Last year, Moschino designed the official team suit for Italy's Aironi rugby club. The job got Rosella Jardini and head designer Bill Shapiro thinking: mens sana in corpore sano—healthy mind, healthy body. Healthy wardrobe, too, evidently. At Milan's Arena Civica, the label staged a rugby match and a fashion show, the catwalk peopled by models and thick-thighed rugger players both.
Sport and fashion have a somewhat uneasy relationship. For every Aitor Throup who melds the traditions with seamless innovation, there are plenty of missteps. Moschino's collection fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. There was an appeal to the tailored pieces accented with the athletic double stripe. They're not for everyone, but a happy enough compromise for those whose usual business suit is a track suit. There were funny little twists on expectation, like the rugby shirt reborn as a down jacket, or the blazer in tech jersey. And it wouldn't be Moschino without a few yuks—here, a footprint-covered tux, for the gala-goer trampled in the scrum.
