Milan Fashion Week closed Sunday after five days of mostly womenswear previews that celebrated diversity and renewal, with more designers of color represented than ever and a host of new talent making their debuts at major fashion houses.
The Italian fashion council was promoting sustainability with the return of the Green Carpet awards Sunday night recognizing progress in practices that reduce waste in the industry and its carbon footprint.
Even while the fashion world was raising awareness about sustainability, this season’s calendar presented unsustainable trajectories between shows, forcing the fashion crowd to travel back and forth, multiple times in one day, in an already gridlocked city. Even biking proved a challenge with few bike lanes on the routes.
Fashion week closed as Italians went to the polls for an unseasonal parliamentary election.
Giorgio Armani voted early, even as he prepared the finishing touches on his runway show and to appear at the Green Carpet Awards. Asked about the elections, he responded: “That it may be a productive day. Stop.”
“This is new energy for Milan,” Stefano Gabbana gushed backstage to British designer Matty Bovan. “Bravo,” chimed in Domenico Dolce, The Associated Press reported.
“I am exhausted,″ Bovan confessed to fashion journalists moments earlier. “I haven’t run like that for years.”
Bovan said his colorful, definitely energetic and fantastical collection reflects “English surrealism at its best.”
The collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana gave him access to the designing duo’s ateliers, and Bovan was still overwhelmed by the quality of their craftsmanship “I have never seen work like that. I have never had access to work like that. It is just of a scale,’’ he said.
The Milan stalwarts also provide handbags, denim and corsetry, all of which Bovan has worked over with embroidery, crocheting or painting, about 90% of that by his own hand.
