Gucci - spring 2009

Gucci’s press notes invoked "the new way in which youth and luxury can seamlessly coexist. " The notion that there might be a new generation hungry for her wares has been Frida Giannini’s career impetus. "We don’t care about the old folks talkin’ ‘bout the old style," indeed. Except it wasn’t that "old" catwalk classic that soundtracked her show. Instead, Giannini enlisted MGMT’s "Time to Pretend" ("this is our decision to live fast and die young") to help put her own thumbprint on the heritage of the house.

The Brooklyn duo’s florid style dictated the shape as well as the sound of the collection. The lean tailoring and the neat little leathers that Giannini loves were sneakily overtaken by a creeping jungle of tropical flora and fauna, embroidered, appliquéd, or airbrushed to spectacular effect. Even the shoes weren’t safe. Never mind the embroidered hibiscuses, they also had brightly colored heels of crocodile. Those same flowers were also embroidered on a python jacket, beaded on a biker jacket, and printed trailing up the legs of white jeans. They were so exuberantly, almost vulgarly, lush as to raise a smile. (Giannini did, after all, say that her definition of the collection was "happiness.")

She offered her Tropicana club kids jeans in dégradé shades of sunset or printed with palm fronds; shirts decorated with toucans and parrots; perforated-leather safari shorts…The guy in the parka and striped jeans, fresh off his Vespa, looked almost out of place. He was from Giannini’s old world. Now she has geographically relocated to a fantasyland of rich hippie/gypsy chic. Although the relative restraint of black-and-white jacquard tuxes with their tone-on-tone embroidery harked back to earlier collections when Frida was finding her way, the huge amethyst-and-malachite belt buckles she showed them with were definitely picking up signals from Planet MGMT.

by tim blanks

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Alexander McQueen - spring 2009

“Love You,” the invitation announced. As you moved it around, the lenticular lips puckered up with a Rocky Horror relish. But what Alexander McQueen really wanted to convey was the “über glamour” of seventies discos (in fact, he said he wanted “über über”). With such a goal, his new collection was hardly going to speak to this particular season, which has already pitched its tent for pajamalike ease. And it wasn’t actually a collection that spoke to warm weather in any shape or form, making the surface-of-the sun temperature in the show venue that much more intolerable. (One sympathized with the model who had to bear the final outfit, a metal-fronted, zip-backed jacket that must have felt like a giant, binding foundation garment.)

Nevertheless, the clothes McQueen showed had a fetishistic power, which had everything to do with their intense focus on the body. Start with his tailoring, which defined a man’s body (as opposed to the slender frames of the 90-pound weaklings that pass for mannequins on many catwalks). Add the panels of sheer fabric that allowed glimpses of the flesh moving beneath the garments, or the graphics that hinted at skeletal structure (the most spectacular were jacquard coils of smoke on the front of a jacket—they looked like a rib cage). Another alluring effect was the veiling laid over a jacket or tee. Curious that on the same day in Milan, two designers—McQueen and Miuccia Prada—should both toy with the idea of phantom garments. How does that improve your wardrobe, you ask? Well, it doesn’t, but it’s still a hell of a pretty idea.

by tim blanks

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Emporio Armani - spring 2009

Giorgio Armani's growing appetite for eccentricity knows few bounds as he charges on through life. His Emporio collection offers him a wide platform to indulge it, if only because it's more relaxed than his signature line—he gets to mix things up a little more. Here, there were shoes that looked like spats next to cowl-necked waistcoats that closed diagonally (Bugsy Malone meets A Flock of Seagulls), or a mandarin-collared top sharing catwalk space with wide-cuffed ciré shorts, or crinkled ginghams and harem pants. Armani even offered an homage to Chanel in unstructured cotton tweeds. The models had spiked, blonded hair; some of them were branded with the Armani eagle logo. The somewhat pell-mell nature of proceedings suggested the polyglot society depicted in Blade Runner, a replicant culture where bits and pieces of the past and present are boiled together to make the future. One could almost wish that Armani would push the notion even further and produce an entirely post-apocalyptic collection. The kite surfers that marched down the catwalk at show's end were much too polite.

by tim blanks

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Josh Hartnett pour Armani Diamonds

The new Giorgio Armani Diamonds for Men campaign, shot by Mario Testino, stars Josh Hartnett. It's supposed to look like a real paparazzi shot.

source NYmag

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Ben Barnes @ Armani

Prince Caspian hottie Ben Barnes poses backstage with designer Giorgio Armani after the Emporio Armani fashion show as part of Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009 on Sunday in Milan, Italy.

The 26-year-old British actor can next be seen in the indie romantic comedy, Easy Virtue. The film tells the story of an American divorcee (Jessica Biel) who travels to the South of France and marries a young Englishman (Barnes) on the spur of the moment. The couple return to England to face his family, including his parents, played by Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas.

source JustJared


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