It could be a fluke. Or might there be a fish-motif micro-trend swimming to the surface in Milan?
Evidence: Giorgio Armani started today’s proceedings with a “charmani-ngly” mermaid-inflected collection. Donatella Versace closed it by splashing her glamorized sportswear with coiled koi carp earrings. And in between, Sportmax presented a collection in which fishtail parkas were but the tip of a piscine iceberg.
As the unmistakeable bass of Janet Jackson’s "When I Think You" rolled over us, a collection that featured piranhas on its invitation offered a recurring fish-silhouette on wave prints and more fish earrings. The less entertaining trend this lineup evinced was that of using a sportswear drawstring as an agent for defining drape and ruche. Cosmetic drawstring-ing is big here, having already starred at Eudon Choi and Joseph in London, and would later at Versace, too.
Normally it’s rude to reference other designers in a collection review. But Sportmax is assembled anonymously by a team and often overtly reflects broader aesthetic fronts that define the winds of fashion. Here, Stella McCartney’s bold knit dresses and Céline’s faux-casual but exactingly precise loose cotton separates seemed powerful generators of the Sportmax currency. And perhaps it was all that Janet—the soundtrack interplayed the opener with “Nasty”—but there seemed to be an undercurrent of Lacroix/Montana in the use of drawstring to create puff skirts, some candy-shop color clashing, and lavishly pronounced asymmetry of some later pieces.
Neither offensive nor intensively exciting, this collection felt slightly directionless—an exercise in treading water. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
