Corneliani is show of the week Fashion Week Milan 2015 opening on Friday January 17 and there is a damp and rainy cold hanging over Milan – climate conditions ‘adverse’ – so that we are here to see the Corneliani Fall / Winter 2015 show appropriately helps with the ambiance because deep inside the Villa Eugénie, which is really an old Pallazio, it is warm and comfortable despite the smell of musky underwood emanating from the fallish and winterish underground created for the show on the runway – a nice touch for the gents to walk on leading to and fro a gigantic and strangely contorted snow covered tree which would remind of something out of Tim Burton’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, if it were not for solemnly pleasant piper and piano music accompanying the show’s choreography.
The tree signature comes back on several sweaters or pullovers during the show’s performance which rhymes and fits in with the overall ambiance of what is being presented – we see many shades of grey (there are 23 shades imaginable in what some call the fourth spectrum, all that is within range of black and white), and interestingly as the stand out color to emphasize the large range, some ochre and very little burgundy. All designers these days are very much aware that in order to make one thing stand out from others (in this case all the shades of grey) you need something in the opposite (some ochre here, a little burgundy there). This would not work well in military parades but it works magic on the runway at a good fashion show.
As for style the show is dedicated to what the creator calls a rendez-vous with a prince. But if all things princely were the reason for the show then it was hard to spot. Indeed the classic Corneliani style and look is deft, daft, stylish, neat, nice, elegant, aye, even chic comes to mind, and there are some old aristocratic overtones to be found in the way these coats, capes, sweaters, pullovers and gentry trousers flow discretely in all their myriad forms and perfect fits, but the Prince did not come to mind once except perhaps in the materials that are being used to fabricate this truly wonderful collection. But that was good. Because a rococo or baroque approach to things would have ruined this discrete but beautiful show.
As it stood – only the hidden color burgundy and the contortions of a mangled tree aspired to new princely heights – but when the models returned for one last stand on the runway their faces all aligned with military precision gazing into the same direction one thing became clear: This show oozed class, and in the cold of winter or in the misery of the fall, to brave the elements, you do not need to dress so warmly as long as you dress WELL and in impeccable Italian style – in Corneliani of course.
Posted by Sandro Joo and photos by Paloma Canseco.
