Gabriele Colangelo is back on track. Considerably cleaned up, his new collection for Genny was an extended riff on the jacket—an original building block of this Italian brand and a piece of clothing particularly suited to Colangelo's methodical mind. His double-breasted extended jacket-dress with a longer fox-fur back was a bit of a dud (his shorter-in-front, longer-in-back idea admittedly did more for jackets than it did for miniskirts), but for the most part, the designer resisted overthinking things. An ivory double wool felt cape worn over a turtleneck and trousers in the same icy shade was sleek and streamlined, and a tailored jumpsuit in navy blue wool pinstripes had an unfussy sensibility. There was a lot more work involved in a jacket with sleeves constructed from chevrons of embroidered ponyskin (statement sleeves: having a moment); still, the results were cool, not crafty.
For evening, Colangelo cut a pair of column dresses with slits at the hips held together with narrow gold tabs, and a strapless champagne-colored number with a contrasting leather band at the bust—they were harder to picture hanging in a department store than the daywear, but not by that much. This show situates Genny in Phoebe Philo and Francisco Costa's school of minimalism. That seems like a sensible place from which to try to restart the label.
