Designers

Prada Fall/Winter 2016-17 .Milan

| Syuzena Pitz
Something about Miuccia Prada’s collections brings out the fashion scholar in all of us. Sphinxlike in her pronouncements, the designer prefers to let the clothes speak for themselves—and what a wealth of material she provided for deconstruction for fall 2016 on her accessory-laden models. Many of them wore loosely laced corsets cinched with looped belts from which hung more small treasures and that recalled antique chatelaines.Prada’s women is a vagabond —a woman who might be out traveling the world  or maybe making a deeper pilgrimage into the labyrinth of womens history. Prada’s fall 2016 collection is as layered as the clothes she showed, in a purpose-built, almost medieval marketplace of a wooden set. In show notes, Prada put : “The nature of women is complex and ineffable . . . Like a Russian doll placed inside one another.”

 

 

 

 

Roberto Cavalli Fall/Winter 2016-2017

| Syuzena Pitz
Peter Dundas unveiled Roberto Cavalli fall/winter 2016-2017 collection during first day of Milan Fashion Week.Peter Dundas has always been fashion’s most committed translator of the louche world of the early-1970s rock’n-roll chick. And there were many luxuriuos looks on the runway-maxi coats, patchwork fur capes, skimpy lace dresses, platform boots and trailing lurex scarves.This collection is also seems to be the continuation of the look Dundas has carried over from his tenure at Emilio Pucci.Like many others designers this season, Dundas made a play for the long, transparent dress.But in Dundas Roberto Cavalli collection this year are many significant material upgrades such a tiger-stripe velvet, gold tissue lace, caviar beading, intarsia fur, baroque curliqued embroidery and all the shiny textured silks that went into tailoring the high-waisted, skinny, flared pant suits.

 

 

 

Gucci Fall/Winter 2016 collection

| Syuzena Pitz
Alessandro Michele unveiled Gucci fall/winter 2016 collection during the first day of Milan Fashion Week.

 

Alexander McQueen Fall/Winter 2016-17 by Sarah Burton

| Syuzena Pitz
Sarah Burton has shown the most beautiful, sensitive, and breathtaking crafted Alexander McQueen  collection in London. What she started in the pre-fall 2016 collection, is reappeared in fall 2016 collection, along with owls, swans, moons and stars, drifting on embroidered sophisticated textiles as tulle and organza. Anyway, this collection is on the level of haute couture. She described her woman as: “Almost sleepwalking, in a state where reality and dreams become blurred.” About the collection : It started with black coats, variously jacquarded with pocket watches, eyes, and butterflies, or sculpted from fine leather and then hand-painted with flowers by a specialist floral artist. Tailoring was always one of McQueen’s power bases, and the mannish  exactitude of the double-lapel suits honored that  in a modern, feminine way.There were lacy bras and sleeves cut to fall off shoulders. Then came the knit dresses, which cascaded in gossamer layers as delicate as lace. And finally, we were in the place of dreams. The bodices of black tulle dresses were set with jeweled stars, each one a masterpiece. Satin duvet jackets, and a final superb shell-pink eiderdown coat, lined with marabou- it was a triumph! The tenderness and the technical expertise she mustered for this collection was brilliant.Burton’s own vision for McQueen is fully realized and applauded to the skies. The more she has relaxed into the confidence of her feminine instincts, the better she’s become. It was fitting that the venue she chose was the same one in which she assisted Lee McQueen at a show 20 years ago.

 

 

Gareth Pugh Fall/Winter 2016-2017 #London Fashion Week

| Syuzena Pitz
Gareth Pugh unveiled fall/winter 2016-2017 collection during London Fashion Week.
Pugh has an incredible way with fluidity, but he always tends to gravitate towards angles – sharp shoulders, exaggerated triangles. While enveloping, wrap-around jackets made an appearance, alongside sweeping wide-leg trousers, it was the stiffer tailoring that seemed to define the collection. On remembering the power dressing of the eighties and the years where to be taken seriously woman had to dress like a man, I wondered, at first, why Pugh would latch on to such a conservative idea. But then, look closely, and this felt like a parody of that – the models cheeks were hitched up with wire to suggest a fake, cartoon woman. Indeed, this woman wasn’t seeking to blend in the boardroom, but terrify in the boardroom. Those Hannibal Lecter masks certainly suggested she was ready and willing to eat you alive. It seems lazy or cliched to call Pugh’s work futuristic, but he does sometimes seem to cater to some super human creature – one unruffled by real life.