There were no half measures with the Pre-Fall collection Peter Dundas presented for Pucci. The silhouettes were maxi or mini, the boots were thigh or ankle, the palette was bubblegum pink and cobalt blue. Aladdin Sane's lightning bolt skewered some looks, Niki de Saint Phalle's eye-popping swirls, scallops, and curves decorated others. Dundas talked practicalities—more daywear, more separates, more sportswear in the U.S. sense of the word—but one of the presiding spirits of his collections will always be Anita Pallenberg, and it's her decadent glamour that sparks Pucci's most arresting looks, like the fur chubby and midnight velvet pants, the laced tunic over a languid floor-length column, or the gold lamé shift with the peekaboo lightning bolt and the thigh boots in dégradé gold sequins.
In the interests of the daywear to which he tipped his curls, Dundas offered some dramatic parkas and smart tailoring, but, as was proved by the party thrown in Paris to celebrate Pucci and Marcolin's strategic alliance on a range of sunglasses, his women are dying to dress up. This collection marked the return of the baby doll to his repertoire. It snuggled coyly under a huge froth of hot pink.
