Milan Fashion Week has come and gone and all we are left with is a huge supply of images and shows to digest and try to make sense of the third crazy week of fashion month. As with the previous posts, I’ve split the main segments of this post up for easier navigation, which you’ll find below. As always, enjoy!
The Key shows of Milan Fashion Week
Dolce & Gabbana – An Italian Love Fest
Two things reigned supreme on the Dolce & Gabbana catwalk; an obsession with social media and a love for Italia. This could not have been more obvious in Domenico and Stefano naming their show ‘Italia is love’, and they celebrated the love for their peninsula through some of the most iconic places and things about Italy. Overall, the collection was a complete and utter mish-mash and at times it felt too chaotic to have a coherent theme running through it. We had Chinese inspired necklines, Breton stripes, Peruvian pom-poms and chinoiserie dresses. None of it made sense together, but within that mess of an idea lies the concept of their collection. It’s a worldwide love affair with Italia through the eyes of the Dolce & Gabbana brand. The brand after-all is no-longer just a European phenomenon; it sells hugely in the far east and has opened up massively in the newer markets, so from a business standpoint it makes sense to cater to these new customers and give them a taste of the brand’s global reach.
Ultimately though, this collection consisted of over 90 outfits and they couldn’t be just whittles down to five pieces to signify the collection, which is why I’ve uploaded so many. And while the collection may be a bit all over the place, take a moment to really examine the detailing and accessories, because that is where the D&G magic has been for the last few seasons. Though their overall style is very similar to the last four seasons; they have perfected the black lace, red floral detailing and Baroque accessories to a ‘T’, there is enough in the accessories to keep you going until they discover something new.
Versace – Donatella’s Safari Expedition
Donatella went tough with her spring/summer 2016 collection. There’s been a resurgence in the love for the safari theme and Africa and this couldn’t have been more obvious in Versace’s current collection. Though she uses a lot of military style in her collection, such as the dark khaki colour, bomber jackets and utility belts, the Versace model seems to be more about exploration than combat. Her colour palette, a mixture of greens, purples, burnished orange and desert sand speaks more of the safari in Africa with it’s zebra and cheetah prints, than any sort of utilitarian military style that we usually see on the catwalk. Despite all the utility wear, there is still the essential Versace woman beneath it. Skirts are short and high, dresses are peekaboo and jackets are cut to best sow off a woman’s shape. Overall it’s a bold collection, not for the faint of heart but that has never been Donatella’s client base.
Etro – Nomadic Garden
Iridescent colours and fabrics were the main order at Etro’s spring summer 2016 offering. Called the Nomadic Garden, Veronica Etro looked into the brand’s heritage and history of working with textiles to influence her latest collection. Fluttery dresses, boho jackets and light blouses were given the pyjama look with light ruffles, tiered skirts and plenty of ruching, making it a very girlish yet desirable offering.
Moschino – Take me to the car wash
Jeremy Scott does what he does best; he takes kitsch and naff themes, plays them up to the max and sets social media on fire in the process. This season it was all about the car wash, such a massive staple of Americana and he infused it with a fifties nostalgia, lots of sequins and graphic prints. He used the caution signs as detailing on his dresses, hard hats became the fashion accessory, the cleaning supplies replaced clutch bags and one model even walked down the catwalk dressed in a rotary brush. All in all this was a collection for his die-hard fans, those who love classic designs with a great big dollop of novelty.
Prada –Â Good taste/bad taste
If there’s one thing Miuccia Prada is good at, that is taking a classic item and completely reworking it into something new. She’s also the master of walking that aesthetic line between tasteful and chic and looking terrible. In fact that seems to be a great love for her. Last season’s Margot Tenenbaum themed collection was all about geekiness with a hint of ugliness to make the entire collection entirely irresistible. This season we’re moving away from geek-chic and embracing the classic skirt suit only reworked as easy separates in a variety of prints, fabrics and even some clear plastics. Her styling was off-the-charts as usual, giving us netting around the neck, Christmas baubles as earrings and low-heeled pointed shoes in luxurious suedes and patent coloured leathers. Overall this is a collection you’ll love or hate; but one thing is for sure, you’re going to be seeing a lot of it around.
