To say that there’s no satisfactory tag to apply to the Marni collection is the highest compliment to Consuelo Castiglioni. To give us something that jolts fashion out of its nostalgic complacency is extremely rare, and originality is impossible to capture in a sound bite. Yes, there were wonderful balloon-sleeved blouses, shoulder-molding cutaway capes, and stretchy ski pants, but anyone who tries to call that “Renaissance sport” or “Papal modern” ought to be laughed out of town. The thing to define is much subtler than that: What we saw was Castiglioni’s sequence of form and color, texture and accessories, clicked together in a groomed, classy vision of modern elegance. The sort that cuts through doubt and confusion—and just makes you want to put on your dangly earrings and dark lipstick and go out looking like that.
Castiglioni never talks much about the emotional impulses behind her collections. “This time, the proportions were important; I wanted roundness,” she said, “and something romantic, but in a modern way.” Then she described the fabrics—which were often compact and molded, to give smooth structure to elliptical shoulder lines and dresses that stood out from the hips—and her surface techniques, which on at least two occasions were so eye-trickingly inventive you just couldn’t tell what was going on. What looked like a rectangle of shiny royal blue plastic sprayed onto a black-and-white menswear coat actually turned out to be a bugle-beaded hand embroidery following an organic pattern that had been enlarged many times on a computer. So too the velvety blue-and-white swirly pattern on an egg-shaped dress—derived from something digital, but then loomed as a jacquard in the couture way.
Castiglioni has always been an experimenter in fabric and conceptual forms, but this time the whole put-together piece stepped out of the wearable art class to become stunningly chic. Why so? Something to do with the imprint of aristocratic Italian taste—its enviable eye for placing things together that have both richness and simplicity. To take just one amazing example: a black tabard top, short in front and with a kind of train, worn over a blouse with balloon sleeves in an abstract harlequin print, caramel-color stirrup pants, black pointy heels, and a pair of ’60s-influenced chain earrings. What do you call that—sporty elegance? Oh, never mind. Ours is not to name but to know. Somehow the woman who used to be categorized as Milan’s hippie, eclectic eccentric just sent out a collection that places a new Italian glamour front and center on the fashion agenda.
