This season’s
Versace
woman ?
“
A good girl with a wild soul.
She is prim but sexy.
Don't bother him!
The man is her soul mate, a shy genius.
They break the rules to create new ones.
(…) It's us.
It’s Versace!
» Between the lines of this manifesto signed Donatella Versace, we understand that this winter 2024-2025 is inspired by herself - the rebel with a big heart - and Prince - the legendary artist self-conscious about his height (1.57 m).
In the 1990s, the Italian designed a red suit for the kid from Minneapolis with narrow pants and a jacket fitted at the waist whose shoulders, slightly raised, made him “taller”.
It is this idea of
power dressing
, of clothing giving a feeling of power (and a dominant of red and black), which runs through this wardrobe inspired by the early 1980s and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Here, the punk vibe is digested, the models with Sid Vicious hair and Debbie Harry eyeliner may walk like rebellious teenagers, they are clean and well behaved, the designer safety pin and the skin nickel.
Prince and Donatella Versace
Since joining the American Tapestry group last summer, the brand has gradually assumed its rise in strength and luxury.
The spectacular scenography where a dream cast (Gigi, Loli, Rianne, Mica…) evolves reflects its ambitions.
And that's all the better because the particularly careful execution of the close-fitting black dresses with the white "swallow-tailed" collar and the tweed jackets with the deep waist give it real added value.
Donatella called on the artisans of Atelier Versace (the equivalent of haute couture), who notably created this shredded tweed, hand-woven from strips of muslin, tulle, silk organza and of crystals.
The effect is most successful on the long men's coats in brown and black and on the very Chanel black and white miniskirt suits (which Gianni Versace, friend of Karl Lagerfeld, already did in the 1980s).
Canon, the draped leather dresses which free the shoulders, amplify the neckline, outline the body of these sensual amazons and of the actress Anne Hathaway in the front row, spiritual daughters of Donatella with a heart like that.
Read alsoMatthieu Blazy, itinerary of a child gifted in fashion
Versace Fall-Winter 2024-25 Collection Versace
The tuxedo on every seam by Dolce & Gabbana
A good girl, that's also what they say about Eva Mendes, who, in recent years, put her career on hold to, among other things, allow her husband Ryan Gosling to film while she was busy of their daughters.
For one of her rare public appearances, the almost 50-year-old actress chose
Dolce & Gabbana
in Milan.
In leopard fur, vinyl thigh-high boots, veil over her pampered hair and a very Raquel Welch tan, Mendes perfectly embodies (and not without derision) the latest “trend” of TikTok, #mobwife, this aesthetic of a gangster woman, sexy, rich and uninhibited!
Suffice to say that she enjoys the spectacle on the podium of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who pulls the thread of the tuxedo literally and figuratively as, sometimes, it barely covers the body... "
With our stylized pencil stroke, cut on white paper, we also dress the dreams, ambitions and desires of the Dolce & Gabbana woman.
We live a love affair with women and, through the tuxedo, we shape couture.
»
Spencer and lace panties, mantilla skirt, tight-fitting guipure dress, vinyl raincoat, mesh tulle coat, transparent blouse printed with gold pastilles... It's as indecent as it is ravishing, well done as it is undressed.
But we also find cigarette pants, tuxedo dresses with padded hips, faux furs with old school glamor and a long leopard bathrobe - back in the collections.
Because, as the Elle.fr Instagram account says, prints
are “like fruits and vegetables, they’re best in season
”!
From April 7 to July 31, the Italian duo will be celebrated through the exhibition “Dal cuore alle mani: Dolce & Gabbana” (“From the heart to the hand” in French), at the Palazzo Reale in Milan - a first that welcome fashion to the prestigious museum - and will retrace the forty years of this success story like no other.
Also read: Gucci, Tod's: fashion again!
Dolce & Gabbana fall-winter 2024-25 collection Dolce & Gabbana
Bally’s Appenzell parade
Will Simone Bellotti finally wake up
Bally
, the sleeping beauty?
In any case, he deserves it.
The Italian, a long-time collaborator of Alessandro Michele at Gucci, confirms what he showed for his first collection last season.
Real classic clothes but always with a creative twist, functional accessories with an original design, beautiful materials, references and humor, knowing that Switzerland, the birthplace of the historic shoemaker, is not what there is easier in terms of storytelling... Great for him, there are Swiss banks (ultra-desirable glossy leather briefcases), Swiss mountain pastures (cow bells tinkling on the bags) and Swiss boarding schools (the strict shirts with collars buttoned under the chin, worn with cigarette skirts with tulip waists).
