Here's something you weren't expecting: Salvatore Ferragamo just might be the sleeper hit of Milan fashion week—and all in shades of black, white, and gray, too. Snoozy it certainly wasn't. Not with Massimiliano Giornetti's sharp suits in pinstripes, houndstooth, and Prince of Wales check, or his racy dresses in animal-print silks. Yes, like so many other designers this week, Giornetti played the masculine against the feminine. And he resurrected the eighties, too. But he did it all with enough conviction that it didn't seem tired. How did the designer make a pinstripe jumpsuit worn with matching blazer and trench as sexy as his second-skin knit dress in a patchwork of houndstooth and leopard print? It's all down to cut—as in cut down to there.
The press notes called Giornetti's muse "an elusive woman," and to be honest we're not sure the boardroom power broker without a bra that he has conjured up here really exists. But the fantasy was seductive from where we were sitting. This collection will probably drive magazine editors wild. Add a crisp white button-down to the racks, though, and there will also be plenty of eager customers for Ferragamo to reckon with.
