season as a whole.
Salvatore Ferragamo under the design reins of Massimiliano Giornetti (a name that can only be said after a slug of Barolo), took above the knee sweeping great coats and oversized chunky scarves as his vaguely Argentinian theme played out to a sound track of beating horses’ hooves. Autumnal colours of browns and deep reds stood out in a season that was more often than not monochrome. In fact, outer wear, especially coats, played out on catwalks far more than suiting, accessories or hats. It was as if Milan was saying – buy yourself just one over-sized decent coat and you can brace yourself against whatever the world throws at you.
Of course not all followed this simple idea. To be contrary Alexander McQueen took a post-apocalyptic theme with a show dominated by sand-blasted, skull printed suits and skin-tight head stockings as if the future may well resemble the world of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak novel, The Road. I think I’d rather sweep through life in a Ferragamo great coat, or if I was feeling futuristic, donning one of Versace’s skin tight leather biker jackets. Alexander Plokhov, the house’s new design director said he was - just like Giannini at Gucci - going back to Versace’s brand values. The Versace man suddenly looked purposeful again in his Matrix-esque sunglasses and ultra-slicked hair.
For those excited that fashion is going to end up eating itself, proof was found on the Prada runway. A third of the show’s exits were women wearing the brand’s pre-Fall collection which looked oddly similar to what the men were wearing, and strangely hardly any press commented on. Perhaps they’d all been on the Chianti too and hadn’t noticed the fifteen girls filing past them. Both genders wore golfing shoes that had certainly hit the bottle called, ‘Drink Me!’ as they’d each sprouted impossibly long tassled tongues. They were hardly desirable, but I could see Tiger Woods sporting them - anything to distract the media from his imploding personal life.
Milan Mukmirovic creative director at Trussardi didn’t show a catwalk collection at all preferring to present his ideas on the top floor of the Trussardi store opposite the famous La Scala opera house. Which was a surprisingly venue for his dressed down chunky knitwear, Alpine boots and puffa jackets. ‘We’ve brought our prices down by about 20 per cent,’ said fashion’s very own renaissance man. ‘Men aren’t interested in the catwalk any more, they just want to find clothes they can wear’. Which was probably the sanest, but also the dullest thing I heard all week.
So pat on the back then for Vivienne Westwood who took a very special curtain call after her A/W collection which was kick-started by a model stumbling out of a cardboard box onto the catwalk (how long had he been in there? Poor man). Dame Viv was wheeled to take her applause on a hospital trolley. It was a Derelict moment straight out of the film, Zoolander. Catwalks. How could we possibly live without them?
