It’s a turning point for a designer when he introduces a bag. Marco de Vincenzo didn’t play it safe with his. First, the colors: bright green, orange, purple, metallic chrome, hot pink. Second, the shape. No ordinary flap bag, his is quilted with four brass claws on the front. “It’s a paw,” he declared backstage. Not playing it safe was De Vincenzo’s operating principle here. He’s belonged to the maximalist school since he arrived on Milan’s runways six years ago, but Fall was louder by several decibels than anything he’s done to date. In the case of the Lurex-shot coats in psychedelic animal spots, he walked right up to the edge of bad taste, then jumped off the cliff. There was something almost gleeful in the tone of those coats that made them work. Other fake furs were intarsia’d with wild critters. We saw a cat, what could’ve been a friendly dino, and a pair of foxes. On a faux fox coat—get it? That’s one particularly rich joke coming from a guy who’s worked with the most luxurious real furs behind the scenes at Fendi for a decade and a half, especially when you consider this: The hours spent on the fakes are equal to the time it takes to do the real ones.
This was an audacious show, no doubt. De Vincenzo’s flair for embellishment is well established, but there’s always been something decorous about the clothes themselves. He mostly took a pass on notions of appropriateness for Fall. Colors clashed, a dress peeled off the shoulder, and massive pleated pants puddled on the floor. In fact, the more conventional the outfit, the weaker it was, and there were some duds here. But hell, if you’re going to wear an electrified fur in colors not found in nature, you might as well wear a translucent techno silk top and skirt in acid spots to match. If that’s too wild, there are the new bags.
