Go team! Awaiting the official appointment of its new creative director, now identified as Alessandro Michele, Gucci credited its in-house design team for its latest collection.
Ditto for Schiaparelli, yet to name a successor to Marco Zanini, who logged two collections for the Place Vendôme house, resurrected after a 60-year slumber by Italian entrepreneur Diego Della Valle.
Also joining team Schiaparelli this couture season was French photographer and advertising guru Jean-Paul Goude, who in turn enlisted a choir, Les Chérubins, whose 15 teenage members stood in windows ringing the show set and added their sweet voices to Ravel’s “Bolero.”
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It made for a spirited fashion performance backing a fine collection that registered as “Schiaparelli lite.” For the team used a light hand to etch the late Italian designer’s legacy, focusing mainly on filmy dresses bearing quirky prints and intricate embroideries.
The act of dressmaking was a predominant motif. Fancy ball-end headpins were scattered as a print on silk dresses, while actual pins pierced a demonstrative off-kilter bow that sprouted on the back of a jacket.
Painted lady hands daintily hoisted ribbons or fastened a crystal necklace on a green silk dress. The telltale shocking pink, which drenched the show space in a strange light, appeared as a harlequin patchwork on a vermilion gown daringly scooped out on the back.
The design team did not abandon the template Zanini had begun to define, relying on whimsical, archive-inspired prints — this time antique mirrors and colorful hearts — and including jumpsuits and handsome tuxedos in the Schiaparelli lexicon.
The workmanship was striking: 3-D ribbon embroideries flapping on a white sequin dress; tiny feathers hewn into starfish dotting a net of black tulle; a halter top fashioned from a tumble of navy stars embroidered together.
Stephen Jones contributed quirky wire baseball caps, propped on the frizziest hairstyles imaginable by James Pecis. Now all this team needs is a quarterback.