Luisa Spagnoli’s collections since joining the Milan Fashion Week calendar a few seasons ago have skewed younger and younger, courtesy of design and styling.
The backbone of her clientele — grownups with a penchant for ladylike fashion — needn’t be disappointed. She’s not ditching her loyalists but also trying to attract a younger audience to her many boutiques across Europe and the Middle East. Hence, she’s designing for multiple demographics.
“It’s a lot of women, each one with their own personality,” Spagnoli said backstage, in front of a mood board filled with words such as sophisticated, different, complementary, effortless — each characterizing a different woman and spring’s mood.
To portray characters, one needs to have a clear vision and identity and here a few too many wardrobes seemed to coexist.
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Younger types donned cool oversized and low-rise jeans with georgette halter-neck tops — perhaps the collection’s best look — or floral printed pajama sets and ruffled minidresses. Business women got grayish linen suits — the blazer ditched for a duster coat — and a crocheted corset, should the after-hours entail a night out. Riviera ladies were poured into bathing suits with plunging V-necks and knit coats for the occasional sunset-time breeze or refined sack-like caftans cinched at the waist by thick belts.
Ruffles, by now a brand’s signature, were ubiquitous, trailing from the sleeves of body-con knit dresses, adding volume to striped shirting, or piled onto strapless minidresses. On the bodice of a chiffon gown, they read boho-romantic lady; on miniskirts and wrap knits, they conveyed sugary girliness.
“These are all clothes I’d wear myself or that would I’d love to pull if I were a different age,” Spagnoli said.