Milan Fashion Week: Bottega Veneta, Emilio Pucci and Jil Sander Shows

Italian journalist Anna Battista continues to comment for Look At Me for the most remarkable shows of Milan Fashion Week.

Bottega Veneta SS 2012

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Not everyone remembers this, but during the heyday of Italian fashion, textile companies' products were viewed as the most important source of inspiration. However, over time, it became cheaper to import fabrics from other countries, and Italian textile mills lost not only their importance, but also their business. Thomas Mayer, the head of Bottega Veneta, as if reminds us of the former importance of textiles with his collection, where each item is distinguished by high quality and perfect execution.

The collection opens with corset dresses of rich colors - green and purple. Then it becomes clear that Meier has something in store for everyone. The collection includes a variety of trouser suits and individual items: knitted sweaters in the spirit of the 60s, jeans and denim jackets with printed lapels, creating incredible optical effects (such a jacket can be an excellent long-term investment of money), simple but well-made silk aprons dresses with vinyl inserts and tunic dresses with leather and plastic stripes. Elegant and casual items coexist in the collection - this was most clearly expressed at the end, when fluttering chiffon dresses and orange-red jeans with a dark red top like a caftan appeared.

In general, the collection is dominated by a young spirit, but the choice of fabrics (from silk, chiffon and leather to translucent plastic) and the decorative part (beads, embroidery and geometric patterns on bathing suits and dress corsages in the form of small squares) speaks about experience, maturity and knowledge

In the choice of colors, Mayer may have been inspired by the paintings, but sometimes - especially in the case of corrugated colored organza dresses - inspiration seems to come from Capucci. In terms of technology, the collection was made really well. Some things even made us forget about the legendary accessories of Bottega Veneta, such as matte leather bags of crocodiles, ostriches and lizards with famous weaving. Judging by the audience who surrounded Meier at the end of the show, most of the journalists were ready to agree with that.

Emilio Pucci SS 2012

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Bringing a glorious fashion house back to life is always an easy task. In the case of Emilio Pucci, the complexity looks just cosmic. The marquise's legacy includes a variety of things, imbued with the Mediterranean spirit, and the famous multi-color prints. Until now, Peter Dundas coped with this task, but the latest collection is somewhat disappointing.

Mastery is definitely seen in the spring-summer 2012 collection. But the design of most things, which are dominated by Gypsy lace-up tops, opening the belly, long skirts, silk combination dresses, knitted caftans, interspersed with trousers or bermudas in combination with shirts, on which the famous print adorns, evokes mixed feelings: besides, that they balance on the verge of elegance and kitsch, they just look outdated. A clear mistake was to add more than one Pucci print to one thing, which resulted in an unsightly mosaic effect on tops and scarf ties. Another mistake was the motif of the skull on the mini-sheathed with crystal mini-dresses and tulle tops (Marquis Pucci must have turned over in his coffin).

Dundas says he owes Brigitte Bardot gipsy motives. But the emphasis on femininity, a noticeable place of linen and lack of good cut definitely damaged the collection. Perhaps, if Dundas wanted to remain loyal to Pucci's heritage, the collection would have less banal bohemianism and more clever ideas (Pucci created the Vivar print, impressed by the view of the island of the same name from an airplane, so how about a geographical source of inspiration, Peter?).

At the end of the show, it became clear that the best thing was a fan decorated with the legendary Pucci print, which was distributed to all viewers, among whom, by the way, was Anna Dello Russo, dressed for the occasion in a blue dress made of feathers with the same headdress - whether Moulin Rouge, whether a chicken coop. Forgive them, Pucci, for they know not what they do.

Jil Sander SS 2012

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Looking at the Jil Sander show, connoisseurs of cinema and art must have felt themselves in familiar territory, somewhere between the decorations of the Arpele garden in Jacques Tati’s “My Uncle” by Jacques Tati, the Cubist interior of the Masoch Club in Elio Petri’s “Tenth Victim” and red-yellow -blue composition Mondrian. In the white decorations there were hollows filled with black, blue and yellow gravel, which created an ideal background for the works of Raf Simons.

The show opened with a series of white slim dresses without a collar, causing associations with nurses, and dress coats decorated with small clips on the back. Then the mood of the spa or beauty salon began to prevail (imagine Claudia Cardinale as the virgin spa worker in "8 1/2" Fellini - something like that). Prints with fluorescent or brocade paisley on a pink, green or blue background or on the back without any background give things lightness and playfulness, but the forms remain more or less strict: dresses below the knee are combined with lace-up shoes to the middle of the calf.

The second part of the collection opened with white and blue checkered trousers and skirts, green-purple-blue dress, gathered at the waist, and sweaters with intarsia, clearly inspired by Picasso's ceramics (numerous thanks to his family in releases, so no copyright infringement and no plagiarism) . Bright white strapless dresses and cotton dresses with long skirts, dedicated to the minimalist brides Jil Sander, were presented in the final part.

It is noteworthy that the cut was used to impart sensuality along with an architectural or optical element: sometimes the strict conservative dresses had a cutout on the back, and the jackets had detachable parts in the front. The perforated knitted sweaters and plyetya resembled the design of the gates of the Arpele villa in My Uncle, and the dark blue dress was combined with a jacket with an asymmetrical arrangement of buttons that looked like a suit.

It was impossible not to notice the cinematic mood - not only in the music, which included numerous melodies from films of the 60s, but also in such details as Stephen Jones' hats. Johns, who worked together with Simons for the first time, presented unusual cotton hats with netted veils, prompting many viewers to think about their origins: some called them veil ski hats, and some were veiling beanies, although they still somehow resembled the form home turban Madame Arpel in the movie Tati.

In general, the show and the collection fully expressed what Jil Sander is associated with, namely, simplicity, minimalism, purity and a passion for modernist fashion. In the movie Tati, the main characters, the technology-loving Arpele family, live in an automated and mechanized home and surround themselves with minimalist furniture. Gerard, the son of Arpele, loves to spend time with his uncle, Monsieur Hulot, who lives in an old house and prefers traditional lifestyles and clothing. Perhaps Symons is somewhat similar to Hulot, because he lives in a dual world, but his secret is not to resist modernity, but to use and carefully mix traditional and modern trends in equal measure.