Alberta Ferretti

19 September 2012 ~ Jessica Bumpus

ALBERTA FERRETTI asked us to take our heads out of the clouds (where it has been and beyond for London Fashion Week) and take a dip in the ocean this afternoon for her spring/summer 2013 collection.
"It was all about light and water, the movement and the crystals," said the designer backstage after the show, pointing out she was in a romantic and dreamy mood but still wanted this to translate into a modern wardrobe.
As bubbles were projected onto the backdrop of the catwalk, the models came out one by one like exotic fish - all the sartorial ingredients were there. The wispy peplums, the gentle trailing layers, the shimmer, the shine, the colour palette (every shade of blue and green going), the incandescence, all working to mimic this sense of light-as-air elegance.
Capes cascaded from backs and bias cuts on pretty dresses continued the theme, while crustrations of coral reefs hugged shoulders and spilt down onto the torsos of yet more embroidered and lace-worked gowns - some their skirt nets strewn with jewels as though the girls in these gowns were indeed the catch of the day.
It was pretty and beautiful in the truest sense - because when you visualise those two adjectives, delicate textiles, beads, embroidery and a soft femininity all spring to mind - and that latter attribute is something that Ferretti is very good at doing.

Alberta Ferretti 2013

Emilio Pucci 2013

Ready-To-Wear

by Sarah Mower

Peter Dundas knows who’s going to be seen around in his clothes next summer: the hottest girls who like to show as much of their gorgeous bodies as possible without actually being arrestably naked in public. Some of these international sirens were popping up and down in their seats to be photographed in their trophy Emilio Puccis before the show, displaying eyefuls of plunging backs, and dresses with slashed flanks and sheer lace sides. The others were the models on the runway, flocks of whom are personal friends of Dundas, who’ll now have no qualms whatsoever about the trend toward smothering themselves in such boring garments as looser shirts and fluid pants when he’s around. Why, dear Peter lets us see straight through all of them!

Peter Dundas

Gucci

19 September 2012 ~ Jessica Bumpus

GUCCI is a power house. And it knows how to pack a punch. This afternoon, Frida Giannini kicked off the Milan Fashion Week proceedings with a colour bombshell as bright shocking pink - a slick trouser suit, followed by a skirt variation with fluted sleeves - took to the catwalk to show that Milan, too, is in a sweet mood.

"We saw those jewel colours in London, at Burberry, and now we're seeing the trend live on in Milan," said Vogue's Francesca Burns after the show. But here, we were seeing them - the pink, later azure and cobalt blue, turquoise and yellow - in beautiful Sixties shapes and not of the sci-fi kind (a trend that took London by storm). There were little natty double-breasted jackets, loose little shifts in either block colour or feather prints, elegant flared trousers and long lithe gowns aplenty.

There were roll necks and high necks in there too - but their controlled and covering nature was compensated for through the exposure of the back. Be it through slits of keyhole shapes or framed by frills, the back was the body part of choice that's for sure. And it was shown off to great effect by Giannini's riff on Pierrot collars: flounces that traced shoulder blades and arms to wind around the neck and create that high neck at the front while plunging at the back - and so completing the sartorial sass for which Gucci is so well-known.

From colour to luxe, we then got a dose of snakeskin - in blues and greys that provided a serene moment among the rest of the canary brights. But those canary brights never really managed to escape - huge beads and gems of neon shades encrusted necklines with almost every other look. So even if you don't think you can do colour quite like this, Gucci has at least provided you with options. How kind.

Frida Giannini

Gucci 2013

GENNY:
a timeless
style

The brand Genny was founded in 1962 by the entrepreneur Arnaldo Girombelli: in the beginning the name identifies a production of handmade skirts and blouses, which were sold only in his boutique in the center of Ancona (a little Italian town).

The collection obtains fame among the well-to-do women, so the brand had to be more structured: in 1976 Donatella Ronchi comes to coordinate it and a few years later becomes wife of Girombelli.

The first plant rises in 1968. Another year that marks a historic moment in the life of the brand is 1973, when a young Gianni Versace - destined to enter the Olympus of Italian fashion - becomes Genny’s fashion designer. Several talented ones will take turns in the decades to follow: Claude Montana, Keith Varty, Alan Cleaver, Dolce and Gabbana, Christian Lacroix, Rebecca Moses, John Bartlett, Richard Tyler and Josephus Thimister. The company becomes a holding, stressing more its international character. With her husband's death, Donatella Girombelli takes the leadership of the brand, following also the evolution in style.
From the Sixties to today, taste for fashion is constantly changing, but Genny can interpret it, maintaining its basic ideas: extreme femininity, precision in tailoring and high quality products. Since 2011 the brand belongs to the Veronese group Swinger International, while the art direction is entrusted to the young and brilliant Gabriele Colangelo (praised, among others, by Vogue Italy and the director Franca Sozzani), who chose Genny to debut in the world of great fashion and take off the label of “emerging designer”.