Is This the End of Fashion History? Not So Fast

MILAN — Have we reached the end of fashion history, doomed to endlessly recycling the past? To be sure, a cranky mashup of historic moments was a lot of what we got at the latest Milan fashion week. The goings were steeped in nostalgia, with endless trips down memory lane. It was a peculiar brand of nostalgia, however: absent-minded and forgetful. Many collections looked like they were pulled together haphazardly, as if flipping through a catalogue of the best and worst of the last century, choosing almost at random fashions to be sampled.

In many cases, designers reprised their very own repertoire, creating, quite literally, replicas: Donatella Versace opted for a carbon copy of Versus, circa 1997; Dolce & Gabbana revisited Madonna, circa 1991, with a Gaultier-esque vibe; at Roberto Cavalli, seven archive pieces ended a Mediterranean story of seascapes and whitewashed glamour; and for Margiela’s MM6 line, it was plastified or white-painted garments.

Encore: Missoni went for their own Italia 90, African-inspired costumes and designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons remixed space-age, kinky, trompe l’oeil, bourgeois… and things they did only two years ago with an extensive back catalogue of memorable Prada shoes.

Pablo Picasso — who famously said that self-quotation was the beginning of the end — immediately came to mind. But if creatively speaking something was missing, commercially speaking designers may have been looking for safe bets in a tough market.

One thing is for sure: originality and risk-taking seemed out of the question. From my vantage point, Italian fashion has two problems: it has lost its identity and is in need of a more determined creative class: hard to say if this is a problem of schooling, recruiting, general management — or quite simply that not all generations are equal in creative might.

Things looked pretty derivative, on many levels. Pillaging from other designers without paying dues has been the norm for a while now. Missoni designer Filippo Grazioli’s exploration of the label’s trademark zig zags in 3D was captivating and fun, but it owed way too much to the work of Maurizio Galante and Roberto Capucci. At least, he was specific and singular in his references.

Elsewhere, there’s a whole generation of designers who consider Miuccia Prada mother, shamelessly redoing what she did at the same peak Prada moments in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. The crystal-encrusted flappers at Onitsuka Tiger — an unlikely sight in any case, considering the brand — were a case in point. A deep love for Miuccia is Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s original sin, but at least he works with an authenticity, sentiment and sense of metier that his less experienced peers lack. No. 21′s modettes, complete with teased hairdos and skinny scarves, felt very Miu Miu in the Karlheinz Weinberger reference, but very Dell’Acqua in their sensuality, with the addition of charmingly bold colours.

Mrs Prada and Raf Simons, meanwhile, did Prada, à la Raf Simons — the latter’s edgy tenure at Calvin Klein immediately came to mind in the cartoon-like cut-up of fashions from the past. With its infinite variety of spiky characters marching super-fast like streams of accelerated data, the collection felt almost violent in its punchiness, at times a bit forced in its conceptualised coolness. This was one of those Prada seasons in which the thought behind the clothes feels more relevant and to the point than the clothes themselves — which, don’t get me wrong, were perfectly desirable and will keep aficionados on their toes.

In order to explain the schizoid randomness of what they sent down the runway, Prada and Simoms spoke about the information overload of today’s culture. Mrs Prada, in particular, showed a deep interest in how digital saturation works on our brains and ways of being, talking about it in a non-judgmental way, her curiosity and openness always refreshing.

Another aspect of Mrs Prada’s hold on the collective imagination of Milanese — and not only Milanese — designers is her inclination towards overthinking and heavy conceptualisation, something that for her is quite natural but elsewhere sounds a bit made-up and unnecessary. Do we really need to attach the thought process behind a collection to some kind of brainy rumination? Sometimes, making nice clothes is enough, and storytelling is just a distraction, if not self-sabotage.

Look at what Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo have done at Sunnei in the last 10 years, relying on tight budgets and brilliantly simple ideas: they have created something that is quite singular, and that offers hope for Milan’s future. The two are conceptual, but in the lightest and most immediate of ways, and this new outing, a celebration of the first decade of Sunnei, was one or their best and one of the peaks of a forgettable fashion week. Working on shapes that were both elementary and playful, and putting them on a cast of beautiful seniors all above the age of 60, Messina and Rizzo delivered a punch and the most uplifting message: “Age is irrelevant,” they said. “At Sunnei, nobody is old.”

There was a buoyant, kindergarten kind of energy at play at Bottega Veneta. Everything conveyed joy and ingenuity, starting from the set: animal-shaped pouffes developed with Zanotta. It was lovely, and the collection was lovely too, but designer Matthieu Blazy feels most convincing when he ditches the showmanship and experimentalism and dives into simplicity relying on the unique savoir-faire of the house. A one-legged skirt is a catwalk gimmick, a crumpled leather suit a desirable item.

