MILAN — Trend’s reset began in the present day in Milan, however the notion {that a} new inventive director should wipe the slate clear doesn’t essentially make for the simplest technique.
Working example: Demna’s debut at Gucci — first dropped on Monday as a lookbook of Catherine Opie-lensed Italian archetypes — referenced predecessor Alessandro Michele’s work for the home, notably his penchant for constructing characters after which dressing them up, in addition to the legacy of Tom Ford, scantily clad and chillingly cool, to not point out Demna’s personal work at Balenciaga, give or take a GG.
The impact was one thing like a group zero, a place to begin, a basis.
Gucci appeared to spare no expense in pushing the launch. The identical characters from the lookbook appeared on the pink carpet Tuesday night time as a preamble to a brief film — “The Tiger” — directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, and starring none apart from Demi Moore, Edward Norton, Ed Harris and Elliot Web page, screened in a cinema designed by Niklas Bildstein Zaar.
It was a considerable piece of labor that grappled with id and ego, however was it finally greater than filler that buys Demna time as he concocts one in every of his viral exhibits for February? The garments had been scarcely related to the grotesque household story on display screen. Will they promote? We’ll quickly discover out as they’ll be in shops by the tip of the week.
Now that he’s doing double obligation at OTB stablemate Maison Margiela, is Diesel designer Glenn Martens at risk of inventive fatigue?
Martens’ newest outing for the group’s flagship model, which he’s been knee-deep in revamping since he joined in 2020, was one other experiment with presentation codecs: True to his effervescent thoughts and the pop spirit of the label, the designer aimed to convey the shopper nearer with a city-wide egg hunt, that includes glassy, human-sized eggs, every containing a glance on a reside mannequin.
The thought match effectively with a group through which distressed materials, a Diesel signature, took on a double-faced tingle, with the within and outdoors of the clothes in fixed dialogue.
If Martens was extroverted, Lorenzo Serafini performed introvert at Alberta Ferretti, envisioning an impalpable wardrobe of Mariano Fortuny-esque caftans, peplums and Delphos robes for the proper hostess entertaining company in her patrician mansion, a bit like Tina Chow, who within the Nineteen Eighties, draped in classic pleats, performed that position at her husband’s New York restaurant. There was grace and class, however Serafini’s voice felt a bit of faint.
