Fashion is On

Riccardo Tisci has been at Givenchy for five years now, and the anniversary provided a framework of sorts for the striking collection he showed informally today. “Resort, for me,” he said, “is about making sure the shop floors are stocked with the pieces that our girl has gotten attached to.” Tisci believers will recognize the palette of black, white, and red, which the designer interspersed with leopard print. (He cited Frida Kahlo and her animal-filled paintings as a source of inspiration this season.)

The shapes will give fans a frisson of familiarity, too. Tisci’s best-selling trompe l’oeil jacket—it looks like two pieces but is really one—came here in plain white on top and leopard below, or masculine white cotton and feminine white lace. Extending the motif, a three-piece suit consisted of a sharply tailored jacket and cropped trousers with a built-in miniskirt.

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“Fellini-inspired play clothes” was how Vera Wang billed her latest effort. And while this collection evoked the artsy but luxury-loving Vera woman more than it did, say, Anita Ekberg splashing about in a Roman fountain, the clothes aimed for an easy sensibility. In place of the designer’s beloved leggings were satin cropped harem pants and shorts (a tough sell, perhaps, though designers have been proposing the drop-crotch silhouette for a few seasons now, so maybe they know something we don’t). These were worn with, among other pairings, a molded bustier, sheer asymmetric cardigan, and lovely short-sleeve silver sequined coat.

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Watching an Isabel Marant show isn’t so much about exercising professional judgement as making a new season shopping list. That would explain why so many fashion editors have been wearing her autumn/winter 2009 leopard or python print dress on the front row.

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Anyone who thinks tough chic was an Eighties invention, all high glitz and déclassé, needs a brush-up on film noir, examples of which typically feature a strong-shouldered, holds-her-own kind of woman of sharp tongue and sharper mind who extracts herself from countless perilous, shadowy situations — while looking incredibly chic. John Galliano devoted his spring show to the queen bee of such gals, Lauren Bacall, and her trench-wearing other half, Humphrey Bogart.

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THERE is a feeling in Milan this week that designers are going back to doing what they know best – sex-on-legs at Versace, cut-off denim at D&G, easy tailored elegance at Armani – and if anyone proved the point it was Frida Giannini for Gucci this afternoon.

Natasha Poly started us off in a tight white minidress, strapped onto her in every which way, with high, strappy shoes to match.

As always the Gucci woman is powerfully sexy in her form-fitting, flesh-baring clothes – but this is a subjective sex appeal that she imposes on those looking at her – no witness, male or female, dare objectify her.

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tribal rave party at Missoni? You bet. Proving to be quite the show woman, Angela Missoni chose as her venue a tranquil 15th-century courtyard at the Università degli Studi di Milano, with choral music and warm breezes wafting through the Renaissance porticoes as her guests took their seats.

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EVERYBODY may have hailed Donatella Versace as having come of age when she gave up the mega wattage sex-on-legs dresses and presented a slightly more demure muse some seasons ago, but today she reverted to what she really loves: tight, cutaway, glossy, studded, corsetted, shiny – and only to be worn by the sort of women she casts for her shows. This afternoon’s starred Lily Donaldson and Natasha Poly, to give an idea of the sort of standard she’s talking.

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