First View Milan Womenswear Fw2014: Avant Garde

Where other designers stage fashion, Prada treats us on tales and inspirations. A holistic experience, theatrical performance, and an inspirational happening. As always firm-rooted in cultural heritage she reflects on Germany’s cultural avant-garde and the oeuvre of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

It was a scenery flooding with vibrating contrasts – black, gold and furious red – transparency and opaque – veils and shearlings – matt and shimmer.

Deco-influenced patterns and silver trimmings among others at Prada. Bold gold-fringed starlets at Just Cavalli, corsage accessorized furs covering veils at Fendi and constructivist shearlings covering slink sheer shifts at Prada.

Inspired by Fassbinder’s love for culture and telling a story, he also showed her the darker sides of life. She mused on the opposite of rich, the doom and gloom of glam and casted sensual and eccentric she-devils wearing Prada.

Stylespot is a collaboration with Stijlinstituut Amsterdam

 

First View Milan Womenswear FW2014: Touch me Feel Me

 

The FENDI show, by Karl Lagerfeld, opened with fitted dresses erupting into tufts of fur at their seams. Lagerfeld punned that the effect was a “fur escape”. No escape though when it comes to fur this season. Puzzled we are spotting the overwhelming flood of critique-less fur. Gone are the days of manifest, consideration and reflection. Strong felt when it comes to the multidisciplinary, industrial and less known fashion designers of this era, so little when it comes to the globes powerful fashion stages.

Hairy surfaces are favoured and savoured in many ways this season. The superior quality of Italian craftsmanship demonstrated in pixel patch-working puff and fluff at Fendi. Strolling the Highlands in Max

Mara’s discreet and natural precious knits. Where Just Cavalli rocks in rich tapestry brocades and manipulated hair and fluff patterns.

‘Violets for Your Furs’ was the Billie Holiday’s song that inspired Lagerfeld – cold comfort for our furry friends.

Stylespot is a collaboration with Stijlinstituut Amsterdam

 

 

First View Milan Womenswear FW2014: Soft Spo(r)t

Here the accessible side of fashion on show during fashion week Milan. Soft touch comfy wear with a sporty esprit in plain and simple near-traditional shapes. Parka’s, trenches and woollen shirt-dresses reflect the spirit of the 60s neat and polite society, as exclaimed by Gucci. Orderly details and subtly shifted proportions, jut raising or lowering the waistlines. In sophisticated off-color-combinations that add that contemporary touch so much needed to trigger the desire-and-buy-me-machine.
Just Cavalli in general went for the hairy fluff, but here he wrapped his model in snug short shearling in a pretty pale pastel. At Fendi zippered skirts and parka’s, sporty as well as romantic, with tufts of fur on luxurious casual coats. And also Gucci tapped into the casual side of its heritage, with smart double-breasted coats, short high-waisted dresses in sugary macaron-shaded and faded pastels. To quote Suzy Menkes for NYTimes: ‘All good and luxurious stuff’.

Stylespot is a collaboration with Stijlinstituut Amsterdam