Diana Vreeland. Queen Elizabeth II. Loulou de la Falaise. Nancy Spungen. Anna Wintour's first Vogue cover. Nobody has visions like Fausto Puglisi does. He's always loved the brazen mix, but with his part-punk, part-regal, and entirely over-the-top mash-up, he out-Puglisi'd himself tonight. It was entirely intentional. After a season or two of exploring new lengths and attitudes to somewhat uneven results, he reported backstage that he'd decided to give his customers what they come to him for: exposed skin, electric color, and unalloyed bling.
The news was in the kind of bling: Mounds of polished coral from Puglisi's native Sicily traced the asymmetric neckline of a little party dress, trimmed the front hem of miniskirts, and swirled atop the graphic black and white motif of a knit bra and leggings (both Vreeland and de la Falaise were big fans of coral). There were piles of brass pendant necklaces, medallion belts, and single shoulder-duster earrings. The jewelry owed a debt to Tony Duquette and Ugo Correani, and was apparently made with the help of a master craftsman who spends most of his time working on commissions from the Vatican. Not everyone has a cutout cocktail number and a hip-high slit evening dress kind of lifestyle, and as much as Puglisi lives for that kind of thing, he gets it: Jewelry could be a lucrative category for him.
He pushed his vocabulary in other ways, too: adding easy to wear (but not simple to make, he pointed out) intarsia knit separates like asymmetric gladiator skirts, and throwing in some bleached denim for a lo-fi kick. Well, not so lo-fi if you consider the brass medallion embellishments that decorated a bomber and a pair of hip-slung jeans. Anyway, it was good to see Puglisi digging in and finding his groove here.
