‘New austerity’ vs. pure frivolity
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MILAN, ITALY — The runway shows at men’s fashion weeks have never been about reality -- they’re a form of absurdist theater and a chance to tell stories with needle and thread. Inevitably, after the metal-studded codpieces and underwear-as-outerwear have their runway moment, buyers turn out to showroom appointments to look at the real changes being announced.
Herringbone in brown this season? Lapels a quarter-inch wider? Stop the presses! As men’s wear designers are fond of saying, change is “evolutionary not revolutionary.” But the reliable theatrics that come first give the illusion of something much grander.
Which made Prada’s show on Sunday night all the more notable. No one knows how to leverage the art of runway as theater quite the way Miuccia Prada does, and her men’s shows in Milan are routinely light-years ahead of the rest of the pack trendwise, dabbling in pajama influences, for example, a year before they caught on elsewhere. Recent seasons have seen such sartorial non sequiturs as dude decolletage and stacked clerical collars.
But this season, you could sum up the big idea in two words: scale back. Instead of one show, she split the crowd into two successive, smaller shows Sunday night. And her intimate runway was about twice the size of a standard American living room, taking up only a quarter of a usual show footprint.
A techno/spoken word soundtrack played snippets that included “running on empty,” “imagine a world” and “lines stretching for miles.”
Hardly the kind of sexy stuff that sells suits. The most surprising thing about her fall men’s collection was how conservative and commercial the pieces looked right out of the gate. Silver studding and tiny eyelets were the most fashion-forward things about a collection filled with simple gray topcoats; sturdy suits and dark, rigid denim. Some of the pants were denim in front, with Prada’s signature black nylon in back. Tops were simple and, except for the occasional studded pieces or fine-lined artwork in black and burnt umber at the neck, unadorned.
But not everyone at fashion week here seemed to have gotten the “new austerity” memo, and a trio of shows managed to put a bounce in the step of the collections that had seemed destined to remain as uniformly gray as Milan’s permanent marine layer. Etro and Moschino on Monday afternoon offered welcomed escapism, and Dsquared on Tuesday morning added toe-tapping optimism and a love letter to our new leader.
Kean Etro, the affable clown prince of Milano Moda Uomo, labeled his show “In Vino Veritas” and showed scarves, shoes, jackets and suits in shades of deep red wine. But there was also a crazy quilt of pattern -- stripes, paisleys and geometric shapes that seemed at once Art Deco-inspired and reminiscent of the Native American influences that seemed to crop up time and again this week.
Moschino’s show invita- tions included peel-and-stick handlebar mustaches and the words “feel surreal.” That should have been a hint of things to come: Magritte- inspired bowlers and trompe l’oeil details like photo-print shirts and vests complete with printed boutonniere, and jacket and pocket trim in the same print as neckties, creating the illusion of one continuous piece of fabric looping in and out of pockets.
But it was the Canadian twins Dan and Dean Caten who gave the closing note (with seven shows to go) with a fall 2009 Dsquared collection that paired tuxedos and torn trousers with a ‘30s-era exercise in post-Depression frivolity that celebrated the Obama inauguration at the same time.
One of the final looks was on an Obama-esque model who strode to the bottom of the runway and struck a presidential pose in a tuxedo with a shawl-collar jacket and frog closure, over a pleated-bib, formal tux shirt with black bow tie.
Moments later, as Faux-bama stood at the foot of an elegant staircase, a woman in a ball gown stage-wobbled down the stairs and collapsed into his arms for a tender embrace.
On cue, the soundtrack kicked into an “Annie” tune (“the sun’ll come out tomorrow”). Little did the brothers Caten realize the first rays would flicker just a few hours and a few thousand miles west when Michelle Obama stepped into view wearing a sparkling yellow ray of sunshine in the form of an Isabel Toledo dress.
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