It was all-out maximalism on the runways of Gucci and Prada this season as summer dressing took a turn for the outlandish at Milan Fashion Week.
By Christopher Prince
Gucci
The throwback zeitgeist that has enamoured so many designers over the past two seasons is probably in direct reaction to the work Alessandro Michele has been doing at Gucci. Stripped bare of its sexy, sultry appeal, the Gucci woman is now an eclectic soul. She mixes and matches prints, isn't afraid to experiment with colour and wears her spectacles proudly on the bridge of her nose for the whole of Milan to see. Between the Lurex, sequins, paillettes and mounds of chiffon, spring/summer 2016 proposed a lexicon for two great periods in Italian history, the Renaissance and the 1970s.
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There were iterations on the famous leather loafer, garnished with the revamped interlocking 'G' insignia and peppered with pearls, and a selection of sky-high platform heels - another nod to the '70s perhaps? - that looked oddly out of place with Michele's romantic gowns and circle skirts. An effort to push the sex appeal? If that's the case then there's no reason for it, because the Gucci woman is a whole new hybrid with or without an added six inches.
Prada
Meanwhile the hypothesis for Miuccia was all about staying within the lines of Prada's codes. With that in mind the skirt-suited, coat-lined, handbag-carrying zeitgeist was born for spring/summer 2016. The Prada muse arrived with hair slicked this way and that, with gold lips and bauble earrings that dangled and spun as models walked the show space of design director Fabio Zambernardi's perspex-ceiling interior.
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Still the kooky cool of her aesthetic was as ever present, felt in the rich decade play from '60s paillette finishes to '70s thigh boots. The reference to the classic Prada suit was relayed in mixed media collages of checks, tweeds and linear stripes. One standout astrakhan coat utilised the stripes to produce graphic colour blocks of fur. That sensibility continued to riff in the second half of the collection, with the show slowly coming to a head in coats crafted from metallic snakeskin and smattered with transparent pailletted flowers. It was a luxurious sight to behold.
