Emanuel Ungaro will forever be remembered for his ’80s pomp and poufs. With that decade raring back into fashion this season, Fausto Puglisi could’ve safely revisited the era. Instead he did the counterintuitive thing for Fall and explored the 1970s. Backstage he said he was interested in how the work of Ungaro and Yves Saint Laurent overlap. It put him on the same page as Hedi Slimane, who was looking back at a similar time frame for the Pre-Fall women’s looks he showed on his Saint Laurent men’s runway in Los Angeles last month. The coincidence can only help Puglisi, especially if, as is rumored, it was Slimane’s penultimate collection for Saint Laurent. Synergy aside, this collection qualifies among Puglisi’s most successful for Ungaro. In the past he’s veered too young or overly stiff. Here, the emphasis was on lightness.
Puglisi’s silhouette was long and lean, almost rangy, with silk blouses tucked into narrow midi skirts, and a thick belt with a crystal buckle sitting fairly high on the torso. Fabrics ranged to the glam: leopard print, a tropical green jacquard, black touched with gold for evening. Art Nouveau and Klimtian motifs also entered the picture. Ungaro was no minimalist, no matter what the era, and neither is Puglisi. Here and there, the more-is-more approach backfired on him. The large-scale floral embroidery, for instance, was mumsier than what he was going for, and the show’s single fur looked a little old-fashioned in the midst of this season’s innovations with that fabric, both real and faux. Now in his seventh runway season at Ungaro, Puglisi has spent longer at the house than any of his creative director predecessors. On the positive side, he showed a great-looking long-sleeved black lace macramé dress.
