Italo Zucchelli's approach to his design duties at Calvin Klein is a clear case of evolution, rather than revolution. This season saw him once again exploring the tension between opposing elements: casual and elegant, masculine and feminine, and, most of all, night and day, with the application of clever eveningwear touches to daywear. These included half French cuffs on shirts, rolled satin waistbands—like a mini cummerbund—on trousers, and tuxedo lapels on a black wool jacket.
The marriage of dressy and sporty is one of fall's strongest trends, and Zucchelli gave it his own spin with a dark, decadent color palette derived from gemstones. The lustrous sheen of the materials he chose helped, too. A ponyskin coat and jacket and wet-look leather jeans glistened, while suits had varying degrees of shimmer.
Subtlety was a watchword: look closely and many of those jacket-and-pant combinations don't quite match. It was the same with the Mondrian-like intarsia detailing on jackets, both leather and cloth. On the runway, this came across as an occasional embellishment. But visit the showroom, explained Zuchelli, and you'll find intarsia workmanship is a strong theme of the entire collection.
