|
"Veiled knees, modern materials and transparency," was Karl Lagerfeld's quick-fire summary of his Fendi show, which also had a touch of the peasant/pastoral innocence that is moving fashion away from those toxic city slickers.
The Fendi geometry was round, for skirts that belled out under deep belts, adding color to the mainly neutral palette. A tunic was made of rounded beads, then slipped over a slim skirt with an underlay of mesh, making the hemline hazy and vaporous.
The constant game of perforated fabrics offering windows on another layer was pretty for classic broderie anglaise patterns blown up on a skirt or for a puffy organza blouse. It is rare to see Lagerfeld use experimental materials at Fendi, a heritage leather house.
The problem with this techno transparency was that when a pair of yellow satin shorts or turquoise shorts showed through the veil, it looked like a weird cross breed of sport and lingerie.
There also were moments when the clothes seemed like a backdrop to the extraordinary hair, blown as though an electric storm had passed through. What did that have to do with the chic, light clothes? Or with the bags, stripped of fancy decoration and finery and left deliberately open, so that, as Silvia Venturini Fendi said, luxury could be seen as a "personal pleasure"?
As so often with Fendi, the show had striking architecture but seemed like a work in progress.
suzy menkes, iht.com
|
Linear Mode
