Gabriele Colangelo is a young—by Milan's standards—designer who hasn't been able to gain a foothold in the American market, despite innovative fabrics and a real finesse with cut. Recently, he's gained a shareholder in the form of Pattern Torino, which produces pieces for the likes of Tom Ford and Burberry, among other top-of-the-food-chain brands, and he's hoping the new partnership will set him on his way to a new beginning.
His pre-fall collection looked especially fine, with clean, precise tailoring (if perhaps too fond a feeling for a high-tech mesh fabric) and more of the innovative fur techniques he's known for. Colangelo comes from a family of furriers, and the stuff he does with skins, fusing them to knits without a single stitch, is pretty next-level. Again, he was sometimes guilty of overthinking a coat, adding synthetic sleeves to an otherwise ultra-luxe product. But most of the time it was easy to picture these clothes hanging in a high-end department store next to collections from his older and more experienced peers.
