Like some of his more established Milanese peers, Albino D'Amato found his muse in Yves Saint Laurent this season. The first model's big, floppy straw hat was a giveaway, and the second look sealed it: a strapless onesie in spicy YSL colors, gathered in the front and with an airy, blouson shape in the back. The master's seventies glamour gave this collection a more grown-up sophistication than it had last time; Fall's baby-doll girls are now dames.
They wore strapless jumpsuits or to-the-floor trapeze dresses in bold color-blocked stripes and silk floral tapestry prints—uncomplicated pull-on-and-go vacation clothes. Or, for something more urbane: a swingy raincoat in "plastified" silk the color of cement and a linen crepe pantsuit in lavender and chartreuse with a jacket that had a vaguely Asian influence. Nineties Japanese designers were another source of inspiration, D'Amato claimed backstage. That might have an interesting effect on what he described as his growing business in Japan.
