Following the thread of our In Vogue: The 1990s podcast, we are closing out the year and heading into the new one with a series of newly digitized archival shows from the decade that fashion can’t—and won’t—let go of. Designed by Consuelo Castiglioni, Marni’s spring 1999 ready-to-wear collection was presented on October 10, 1998, in Milan.
“It’s not the jacket, dress, or coat that counts,” declared Vogue in early 1999, “all you really need is the right shoe—sandal, slide, or stiletto—to be the sole of fashion.” Clogs shot to the top of that list after Consuelo Castiglioni accessorized her spring 1999 Marni collection with clunky, peep-toe brown-and-white versions of the shoe. Not that there was a consensus about them: The clogs were either a bohemian rhapsody or off-key. By this time the It accessory trend was in full swing, and the “ugly” shoe was acknowledged as the counterpart to what Vogue described as the “fashion” shoe.
In retrospect these statement shoes fall into the “man-repeller” category, i.e., clothes that women buy and wear for themselves without considering the male gaze. Castiglioni certainly didn’t buy into traditional ideas of sexiness; there was often a rustic quality to her granny-goes-boho looks. Over time, the collections became sportier, but they were never conformist.
Marni “is for a woman who has an individual spirit, not someone who is following trends,” Castiglioni told my colleague Sarah Mower in 2001. “We like clothes looking like old friends. It’s clothes for clothes’ sake, not fashion for fashion’s sake,” chimed in Lucinda Chambers, who worked closely with the Castiglioni.
The spring 1999 collection was presented on models with gilded eyes who looked like latter-day flower children. They were dressed in layered diaphanous pieces, some with delicate embroidery, others with graphic insets. The clogs—a 2020 work-from-home dream, as it happens—grounded the collection. Castiglioni, who left the label in 2016, was never a fantasist; she always kept things easy and real.
