What went down at Milan Fashion Week

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What went down at Milan Fashion Week

Mary J. Blige feted designing twins Dean and Dan Caten on their DSquared2 label’s 20th anniversary and Snoop Dogg brought down German designer Philipp Plein’s house as Milan Fashion Week opened.

By (AP)

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Published: Mon 19 Jan 2015, 9:59 PM

Last updated: Thu 25 Jun 2015, 7:57 PM

Dystopian Prison

Dystopian Prison

Philipp Plein knows how to create a spectacle within a spectacle within a spectacle.

His runway show on Saturday night featured a faux boxing match inside a metal cage that was surrounded by tribal musicians with painted faces banging metal drums and pacing models who walked the perimeter of a concentric metal fence in dark rocker/urban warrior looks.

The crystal studded wardrobe, from shoes to bags to jackets, in luxury materials like crocodile are pure indulgence. Yet the athletic wear-accents like knee pads and football body armour, coupled with baseball bats brandished in a menacing Clockwork Orange-way, gave the whole caged spectacle a dystopian prison feel.

DSquared2 at 20

DSquared2 at 20

Belting out U2’s One, pop diva Mary J. Blige celebrated the designing twins Dean and Dan Caten, ahead of Milan Fashion Week’s official opening, to mark the 20th anniversary of their DSquared2 fashion label.

The Caten twins, decked out in matching celebratory tuxedos, showed their tribute collection to 1,300 guests amid towering sculptures by German artist Anselm Kiefer at Pirelli’s capacious Hangar Bicocca on the outskirts of Milan.

“We want to look ahead,” Dan Caten said. “In these years, we brought the brand exactly to the level that we always dreamed, we learned the tricks of the trade and now we have again found the same enthusiasm as when we started out.”

Mary J. Blige feted designing twins Dean and Dan Caten on their DSquared2 label’s 20th anniversary and Snoop Dogg brought down German designer Philipp Plein’s house as Milan Fashion Week opened four days of menswear previews on Saturday with a musical bang. The first day of the festivities also featured preview collections by Dolce & Gabbana, Jil Sander and Versace.

Here are some highlights from the first full day of the fashion extravaganza:

#DGFAMILY

Viva la famiglia. Dolce & Gabbana kept the family close at heart during the menswear preview for next winter, featuring real-life families on stage, and even childhood snapshots of the designers’ own families on the scrapbook-style invitations.

Eight Italian families posed in the labels’ finery to create a tableau vivant background for the runway show — with a 2-year-old boy clad in grey short pants squirming charmingly in his father’s arms.

Family portraits adorned many of the looks: from rich sepia photographs of the assembled families to reproductions of Renaissance-era paintings of the Holy Family reproduced on velvet tops adorned with golden brocade stitching. The final look: a textured sweatshirt reading: ‘Ti Voglio Tanto Bene,’ Italian for ‘I love you very much.’

In a tribute to real life, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana featured not just the usual casting of young models but also more distinguished grey-haired gentlemen in formal business suits, eveningwear and big shearling coats.

Versace Unadorned

Versace Unadorned

Here’s a word you don’t often use to describe Versace: Cosy.

Donatella Versace’s collection for men had an unapologetically warm and cuddly core, with cashmere knitwear in long, lean ribbed tops, fitted knit leggings or bulky cable-knit cardigans.

Gone were the usual heavy application Versace accents. Instead, the new Versace jacket, distinguished by its constructed shoulders and shorter cut, closed in one variation on one side with a plain horizontal clasp.

The simplicity carried through to the colours: monotones, in smoky urban tones of gray, burgundy and brown. Leather sneakers finished the looks. 


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