LAST season, Italian designers almost universally opted for a sweetly feminine approach to with ruffles and floral gently exercising authority throughout the collections, mood has now gone according to Milan, next autumn/winter women will be reverting to hard edged tailoring in which flowers and frills have no place.
In part, this move can be ascribed to the continuing influence of Gucci over other Italian labels. As designed by American Tom Ford, Gucci never dallied with prettiness but kept promoting clean cut suits and dark colours. The big story from this house for the end of the year is the return of the killer shoulder pad. While everywhere else, the silhouette was fairly narrow and slim, at Gucci shoulders were as broad as they had ever been during the 1980s.
So, if you kept your shoulder pads from the previous decade, get ready to put them back into jackets, dresses and even sweaters once again. Where Gucci leads, others will almost certainly follow. After all, Tom Ford showed lurex for spring/ summer and now it is one of the strongest stories from Italy for autumn/winter. While Prada looked unconvincing as a directional force last week, Gucci, its main rival in recent seasons, remained an indisputably authoritative force on the Italian fashion scene, for cut, shape and colour.
Ten Major Trends from Milan
1. Black is the New Black
LAST year, brown was proclaimed the successor to black, but this has proven to be a short lived supremacy. In Milan last week, black was back everywhere. Typically, at the Byblos show designed by Richard Tyler, the first 16 outfits shown were all black. Not necessarily solid matt black, however, but very often a slightly dusty version of the colour. Ransack the colour charts (and the thesaurus) for shades such as anthracite, gun metal, pewter and jet. Looking at the collections, it was possible to notice that black comes in an enormous variety of permutations according to the fabric used. MaxMara used black taffeta for baggy pants shown with skinny fit ribbed polonecks (these sweaters seen at a great many shows), while the Dolce & Gabbana collection - virtually a hymn of praise to this collection - had endless long coats and three pierce trouser suits in fine black wool.
2. Purple Haze
THE overall palette for autumn/winter is distinctly dark. Aside from black, there is bitter chocolate brown, bottle and loden green, deepest scarlet and then more purple than has been around since the days of imperial Rome. Again, this is a colour of infinite variety, running from wine and maroon to aubergine and rich lilac. Moschino showed a burgundy full length velvet coat with single deep inverted pleat at the back, line included Marina Spadafora served up a leather shirtdress to just below the knee in rich blueberry. Lawrence Steele used maroon brocade for a belted coat and matching full length skirt, and Missoni offered porphry semi sheer lace knit dresses.
3. Lurex
ITALIAN fashion has always had a weakness for a bit of glitter and sparkle. This used to show up as rampant gold braiding and huge gilt buttons but the approach is now more low key with lurex being enormously popular for the end of the year. Missoni, one of the strongest names in Milan at the moment, used lurex for evening wear pieces such as a copper toned wrap around mini dress, as well as a silver and black diagonal stripe long dress overstitched with a silver leaf motif. Gucci, which started the trend six months ago, showed sheer black lurex knit tops (through which shoulder pads were clearly visible) and mini dresses with softly draped necklines. Laurel included lurex in copper and black for knitwear with suede jeans or leather skirts, John Richmond used it in plum for a single breasted trouser suit and Versace, of course, was addicted to lurex in his mainline collection, using it for belted black mini dresses and purple stretch slips.
4. The Return of the Mini
ALSO big at Versace: the very little skirt. There were lots of pieces stopping at the knee, of course and some designers such as Jil Sander focussed on a mid calf length. But the indisputable fresh favourite was the very short skirt. Gianni Versace created a series of tiny silk jersey dresses with a cross over panel at the bust, Laurel had a sequence of baby doll dresses in shades of scarlet, wine and mustard velvet, and Alberta Ferretti's Philosophy line saw barely there black velvet minis with lace petticoats showing beneath. A particularly popular style with many designers was the wrapover mini skirt with a matching (and usually equally skimpy) jacket.
