This Giamba review is very late because Giamba is the only collection in Milan on the Vogue Runway radar that just shows a rack of clothes in a showroom. There’s nobody wearing them, no visual context, no explanation, nada—although, you do get offered coffee. Basically, it’s like going to the edge of town to a really quiet shop in which all you can buy is Giamba, even when you don’t really fancy any Giamba (although, a coffee would be nice, but you have an exciting show to go to).
Because every other designer goes to the considerable effort of throwing a show or creating a presentation, we reflect that effort by prioritizing them for review—just as we do with Giambattista’s main line in Paris. It’s not that these Giamba clothes are bad or boring, far from. It’s just that there’s absolutely no creative effort expended in presenting the clothes apart from in their photography.
I don’t remember seeing the bucket hats that accessorize these photographs, and there were certainly no balloons in the showroom. But the clothes are the same. On the racks, they hung uninhabited and lifeless, waiting for a bucket-hatted gamine to slip into them and transport them to a balloon-filled room. They are nice, fun, retro-boho party clothes. They deserve better than the sad rack in the sad room. If next season’s iteration of Giamba is also in this sad room, please can we see it after Etro—which happens to be next door—and please don’t expect to read about it until at least the rest of Milan is done.
