Massive Attic
The Age
Friday September 30, 2005
Prada mixes Betty Grable nostalgia with mock-croc accessories, and Armani appeals to women of a certain age with their spring-summer 2006 collections. By Valerie Lawson in Milan.
Prada mixes Betty Grable nostalgia with mock-croc accessories, and Armani appeals to women of a certain age with their spring?summer 2006 collections. By Valerie Lawson in Milan.BRILLIANT Italian designer Miuccia Prada, one of only seven in the world chosen recently by American Vogue editor Anna Wintour as truly innovative, showed a collection on Tuesday that looked as simple and comforting as much-loved dress-up clothes from an attic.But the simplicity hid artistry, just as the space in Milan where the parade took place was dressed for the event with a sleight of hand.The spring-summer 2006 show was held in Prada's headquarters, where stone walls were lined with mirrors and the floor laid with reflective aluminium sheeting. The vast space was surrealistic, as theatrical as an infinity pool.Prada's faded fabrics looked like white or cream paper painted with strips of cinnamon and grey, with one colour fading into another.Black shoulder straps were criss-crossed across bare backs, while crumpled silk and linen were worn with scrunched-down, wrinkled tights that resembled silk stockings, well before the era of nylon and pantihose.In contrast with so many torso-hugging, sprayed-on silhouettes in the springsummer 2006 ready-to-wear collections in Milan this month, the lines of Prada's dresses were loose, with dropped waists, finely pleated skirts and puff sleeves, a bit like the dresses mother used to make from preloved cotton and old silk.But mother never thought of Prada's 2006 accessories, mockcroc wheelies and towering wedge heels, resembling sculptures of bamboo.The waifs modelling the dresses and high-waisted shorts, some worn with a bra top, in the style of World War II pin-up Betty Grable, looked at least 16.But high-street chains will reinterpret the look instantly and make it seem instantly desirable to women, not just size-8 girls, within a month.Details the chains may like include city shorts with sheer tops, playsuits, puff sleeves, dropped waists and fivecentimetre- wide shoulder straps.If Prada's ideas seem right for a current-day ingenue in the style of Leslie Caron in the romantic musical Gigi, then the collection of Giorgio Armani may be the choice of her much older, courtesan coach in life.Celebrity guests at the Armani show on Wednesday were Sophia Loren and Tina Turner, women of a certain age, just as Armani himself, at 71, has reached that certain crossroad where he must be thinking of a successor.When the history of Italian design in the 20th and 21st centuries is written, Armani must surely be the subject of an entire library shelf of histories and analyses. His spring-summer 2006 collection was pure classicism, with short, fitted jackets defined at the shoulder and waist, contrasting with fluid skirts, some wrapped like sarongs, but most in a tulip shape, midthigh- length in front, descending to a long, cascading back. Models wore their hair in neat chignons with the hairline sculpted into 1930s waves in front.Armani's triumphant finale: beaded and embroidered evening gowns, resembling tropical gardens, worn with hats, resembling giant opened roses.The sculpted hats were as fullblown as the dresses were slinky, making the models resemble Corinthian columns ? ebullient on top, restrained below.The Milan showings, which end tomorrow, include 95 catwalk parades by Italy's top designers.
© 2005 The Age
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