Designers are cultural anthropologists sifting through the past for ways to give shape and meaning to the present. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, which has put the artifacts of all time periods at our fingertips, virtually flattening them. MSGM’s Massimo Giorgetti dug up something refreshingly analog for Fall: Flash Art, the Italian art magazine founded in 1967 by Giancarlo Politi. Vintage covers were turned into prints for a button-down, a T-shirt, and jeans. It’s an obscure reference, and that pleased Giorgetti. Logomania is cooling, and the magazine covers gave him the graphic element he favors. Also: He’s had “insane” success with the Milan shout-outs he’s put in recent collections; the Flash Art pieces were an elaboration on the formula.
That wasn’t the only cultural anthropology going on: Lifting bubble-skirted party dresses with fitted velvet bodices and puffed shoulders out of the 1980s qualifies, too. Tutto Milano seems to have fallen for the decade. Something the Costume Institute’s Andrew Bolton said at the “Camp: Notes on Fashion” preview this morning is apropos here. Camp, or the love of artifice and exaggeration—Giorgetti’s bubble skirts and pouf sleeves surely qualify—becomes the mode of the moment during times of social and political upheaval; times like the 1960s, the 1980s, and our current decade. Sontag’s agenda-setting essay and Flash Art are likely to go straight over the heads of Giorgetti’s young clients. Or maybe not. Ultimately, those party dresses look like a good time. Really, that’s all that matters.
