Anna Molinari dedicated Blumarine’s Spring collection to kindness and courtesy, both of which seem to be in short supply these days. Being a romantic designer with an ingénue-femme-fleur penchant, she has always favored a gentle, seductive approach, working around hyper-feminine signifiers. She loves a palette of pastels and the fluff of feathers, and she can’t get enough of the softness of fur (now eco-friendly, of course) and the froufrou of ruches; she has never met a leopard print she didn’t like. Molinari is fashion’s self-appointed Queen of Roses; she even had a bloom named after her. For Spring, she indulged her penchant, lavishing images of her favorite flower on every possible surface, from the catwalk’s carpeting up.
Molinari is clearly addressing a very young clientele. Who else, if not a partygoer teenager, could wear with confidence rose-printed bustier minidresses, flimsy lingerie slip dresses encrusted with Chantilly lace, or see-through billowing evening numbers in chiffon or in petal-cut organza, which leave little to the imagination? Or else shapely draped dresses in fuchsia macramé, so short they looked more like elongated tops? At Blumarine, it seems the brand has a clear idea of what its customer base is: a lissome, well-mannered teenager, which, despite her bombshell looks, likes roses, praises kindness, and wears sweaters with an embroidered message that politely says “Thank you.”