Loden wools become draped dresses, men's jackets look like schoolmaster's blouses, black collarless evening dresses are ascetic chic.
A small black leather shepherd's vest is studded with Appenzell pins (cows, edelweiss) and punk metal eyelets.
A blonde young lady in a red felted wool dress looks like a Nastassja Kinski who escaped from
Paris-Texas
to the fresh air of a Swiss canton.
There are also flat corset-style lace-up boots and a bag to carry the red leather cats who pass on the narrow podium while Link Wray's guitar (unforgettable
Rumble
from
Pulp Fiction
) plays.
The fact remains that we must now support these creative efforts through distribution and image, to be able to hope to stand out in this competitive industry.
Bally Fall-Winter 2024-25 Collection Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com
Bottega Veneta, chic and modern
We expected a lot from Matthieu Blazy at
Bottega Veneta
on Saturday evening, during a Milan Fashion Week where we saw the beautiful and the good but felt few thrills.
This season (the fifth) was an important step, while the “novelty” effect has logically faded and the 39-year-old Franco-Belgian is not the type to turn around and ride the trends.
Verdict?
“
Still above our expectations!”
”, our neighbor whispers to us during the show… It’s simply beautiful.
Blazy, who caused a sensation with his first fashion show, in February 2022, first showed his talent for a realistic wardrobe (made with high standards) and a modern attitude.
Then, as the seasons progressed, he pushed the experimental cursor, presenting ever crazier, ever more artisanal pieces.
For winter 2024-2025, he manages to bring together the two, his creative grammar and textile richness, the visual simplicity of the silhouette and the weavings with a fabulous touch.
The upper body is often very chic and classic (very beautiful calico shirts), the lower body is more elaborate and eccentric (cascading handkerchief pointed skirts).
“
The idea of resilience and hope.
You know, when you walk in the desert, or after a fire, and the flowers grow back on the scorched earth
,” says the designer backstage, who wants to evoke current events without making a statement like on certain fashion shows.
This idea of fire can be read in the palette of colors, flaming yellows, crimson reds, incandescent orange, charcoal blacks, ash grays, rubbing against ice blues, olive and sage greens, coral pinks... Two prints interact: a school notebook motif which, by symbolizing youth and writing, speaks of the future, and an overprint of numbers, words and erasures sedimented by time which tells of the past and memory.
This poetry, this creative intention, gives meaning to the jersey suit, the sculptural knits, the crocodile shopping bags and the intrecciato clutch.
The star peacoat from his first collection returns in a timelessly elegant curly wool.
Khaki leather pants flare at the instep.
The layering of tweed shirts, the trench coats with strips of braided leather, the draped collars are of exquisite taste.
The movement of the skirts is hypnotic.
“
It’s as much for the classic as the eccentric, the bourgeois as the influencer
,” our neighbor on the other side tells us.
Bottega Veneta Fall-Winter 2024-25 Collection Bottega Veneta
Gina di Bernardo, the Armani muse of yesterday and today
The face of the model who opens the
Giorgio Armani
fashion show in his small theater on Via Borgonuovo is not unknown to us.
In her long sports jacket with anthracite pearl insert and her platinum-colored striped silk tracksuit, Gina di Bernardo, with her faded gray-blue eyes, seems to emerge from the past.
In Aldo Fallai's black and white photos for Armani's campaigns and the pages of
Vogue Italia
in the 1980s and 1990s, this beauty who looked like a young Greta Garbo literally embodied the maestro's aesthetic.
The very one that more and more people are rediscovering today.
Fall-winter 2024-25 collection by Giorgio Armani Giorgio Armani
So, when we recently asked Matthieu Blazy, of Bottega Veneta, if there was a designer capable of creating a style over time (in this world of fashion which goes out of fashion faster than the seasons), he responded with a straight answer. on the spot and with admiration: “
Armani!
»
This Sunday morning, alongside Gina di Bernardo (who returns to the podium, chic, in a Chinese jacket embroidered with flowers, narrow pants and fedora hat), the Milanese's favorite models are also there, faithful, transcending the ages, the calm walk in their flat shoes.
The chromatic range of midnight blue, blacks and deep velvety greens comes alive with stylized roses and camellias, embroidery of dragonflies emerging from a garden at nightfall.
Velvet cargo pants, long chambray jackets, felt coats, floral chiffon skirts, a colored hemmed leather patchwork jacket and a trench with cloud cutouts make up the daytime wardrobe.
In the evening, strapless dresses in velvet and shimmering tulle take on the soft, almost nostalgic femininity that Giorgio Armani cherishes, which once again closes Milan Fashion Week this season.
H.G.