Milan, much like New York Fashion Week, has been marked by protest collections. Now, add Angela Missoni to the growing list of designers taking a stand. She put pink pussy hats in the brand’s signature zigzag knits on every seat in the house (the models wore them during the finale, too) and with multiple generations of her family surrounding her, made an impassioned speech at the end of the show. “In a time of uncertainty, there is a bond between us that can keep us strong and safe: the bond that unites those that respect the human rights of all. Let’s show the world that the fashion community is united and fearless.” It will go down as one of the feel-good moments of the season—sincere, endearing, and newly urgent in the wake of the headlines about the alleged hate crime in Kansas.
Applied to the collection, Missoni’s message of inclusion and acceptance was telegraphed symbolically with the similar pink triangle adopted by the AIDS coalition, ACT UP, and the female symbol hand-knit across the front of chunky sweaters worn as minidresses. A pair of red hearts strategically covering a model’s chest on a third dress read like silent dissent to Instagram’s no-female-nipple policy and a love letter to breasts as the source of life. Missoni was in Earth Mother mode here, swaddling girls in multiple layers of graphic knit—sometimes shot with Lurex—and tossing a fur or tinsel boa around the neck for good measure.
The news was in the tailoring. Not the Wall Street type—that would be truly unlikely here—but in the form of a bold, multicolor plaid double-button cropped-leg pantsuit and other shrunken styles in micro checks or nubby tweed. At Vogue Runway this season, there’s been a lot of talk about the right clothes for a protest march. This editor has her outfit all picked out: Missoni’s double-breasted metallic silver jacket and sparkly green pants. Vive la resistenza.
