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Romeo Gigli Dresses "Modern Gods"
By Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
MILAN, Jan 16, 2003 /FWD/ --- In a season crammed with English sartorial references, it
was grand to see a collection from Romeo Gigli, the most Anglo-Saxon of all Italian designers,
at his most romantic Edwardian poet best.
The designer made no modest claims about his goal in this show.
"A modern god is what Romeo Gigli presents for fall-winter, a young urban god who
has made his altar/stage of life, offering it with irony and joy to the pyre of love,"
he intoned.
Absurdly over the top, we'll agree, but in a Milan fashion week were half the models look
like they just got out of boot camp, a hefty dose of narcissism felt like a breath of fresh air.
Gigli, an architect by profession, opened with 15 suits that were an impressive
lesson on rigorous tailoring and how, with the right amount of detailing, a
designer can make a particular silhouette his own.
And his choice of fabric was damned impressive too - slate leather in just-there jacquards,
waxy cotton pinstripes or burnt bronze satins.
Gigli kept his jackets short like everyone in Milan, but peaked the shoulders, racked
up the armpits and added just the right accessories - lengthy shirts with three-button
cuffs and elongated, narrow shoes with square toes.
His English influence was evident in four coats cut high in the Edwardian manner but
modernized with slickly finished materials and funky pants in Asian lacquered or wacky
ethnic prints.
After the lesson in cutting, Gigli reverted to his more traditional groove - eccentric
dandyism, where checks, plaids and harlequin prints competed on the same outfit.
Staged in an 80-yard long tunnel with a fake anthracite floor, the show ended with a
foppish Grim Reaper in black velvet pants and coat with an enormous cowl prowling off
the catwalk.
And the audience departed with the program notes that included a poem by Robert Browning:
"I tell you, I stride up and down
This garret, crowned by love's perfect crown,
And feasted with love's perfect feast,
To think that I kill for her, at least."
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