MILAN – Milan Fashion Week reserved for mostly menswear previews opened Friday with two co-ed collections, underlining that the old calendar rules no longer apply.
The week features just 20 runway shows, which should allow time for reflection on where fashion is headed. Moschino opened with a show combining menswear for next summer and women’s 2025 resort, followed by Canadian designer Dsquared2 with a full menswear and womenswear collection.
Highlights from Friday’s show:
LOST AND FOUND AT MOSCHINO
Adrian Appiolaza took the rules and literally shredded them in his second season as Moschino creative director.
“The idea of freedom of expression through dressing is what I want to bring to the future of Moschino, which is tied to the original DNA,’’ Appiolaza said backstage. “It is not about gender. It is not about nationality. It’s really about feeling comfortable, dressing the way you want and not the way you should.’’
The Argentine designer reads our collective minds as the summer season beckons in the northern hemisphere, tapping desires to break free from the office routine and reach dream destination. Along the way, daydreams take over, and familiar objects shift.
Appiolaza creates a shimmery tank out of big paperclips. A jacket is covered in textile post-its of forgotten tasks. Another becomes the office worker’s survival jacket, with slots for pens, a note pad, credit cards, ID badge, charging cables, nothing is concealed; this later becomes an adventure jacket with field guides and a magnifying glass.
Suits and trenches are deconstructed into dresses. Then they are shredded, as if to say: Enough. The last straw: An airliner perched on a hat. Then a literal straw skirt.
There is release in safari wear, a beach pareo, skirts that work as postcards, knitwear emblazoned with a soccer ball pattern, a blazer printed with still life of an Italian table: ripe tomatoes, a Chianti bottle and bread, worn with a fraying skirt over trousers.
The collection confidently taps the fashion house’s ironic and playful DNA, with a fresh and irreverent twists sure to inspire smiles. A suit shirt comes ready with an ink spot. A sparkly pizza smudge graces a tank, worn with an Italian tri-color skirt emblazoned with soccer balls. Men’s brimmed hats are worn in triplicate, as if resized and multiplied by a fashion copy machine.
“They are all explorers, these characters, on a journey of self-discovery,’’ Appiolaza said.
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