Consuelo Castiglioni defined her new men's collection as "classic pieces from the fifties, the sixties, and the seventies, viewed by a young guy in 2012." Sartorial classicism offers a man the kind of security that comes from the confidence of knowing he looks properly put together, but Castiglioni's young guy was clearly someone with a loosey-goosey take on tradition. He might throw a sizable V-necked sweater over his suit jacket. The banker stripes on his shirt ran vertically and horizontally. A detachable jersey collar added a pop of color to some of those shirts. And collarless coats were doubled with matching jackets to create a trompe l'oeil lapel effect.
But if security was open to reinterpretation, Castiglioni played it straight with the notion of protection. Jackets, pants, and bags were quilted. Shoes had soles thick enough to lift feet out of the urban muck. And, most importantly, fur was used as an under-layer. "It's not to stand out, it's to stay warm," the designer insisted. Practical though that idea may be, there was also something endearingly primitive about it. Castiglioni seems to delight in such deliberately naive associations. One of her shirt prints was tiny aboriginal stick figures.