5. Leather and Fur
ANIMAL hide was shown in abundance last week, typified by the square shouldered and tight fitting black leather jackets which appeared on the catwalk at Gucci, with either short, tight fitting skirts or flared pants, both of these also in leather. But there were also lots of shearling coats about, such as the black full length coat with ribbed knit sleeves at Iceberg, or the wine coloured long shearling coats at Marni, which had Persian style motifs embroidered in silver thread at hip level and heavy fur collars. Fur trimming, around collar and cuffs, is widespread as are heavy fur stoles, often dyed green or purple. Versace used fur trim rather unfortunately around the bustline and hem of some strapless leather dresses, but otherwise, as a rule the fur - whether real or fake, the Italians are not troubled - was usually confined to coats. Ponyskin coats also abounded, black and full length at Trussardi or rich chestnut and to the knee at Gucci.
6. Velvet
THE predominance of dark colours for autumn/winter suits a fabric like velvet which has sufficient lustre to stop some shades looking too dull. Understandably, therefore, panne velvet proliferated at the shows, appearing in wine for an empireline dress with silk brocade swing coat at Lawrence Steele and in ruby for a full length dress draping on the hips at Jil Sander. Velvet devore was employed in a black and turquoise or red checkerboard pattern for shirts at Gucci and in black for a side tying knee length coat at John Richmond.
7. The Trouser Suit
IT CAME on strong a year ago and, unlike brown, there's little change. Trousers retain their strong position in every woman's wardrobe and no wonder when, as men have known for centuries, they're so comfortable and practical. The trouser suit can be glamorous (silver satin at John Richmond), crisply businesslike (Mafioso style double breasted pinstripes from Dolce & Gabbana), endearingly Chaplinesque (baggy pants and loose jackets at Prada) or coolly sexy (the Gucci option; black light wool flared suits with no shirts and the jackets pulled in at the waist with a wide patent leather belt). What it can't be is overlooked.
Two other possibilities were offered last week for the trouser suit. The first is a slightly longer frockcoat style of jacket with matching pants, usually teamed with a poloneck sweater or a shirt for a more casual approach. The second is a more overtly feminine approach to the suit thanks to a jacket which ties on the hip at one side.
8. The full length coat
THERE were lots of knee length coats about but the most important style for autumn/winter is the waisted, ankle skimming style. It was best embodied by the coats shown at Dolce & Gabbana, wonderful black examples lined in red and deliberately suggestive of a priest's soutane. Other great greatcoats included a navy wool belted trench with fur collar and cuffs at MaxMara; a black wrapover ponyskin example at Laurel; and chocolate full length leather tying on one side at Trussardi. Also irresistible - Dolce & Gabbana's leopard print panne velvet full length peignoir coat with purple fur collar.
9. The Cardigan
HAND KNITS were such a feature of last week's shows, it was as though all the Italian designers had just rediscovered their grandmothers. Knitwear was either very fine (tending towards sheer) with lots of polonecks, or else rather chunky in the style of traditional Aran sweaters. And there was particular interest in the belted cardigan which often doubled as a jacket or coat. Moschino, for example, showed an Aran stitch cardigan coat reaching to the ankles in broad bands of cream and taupe, Jil Sander had a mid calf flecked brown knit cardigan clinched with a broad black leather belt while John Richmond came up with a mid blue wide ribbed cardigan coat with fur collar.
10. The Slip Dress for Evenings
COME nightfall, the tendency seen over recent seasons for underwear to become outerwear continues.
The slip dress, a brief sliver of fabric suspended from two tiny straps, is Milan's preference for evening wear. There were some long slip dresses, but the majority were notable for their brevity. At SportMax, it appeared in mustard and red chiffon printed with a leaf silhouette design, Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti had a red velvet slip dress stopping, like so many others, well above the knee and the Prada collection also included many mini slips, not least one in flesh coloured chiffon embroidered with black jet in a Turkish design.
Foot Note
START training your feet now in six months' time, the perilously high heel will be in vogue. Right across the shows (with a couple of very odd deviations) stiletto heels averaging four inches were to be seen. These could be on suede boots coming up to midthigh (Ferragamo), ankle boots (Dolce & Gabbana) or courts in metallic patent (Gucci where the heels were pencil thin). Mules and ankle straps were the norm for evenings. And those thin straps set the tone for belts next autumn/winter too. For coats (and cardigans) chunky belts are permitted otherwise the slimmer, the better.