A hidden garden on a summer night—that's what Anna Molinari said her starting point was for her new Blumarine collection. The butterfly lace, the white point d'esprit, and the fil coupé weave with splashes of coral and gold that started things off seem destined for a June wedding. But this show quickly shifted from friend of the bride to club girl out all night. On the one hand, you had a white baby-doll dress, embroidered flowers picked out on its long sleeves, and on the other you had a T-shirt entirely constructed from a spiderweb of crystals tucked into a red leather hobble skirt. Is the Blumarine woman an innocent or a provocateur? Although the strappy ankle boots suggested she may be more of the latter, Molinari seemed reluctant to make up her mind. That's her prerogative, of course, and in the end it may not hurt her bottom line. The world is a big place, and Italian tastes are different from American, which are different from Russian and those of China and the Far East. But it made for an unresolved collection.