Fendi – Anti-retro is cool
While everyone has been focusing on the Victorian theme for the last couple of seasons, Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi at Fendi decided to move a decade on and get his inspiration from the Edwardian era. This collection was all about the high necklines, exaggerated round shoulders and leg of mutton shorts, courtesy of the era that gave us King Edward. Through it all Lagerfeld stuck to the basic colours, opening his show with white and bold crimson, moving on to dark hues of blue, khaki and ending up with black in a variety of textures and materials. The structured bomber jackets and high blouses were interspersed with those voluminous round shoulders and a hint of ruching and his long dresses showed a hint of flesh here and there to entice even the most assured of fashion editors.
Gucci – Margot gets a make-over
Alessandro Michele, the new creative director of Gucci gave us a strong second offering of his vision for the Gucci brand after Frida Gianini stepped down at the start of the year. He took the Margot Tenenbaum theme of seventies-wear and added it a bit of a sparkle, giving the Gucci girl a chic make-over while still retaining the Geekish undertones he created last season. He is still all about mixing prints and fabrics, the pussy-bow blouse is still throughout the collection, but this time we have floaty dresses and a great dollop of sequins, should our Margot character wish to go to the disco instead. The accessories are still spot on; keep your geeky spectacles, berets and boxy handbags because they are still very fashionable. He’s also added a floaty, hippie accent to some of his dresses, making this one of the most diverse seventies trend found in one collection. Expect to see replicas all over the high street in six months.
Stella Jean – Global Wanderer
Stella Jean’s collection are a brilliant example of when globalisation works correctly. She takes the patterns, prints and themes of cultures from faraway lands and blends them together for a colourful mesh for the consumer to enjoy. Each culture’s prints and styles are treated with respect and this clearly shows in her love for prints and working out different style for them. The other thing she does so well is brighten up an often very serious industry, where clean lines and minimalism has a habit of ruling the trends. Stella Jean is certainly not minimal; as a half Haitian, half Italian former model she takes her exoticness to heart and creates pieces that are both as exotic as she is, yet still completely wearable. It’s the reason why her star power is rising so fast, for a woman who only debuted her first collection back in 2011.
Milan street style
Here are the best street styles from Milan Fashion Week. Beware, this gallery is extensive! Enjoy! 🙂
Bloggers at MFW
The age of the blogger is slowly dying. They burst onto the scene in the mid to late noughties and could be found on the front row of almost every show from around 2010 onwards. In fact it was a case of trying to spot someone other than a famous face from the internet. But as the star power of bloggers has risen, so too have the rest fallen by the wayside. I say this as someone who’s been a blogger for a number of years and watched as you see less and less of them every year on the front row. In fact bloggers I’ve been following for years are slowly eschewing going to entire fashion weeks. The reason why? Organisers of fashion weeks have been clamping down on who gets access to their shows and venues. New York was the first to buck the trend by restricting accreditation for bloggers a number of years ago, so the only way for a blogger to get to see a show is to get a personal invite from the design house or PR team running it. It made sense; with the rise of social media brands didn’t need to invite a blogger to their shows anymore to get global reach for their brand. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and live streaming now does it for them for cheaper and they can give those coveted seats to someone they feel would be able to sell their brand better, more than likely a buyer from one of the emerging markets. I’ve seen it myself how London and Paris have followed suit, but Milan seems to be the last of the great four to still encourage and embrace bloggers. So while you might only find the absolute best of the bloggers at New York, Paris and London, Milan is still more democratic. So here is a little gallery of all the bloggers spotted at Milan Fashion Week, where they showed up and what they wore.
