MILAN — Fashion’s reset began at this time in Milan, however the notion that a new inventive director should wipe the slate clear doesn’t essentially make for the best technique.
Case in level: Demna’s debut at Gucci — first dropped on Monday as a lookbook of Catherine Opie-lensed Italian archetypes — referenced predecessor Alessandro Michele’s work for the home, significantly his penchant for constructing characters after which dressing them up, in addition to the legacy of Tom Ford, scantily clad and chillingly cool, not to point out Demna’s personal work at Balenciaga, give or take a GG.
The impact was one thing like a assortment zero, a start line, a basis.
Gucci appeared to spare no expense in pushing the launch. The similar characters from the lookbook appeared on the crimson carpet Tuesday night time as a preamble to a quick film — “The Tiger” — directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, and starring none apart from Demi Moore, Edward Norton, Ed Harris and Elliot Page, screened in a cinema designed by Niklas Bildstein Zaar.
It was a substantial piece of labor that grappled with id and ego, however was it in the end greater than filler that buys Demna time as he concocts considered one of his viral exhibits for February? The garments had been scarcely related to the grotesque household story on display. Will they promote? We’ll quickly discover out as they’ll be in shops by the tip of the week.
Now that he’s doing double responsibility at OTB stablemate Maison Margiela, is Diesel designer Glenn Martens at risk of inventive fatigue?
Martens’ newest outing for the group’s flagship model, which he’s been knee-deep in revamping since he joined in 2020, was one other experiment with presentation codecs: True to his effervescent thoughts and the pop spirit of the label, the designer aimed to carry the shopper nearer with a city-wide egg hunt, that includes glassy, human-sized eggs, every containing a look on a reside mannequin.
The thought match properly with a assortment by which distressed materials, a Diesel signature, took on a double-faced tingle, with the within and outdoors of the clothes in fixed dialogue.
If Martens was extroverted, Lorenzo Serafini performed introvert at Alberta Ferretti, envisioning an impalpable wardrobe of Mariano Fortuny-esque caftans, peplums and Delphos robes for the right hostess entertaining visitors in her patrician mansion, a bit like Tina Chow, who within the Eighties, draped in classic pleats, performed that position at her husband’s New York restaurant. There was grace and class, however Serafini’s voice felt a little faint.