Last season Gabriele Colangelo name-checked Wolfgang Tillmans. For Fall his artistic reference was slightly more obscure: Alberto Burri, an Italian painter who worked with unusual materials like tar, burlap, and pumice. Burri's collages prompted the almost camouflagelike nature of the material Colangelo developed for the show. It married what looked like iridescent nylon with coppery red and navy wool bouclé in sheer and opaque patches. If it sounds fussy, it wasn't. Colangelo is smart enough to know that when your fabrics are graphic and quite tactile, it's best to keep the shapes clean. That he did, sprinkling streamlined pantsuits in among the vaguely A-line dresses, both sleeveless and long-sleeve, that he made with his innovative textile.
Colangelo learned to experiment with fabrics from his furrier father. And he put his dad's skills to good use in this collection, cutting sheared astrakhan into remarkably lightweight coats. These came in deep, saturated hues that also deserve a call-out. The last one to hit the runway appeared to be copper-leafed in jagged, asymmetrical strips running diagonally across the body. Again, it could've been tricky, but the designer has a light touch. It's safe to say that in a season positively swathed in fur, that coat didn't look like anybody else's.
