Milan Fashion Week - Introduction

This season Milan gave out more hit shows than any of the other fashion weeks. Normally this is Paris’s job but almost all of Milan’s shows showed us something fantastically extravagant and beautiful.

There was more then just a touch of the artist in Milan with Dolce and Gabbana literally painting their collection (the soundtrack possibly an ironic joke at the paint getting under their thumb’s).

Over at the Fendi, Gucci and Marni shows we saw each house showing their own takes on graphic modernism harking back to the 1950’s and early 1960’s

Alberta Ferretti, the queen of romanticism, took us to Ancient Rome and warrior dressing whilst sticking to her signature romantic pleating.

Tim Blanks sums up the Prada show fantastically “Everyone wants to look like a refugee from a fairytale”. Miuccia Prada realised that absolute harsh clothing of the previous few seasons aren’t actually what most women want, and that softness is what a woman wants from Prada. So she gave it to us, on paper it could have been sugary sweet but Miuccia injected her need for some kind of negative element with mismatched separates and crazy shoes. Probably one of the most talked about show of the season (come to think about it everyone has something to say about a Prada show regardless of the season!), Prada gave us another one that will be analysed for months.

Bottega Venneta showed us the most amazingly pleated coats and dresses in every shade of tope under the sun. Each look seemed to hark back to the pre-hippy 1960’s with full skirts, dresses and coats, overall a much more grown up and mature approach to romanticism.

Allessandro Dell'Acqua and Jil Sander had their own individual ways of taking on the veiling trend. Jil Sander’s was perhaps the purest form of using sheer fabrics whilst being the most risqué at the same time and Allessandro referenced veiling with Japanese Origami shapes and prints (with Feigned Perfection’s favourite shoes of the season).

Christopher Bailey’s show at Burberry Prorsum was a mixture of the Italian romanticism and traditional British rock and roll, mixed with a bit of jet set styling.

Voluminous floral dresses and Prairie Girl chic were the name of the game at D&G and Roberto Cavalli.

If there was one constant it was Romanticism, the Italians removed almost all signs of sex that they usually infuse into their vamped up collections and instead went for something much, much softer; and if economic forecasts are to be believed and we’re all going to be hit by some massive credit crunch, well designers are going to have to provide something soft for us to nestle in when we do get hit!

Well was Donatello Versace, the queen of sexy dressing, going to fall under the Romantic’s bandwagon? Well just a bit, but Versace is always on it’s own track and only decides to follow trends when it wants to. Thank God! Otherwise we’d be throwing up nothing but floral patterns for the next 6 months. Yes there wasn’t as much body-con as there has been in the past but sex is still on the menu at Versace.

So, to sum up? Romance is back!