It was misting outside as guests entered the Ferragamo show. It seemed to be misting inside, too. Projected videos of New York City cabs and rainy streets played on the walls, and the floors, dressed to look like asphalt, were slicked with wet. One ranking editor accidentally dropped her coat in a puddle in front of her seat.
Coat weather. Ferragamo is here to provide. Massimiliano Giornetti's latest show was a paean of sorts to outerwear, the more massive (his word), the better. There were pants cropped high to reveal the boot of the season—with two-tone, "tank tread" rubber soles for maximum traction—and coated knits, but the moral of the story was Fall's high-volume coat, an item that's been receiving even more than usual attention this season. After Spring's parade of neon, for Fall the designer played up the nuances of a darker strain. The show was all almost black: blue-black, green-black, silver-black, "the effect of black but not black," said Giornetti. On the same note, the coats were leather, but not just leather—they were hybrids, the skins rubberized or felt-backed to be fully reversible. Others had linings in shearling or cashmere. "When you open the garment, you find the layering," Giornetti said, with the kind of wondering, plumb-the-depths glee a treasure-hunter might have for digging for gold. But, given that luxury is his guiding principle at Ferragamo, the comparison is apt. This season's is a tough luxury. "Sometimes we need it," he said. The message got hammered home a bit over the course of a long show, but so did this one: Ferragamo makes some very good outerwear. Given that there are those who still think of the label for shoes and ties alone, it's not a bad reminder.