The goings got sombre and conceptual, in a Paris-Texas kind of way, at Jil Sander, where the brainy allure and connection to nature of the past gave way to a metropolitan-inflected hardness that, although impeccably executed, seemed to belong to another brand.

Elsewhere, many of the new creative directors who have taken over storied Italian houses in recent years, are struggling to find an approach that works. This was Sabato De Sarno’s third outing at Gucci: surely his best, but still rather disconnected when it comes to the different sections that compose the collection. Where he went linear and fluid, and where he explored a mannish vibe, he felt more assured. De Sarno must surely work under a lot of pressure to perform, given Gucci’s plunging results of late, which is not the best condition for a creative to operate. The collections he conceives look built to satisfy management’s demands more than any vision he may have. In other words, Gucci’s state is not entirely his fault.

Over at Etro, Marco De Vincenzo continues to make strides. He has done away with all the radical-chic, Milanese bourgeois leanings in favour of a free-wheeling, nomadic kind of vibe, which is fresh, but needs further fine-tuning. At Ferragamo, Maximilian Davis once again raised the temperature whilst keeping his signature architectural approach. The ballet theme, although a bit literal in the styling, was a good excuse to explore movement in cloth.

Over at Moschino, it was clear how much balancing a creative director’s taste with house codes is a process that takes time. Adrian Appiolaza keeps cleaning up the Moschino act, making it look modern, but his penchant for experimental volume requires further rumination. Meanwhile, Rocco Iannone has finally found a sensual key to his Ferrari recipe.

Kim Jones has been at Fendi for more than three years now, so he has had plenty of time to connect to the spirit of the house, but the marriage has never truly happened. Jones’ latest outing drew a bridge between 1925, the year in which Fendi was founded, and today, which was basically an excuse to pair delicate beaded flappers with sturdy outerwear and sturdier Red Wing boots. The goings did not have much energy, save for the ever so charming bags, but Jones hit the nail on the head in giving preciousness a metropolitan spirit.

That trend was particularly evident at The Attico. For their sophomore show, Gilda Ambrosio and Giorgia Tordini used the personal storyline of breaking up — an occurrence they both experienced, almost at the same time — to deliver a glistening line up of frayed, beaded concoctions beautifully falling apart mixed with sturdy and roomy streetwear, giving the very idea of undone glamour a new spin. Over at Diesel, Glenn Martens is still the king of all things frayed and worn out. He applies a denim sensibility to every category while keeping the sex oomph up. It worked once again, though it may be starting to feel formulaic.

All things considered, Milan looked most convincing when labels stuck to beautifully made stuff. After all, the Italian fashion industry was born out of the alliance between designers and manufacturers. Only in recent times the industrial nature of Italian fashion has been made subservient to grander narratives, but Milan truly shines when it opts for matter-of-factness.

Take Max Mara for instance: it rarely disappoints. This season, designer Ian Griffiths worked on a vertical silhouette that was particularly alluring. Sister brand Sportmax brings the same spirit to edgier territories, keeping the action palatable even when delving into “concept.” This season it was a story of flat geometries becoming 3D, and it worked.

At Tod’s, Matteo Tamburini is the right man in the right place, his proclivity for simplicity and bold design a perfect fit for the Diego Della Valle-owned brand. In a season of Mediterranean inspirations, Tamburini delivered the most abstract take on the Med, which was elegant and elating. Opting for a linear, more graphic language brought an interesting focus over at Del Core, while Ferico Cina’s brand of purism came with a melancholic tingle all his own and at Calcaterra it was all about the poetry of volume as a way to create space between clothing and body. These designers are, in their own ways, auteurs in the making, something Milan lacks overall.

In this sense, the saviours of the season were two radically opposite characters, both authoritative in the punchiness and originality of their vision. On one side, there was Francesco Risso, who has definitely turned Marni into a playground for crudely childish design and arty absurdism — and I mean this in the best of ways. This season the show came with a morbid Querelle De Brest vibe that felt heavily Galliano-esque — Risso could have done without those beautiful paper hats — but when the focus stuck on cartoonish geometry it was truly brilliant. Risso has a wonderful world inside his head though his eccentricity can sometimes feel forced.

Nothing is forced for Simone Bellotti, who in the space of three shows has turned Bally from a dusty Swiss brand into the gem of the Milanese calendar. All of it working quietly yet radically under the radar and being faithful to the brand. Bellotti has found his own key to Bally’s Swiss-ness: one that taps into the anarchy of Swiss art and the Swiss connection with nature. This season he went for bold couture shapes that looked plausible rather than grand, provocative in a dadaist kind of way, twisted in their sobriety. It was a lesson in doing more, with less, keeping all standards high. It does not get any better than that.