Fashion Trends & Tours in Italy

The New York Times fashion writer Jean Luce Huré says about Paris Fashion Week “a good place to say that she is promoting a false assumption, namely that the couture collections are tailor-made for the red carpet“.
“…Actually, the couture collections are tailor-made for about 500 people in the world who have the means or the connections to get an $80,000 dress, and the rest is just ballyhoo to sell the cheaper commercial stuff.”

Haute couture is a different game. Not only do you need piles of money, but you have to able to project yourself into a candy-pink pencil suit with what looks like a Japanese origami bird coming off the back.

- About the collections - (more…)

Giorgio Armani chose to broadcast his summer collection show in Paris live on the internet.
The designer explains: “Now through the democracy of the internet we can provide a front row seat for everyone”

Armani said his broadcast  was the first time an haute couture show could be followed live online.
It seems fashion editors welcomed the internet broadcast.

The trousers were one of the highlights of Giorgio Armani’s summer collection in Paris.
Katie Holmes, who watched on from a front row also including other Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett, said she loved the Armani’s show which included floor-length dresses with large sequined ribbons at the shoulders.
(source).

Hadley Freeman, Guardian’s deputy fashion and a contributing editor to Vogue, in her “Milan? It’s in the bag” stresses how at Milan menswear shows the biggest players were always more about image than the clothes.
Freeman, writes:

“The majority of the clothes ranged from the ridiculous (trench coats made out of the skins of exotic animals) to the dull (suit, suit, suit) and the press and buyers were talking with relief that at least the Paris shows were still to come. Next to menswear labels such as Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garcons, the very up-and-coming Lanvin and, most of all, Dior Homme - all labels that are innovative but wearable, and so appealing as to be increasingly familiar even to those who don’t read Men’s Vogue - how can the old Italian warhorses compete? The truth is, they can’t. So many of Milan’s biggest players were always more about image than the clothes”

Too much military, 70s, and techno.

The themes of the collections were telling: there was military, for the 18,000th time in the past three years; the 70s (didn’t we have this last year? And last season?); and as soon as a designer decrees that his theme is “techno”, leading to the kind of tin-foil appliques and all-in-one spacesuits the wardrobe assistant for Logan’s Run would have dismissed as silly, you know you are at a show where the designer doesn’t really expect anyone to buy his clothes.

But McQueen, Prada, D&G and Marni were different.

Alexander McQueen, Prada, D&G and Marni all showed very interesting collections, mainly because theirs were the only shows in which the designer seemed to put some thought into the clothes, looking at what men want to wear, what makes a man look better, and at the clothes themselves, rather than….

James Bond skiing in any Alpine upscale ski resorts seems to have inspired many designers at Milan Fashion Week. The International Herald Tribune reports: “The gentleman skier, as much at home on the slopes as in the city, is the latest creation of Italian menswear designers presenting their winter 2007-2008 collections on the Milan catwalk“.

The look emerged on the first day of preview showings when Dolce and Gabbana unzipped a gilded snow suit to reveal an impeccable business suit complete with white shirt and black tie underneath.

Frida Giannini for Gucci perfected the look at her Tuesday evening show, which was the midway mark of the five-day menswear fashion week.
Models looking like they had come from a James Bond movie, via St. Moritz, strolled down the catwalk in fur-collared ski jackets worn with quilted pants, heavy wool socks and old-fashioned lace-up mountain boots.
“The collection is very James Bond — all about the jet set crowd of the 1960s and 1970s” said Giannini after the much-applauded show.

James Bond — the latest movie about the superspy, “Casino Royale,” came out in Italy over the holidays — also inspired Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s second line D&G collection, presented Wednesday.

Earlier in the week Valentino, the quintessential designer of elegance, showed his winter wears, where his love of white was a reminder of snowy landscapes, but the overall feel was all about the indoor lap of luxury.