Here's a novelty this week in Milan: a show that advertises itself as having "no inspiring eras, no retro nostalgia." With the city in the grips of 1960s fever—Courrèges! Paco Rabanne! Mary Quant!—the designers at Sportmax opted to go modern-modern. There was a lot on the runway this afternoon that looked right for the here and now: boxy, almost spongy leather jackets and split-hem skirts that called to mind last season's Proenza Schouler show; sporty ribbed knits, some of which were coated in stripes of an almost reflective-looking plastic; easy-to-wear shift dresses arranged with more stripes in bold chevrons across the front.
Not everything was quite as successful. The bands of transparent film that decorated the edges of shantung suits and coats were superfluous at best, a lame attempt at what the tailoring of the future might look like. The Sportmax team had better luck with the leather pieces at the end of the show that were laser-cut in houndstooth motifs. They had a cool, graphic zing.
