‘We are all friends,’ said Donatella Versace as she sat, fantastically blonde and the size of a pepper pot, in the front row at the Gucci show. This unexpected outburst of solidarity between apparently rival designers was the sizzling news to crackle through Milan last week. Bags, hems and heel heights came second. All eyes were on the business pages of the newspapers, where the story of Bernard Arnault’s multi-faceted bid to infiltrate - and perhaps dominate - Italian fashion unravelled.
?Arnault, chief of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, tried to sue Gucci, is sniffing around Prada and is in talks with Armani. Armani? Oh yes. Pino Brusone, managing director at Armani, announced last week that Giorgio had ‘been approached’ by Arnault to discuss ‘future possibilities’. ‘He’s not stopping at Gucci,’ said a concerned Giancarlo Giametti, chairman of Valentino. In short, Monsieur Arnault is shaking up Italian fashion with the kind of money-to-burn buying power that echoes the approach of the shoppers in Gucci’s Via Montenapoleone store. (’What recession?’ is the changing-room cry at this shiny shop).
Arnault wasn’t blas enough to attend any of the shows by the designers he’s courting, or, for that matter, the ones he’s taken to court. Had he done so, he would have seen a knock-out show from Prada; he’d have witnessed a rocking Gucci collection that took flash-your-cash dressing to new heights; and a classic Armani show which kept its head while all around were losing theirs.
?For someone who owns so many labels (Lacroix, Kenzo, Dior, Givenchy and 18 more), Arnault is what you might call a sober-suit man. He is unlikely to be interested in the trends to emerge from Milan. The new taste for olive, khaki, dirge-brown and murky green (sludge - it’s the colour of money!) will have bypassed him. He probably hasn’t noticed the cheeky outbursts of pink, coral, burnt orange, yellow and purple that perked things up a bit. Or the luscious leathers that adorned every catwalk, in every colour, every which way, as long as they looked wickedly expensive.
?I can’t see him in raspberry-coloured velvet, but that’s what everyone is going to want next season (particularly if it’s a ruche skirt from Gucci, or an Alberta Ferretti square-pattern devor dress); and I doubt that one of the stiff calf-length skirts that have wiped out knee-length for winter will top the Arnault shopping list.
?Plenty of women should love them though, as long as we can think our way into a late-Seventies mood, where appliqu d leaves (Prada, Max Mara), poncho dresses (Ferragamo, Alessandro Dell ‘Acqua) and college-girl duffel-coats (D&G, MaxMara, Philosophy and Prada) are clothes to dream about. Hmmm. You’re not alone if you’re not convinced. What’s worse is that Miuccia Prada has decided that woolly leggings are a good idea. She showed cuffed knitted leggings poking from the hems of many outfits, as if the models had - God how embarrassing! - left their long johns on beneath their clothes.
?The look was what front-rowers call ‘posh peasant’, one of the fashion world’s occasional hilarious oxymorons (’hippy deluxe’ is another). Alberta Ferretti’s collection had shades of Hansel and Gretel too, with loden wool unlined coats, woodcutter’s flat boots and a soundtrack trilling with bird song. Fendi was stuffed with dead animals (fair enough, it is a fur house), but everything on the catwalk looked home-made. Fendi’s latest baguette bag is a DIY affair, with stick-on felt flowers straight out of nursery school.
?If you’re wondering where all the sexy stuff is for next season, most of it is at Gucci - where Tom Ford’s kick-hemmed trousers screamed ‘vamp’ and the dolly fur hinted ‘hooker’. For the rest look to designer couple Dolce and Gabbana, who have decided, unilaterally, that the micro-mini (or ‘minky’, as the fur skirts should be called) is overdue for a revival.
?Their brand of flaunty fashion is not for everyone, but it’s fun - and Tom, Domenico and Stefano are well aware that a fun collection of clothing aimed straight at the editorial pages of the glossies will get their shoes and bags shifting on Sloane Street in six months’ time.
?Which brings us to footwear. Bonkers is the most appropriate word to describe Prada’s latest orange shoes with a clunky heel and stick-on leather cut-out shapes. Bonkers will do for Gucci’s rhinestone-loaded satin courts, Anna Molinari’s yellow patent wedgies and Dolce’s fluorescent ponyskin spike boots. Whatever you do, don’t wear black shoes when winter rolls around.
?The hippest girls in Milan have already ditched them. The uniform of the season among these arbiters of style is skinny legs in skinny jeans (back-of-the-wardrobe, not box-fresh) and loopy accessories - mad bags the colour of tangerines or smattered with roses; boots in zebra skin, shoes in leopard print, loud mules from Miu Miu, and - dear heavens, if you don’t have one of these, you simply aren’t fashion - a Gucci ’snug’ bag.
?The world and her fashion assistant had one at last week’s collections (the favourite colour was tangerine closely followed by acid yellow). I wouldn’t be surprised if Bernard Arnault himself has a snug bag to present to his wife.
