Will the curse of Lindsay Lohan ever be lifted? Ever since 2010’s disastrously hilarious but tragic meeting between this house and “the actress turned self-bronzer entrepreneur,” as Nicole Phelps finely phrased it in her review, a noxious cloud of disdain has hung over Emanuel Ungaro. Fausto Puglisi’s recently ended tenure there was neither complete catastrophe nor total triumph, although it met a sticky end because of production issues. There have been other failures in the interim between the year of Lohan and the now too tiresomely meh to mention.
Would Marco Colagrossi—the Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana alum who showed his first runway collection as creative director today—be the man to lift the sword from the stone, slay the dragon, and kill the witch? If you listened to the deliciously uncharitable murmurings from some of the showgoers as we left, then no. This did not go down well. However, I say look again. For if Ungaro is ever to be rehabilitated—rescued from the fate toward which Lanvin is plummeting—then the cycle of Lohan-established license to ridicule (so delicious for those editors who have been cowed to never cast aspersions on the houses that keep them) must at least be challenged.
After negotiating a stupidly handled entrance (note to the Lohan-esque, red-headed door chief: When you’re representing a house already lamed, why shoot it in the foot afresh by ignoring editors from the Financial Times and, ahem, Vogue Runway to wave in your random pals?), Colagrossi talked a good game preshow. He was humble, and he was right to be.
Colagrossi said: “This is an homage. If I am part of the audience that comes to Ungaro, I want to see Ungaro. Nobody knows Marco Colagrossi and nobody cares. Maybe next season, if I have the chance to continue this work, you will see more from Marco.”
So, great philosophy. But what about the clothes? Colagrossi paid due diligence to the codes of Ungaro (I thought) rather well. He used a superfine menswear cotton in gray to make tailored pieces cut in with violet organza. Of course, he inserted floating-stitched polka dots of corduroy in vibrantly violent color combinations. The punchy floral jacquards in softened ’80s shapes—puff skirts with trains!—were nods to a time that is really not our time, but which needed to be noted if this latest iteration of the house was going to work. Beneath the garishness and the bow-tied neck details was evidence of a keen and seasoned hand. The white unfinished toile section that preceded the Matisse-inspired color blast of collage at the end was a clear expression of the disarray and incompleteness into which this house has fallen: the pretty acknowledgment of an ugly problem. That’s kind of a breakthrough. There have been worse collections this season that have registered far better in the hive-mind consensus—that’s the insidiously toxic curse of Lohan at work, still poisonous after all these years. Let’s stop being Mean Girls, because there was a glimmer of something that might just work here.
