(by Elisa Cecchi)
Two Italian designers
showcasing spring-summer 2015 women's collections in Paris have
embraced nature to convey a stream of concepts in one artful
package.
At Giambattista Valli's ready-to-wear runway, crisp
silhouettes played backdrop to blossoming branches sprayed over
pants and dresses, or embroidered in macramé lace on skirts.
But if Valli's flowers paid homage to a very contemporary
ability to strike a balance between industrial and artisanal
design, Emanuel Ungaro's creative director Fausto Puglisi used
blossoms to rediscover Ungaro's aesthetic while giving it a new
spin.
At Valli, the romantic mood was downplayed by stripes or
black tear-drop prints echoing a Joan Mirò painting while the
industrial quality of the fabrics also set the tone, playing for
contrast.
The Rome-born designer's fascination with Japan's
Metabolist movement from the 1960s and 1970s shaped his
willingness to embrace the duality of mass production and craft.
Valli now has three lines to his name including haute
couture, the main ready-to-wear line and the new Giamba label -
after his nickname - which he has just presented at the Milan
shows, and which sells 30-40% less than his main line.
The designer believes he has reached a defining point in
his career.
"If haute couture is about the art of the atelier, this
line is all about the meeting of art with industrial design," he
said of his main ready-to-wear line, which debuted in 2005.
This translated into superbly accurate proportions taking
Valli's trademark femininity into new territory - the world
without limits of a globetrotting woman, her mysterious appeal
enhanced by Luigi Scialanga's silver-disc jewellery.
The designer chosen by human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin
to make her first public appearance in Venice as the brand-new
Mrs. George Clooney also gave a 1970s spin to a number of key
collection pieces - further confirmation that this is the
favorite decade of the spring-summer 2015 collections.
Flattering flared pants were mixed with tunics or
three-quarter sleeve coats, while Valli's staple shift dresses
were presented in a fresh palette of crisp white, soft pink and
black.
At Ungaro, Puglisi debuted pyjama pants and very short
dresses skilfully embroidered in Italy with tiny paillettes in
bold shades of yellow, red and turquoise with a touch of black
and white.
"Emanuel Ungaro crafted a sexy and feminine woman whom I
revered, while making her modern," said Puglisi, the Sicilian
designer who was appointed creative director of Ungaro two years
ago in a bid to resurrect the failing French fashion house.
Puglisi has creative control while Aeffe, which also
controls Alberta Ferretti and Moschino, holds the license for
the global production and distribution of the brand's clothing
and accessories.
Puglisi worked with draping - "something I had never done
before," he said - on jerseys, lace and cotton in block colours
and rocking flower prints to shape "a woman who is so free she
can play and have fun fearlessly".
This in-your-face femininity is suitable for day and night,
as befits the tight agenda of contemporary women: "Each piece
can be easily worn around the clock," Puglisi vowed.
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