There were two Marni shows this morning. The first played out as planned, with Sid Vicious howling "My Way" on the soundtrack as the models walked. The second was bedeviled by a power outage, which meant that, after a lengthy delay, the models eventually had to take to the catwalk in complete Sid-less silence. It was such a perfectly serene complement to the character of the clothes themselves that it was hard to imagine seeing them any other way, let alone with a Vicious holler drilling into your eardrums. So let's make that one for the Happy Accident.
With her sporty visors, platform flip-flops, and bomber jackets, Consuelo Castiglioni did her own expert take on the athletic spirit that has gripped Milan this season (maybe Olympic fever had a particularly long gestation period in Italy). She also had a response to the boom in fashion flora: Her flowers were graphic, Japanese-y, ranging from a "Jack and the Beanstalk" vine to pixelated blossoms to allover petals that spectacularly hardened into jagged flints for the startling green suit at show's end. They were the strongest expression of the organic quality that shaped the collection.
The clothes were at their most seductive when they were quiet: a sage green sarong; origami-folded pants; pieces cut from cotton organza, as ghostly as toiles; the long coats belted over voluminous trousers with huge cuffs. The throwaway glamour of the look evoked, in an entirely nonspecific way, the mood of the Man Ray portrait of Nancy Cunard with her armful of bangles. Aristo languor. Eccentricity, but strength of character. Marni in excelsis.
