The optimism of color, the romanticism of laces and flounces, the strength of the important shoulders, the safety of leggings and short short skirts, but above all the realism of the garments, often not worn by models and models, but by normal boys, taken from the street, those to whom fashion is aimed: so Milan, in this strange fashion week of masks, disinfectants and digital fashion shows, responded to the challenge of imagining the future after Covid.
It must not have been easy - no designer denies it - to imagine collections during the lockdown, and it was not easy to present them live, but without the press and international buyers, with the public at a safe distance and the backstage armored and subject to strict rules. , or with digital fashion shows that, despite the efforts, shorten the distances but do not replace the emotion of the catwalk.
But Milan was compact in interpreting that desire for a return to normalcy, with the necessary precautions, which can be felt almost everywhere.
When people go back to shopping, shopping, what will they want to buy?
is the question from which everyone necessarily started.
The answer could only be realistic: absent the follies, the evening dresses reduced to the bone, the lion's share was made by
proposals for the day
, also designed for a world that could still be in smartworking.
Because here it is a question of imagining the future, with
collections that look to spring-summer 2021 and are the daughters of the lockdown
, which has closed everyone in their homes, to deal with what really matters.
And so
each brand has returned to the roots of its essence
, resuming doing what belongs to it, doing less and better.
Months ago
Giorgio Arman
asked me with an open letter to take this moment as an opportunity to slow down and he was the first to do so: between the anthological documentary that tells a career in style and the fashion show of the new collection, both seen on TV , there is no solution of continuity.
His clothes are made to last over time, just like at
Prada
where, despite the arrival of Raf Simons, everything, starting from the choice of the uniform as the manifesto of the collection, speaks of
recognizability
.
Valentino
changes location - Milan instead of Paris - and cast -
real people and not models
- to redefine his codes, which does not mean distorting them, but bringing them into today, combining romanticism and individuality.
In the same spirit,
MSGM
, which has reduced its collection to a third, invited normal girls to self-restore with the new collection, while
Marni
sent her garments to friends around the world, for them to interpret them.
And what about the
plus size models
, never so present as in this edition?
Views on the catwalks of
Fendi, Ferragamo, Versace
, to tell a world that turns out to be more inclusive, so much so that for the first time black designers have had their own space on the calendar with the 'Black lives matter in fashion' initiative.
Even
Dolce & Gabbana,
with their patchwork Sicily, have launched a call to the union of different cultures and to look to the future with confidence, as did Donatella Versace, who imagined a new dress world of prints and bright colors.
A dream?
Yes, but sincere, a password that passes from
Tod's to Max Mara,
which imagines a woman who after months finally leaves home to rebuild a better world than the one we left.
