Marni: Brilliance in Print
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
MILAN, Oct 2, 2002/ FWD/ --- It’s a pity more designers don’t come and see Marni catwalk
shows, because besides the fact that the collections are often very beautiful they all could
learn a lesson that so few of them ever grasp – how to marry diverse prints successfully.
Ironically, it’s a message that editors, buyers and fans have clearly understood; judging
from the great looks most of them sported at the Marni spring summer 2003 catwalk show
in Milan’s Superstudio Monday.
One of the highest compliments one can pay Marni’s designer Consuelo Castiglioni is that
the ladies who attend her shows, in their frilly silk skirts and snazzy wee leather jackets,
are the possibly the best turned out and most feminine at any show anywhere.
The collection Castiglioni presented didn’t really break any radically new ground.
"I just tried to make clothes that are pretty and fresh. Things women want to wear," was
the designer’s modest comment post show.
But pretty well every outfit worked and all of them will find willing takers.
There was above all a boldness about the fabrics that had to be admired – three-inch wide
stripes in pajama pants or computer enhanced flowers and leaves printed onto suede and chiffon.
Few labels have as relaxed a sensibility as Marni, where pants rarely cover the ankle and
tops come with spare swathes of fabric.
The look was hyper feminine but never insipid, as hippie chic looks were toughened up
by chunky belts with equestrian style buckles and trim and some outstanding jackets,
wolf inside, psychedelic prints outside.
Marni presents men’s and women’s fashion together, and the house’s male models have tousled
hair and even wear the same fabrics as the girls.
They are just the sort of poetic types that the ladies in the audience would like to date,
but not marry.
Though half the crowd was dressed haute hippie, most of them will end up marrying bankers,
if they haven’t done so already.
Castiglioni is also an accomplished cutter; most designers would be flummoxed if
asked to make a mini skirt with huge military pockets, but the designer’s take on that
idea in beige, coupled with a thrown open, cut-off at the waist leather bomber jacket,
looked great.
Now, when can the rest of the Milan establishment take time off to view the video of this
show?
They have plenty to learn.
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