CHIAVARI, Italy - Men’s Fashion Week in Milan ended last week, but its not over
yet. The city is still trying to catch its breath from the onslaught of fashion
buyers, models, seamstresses, hairdressers, make-up artists, carpenters, set
and stage designers, photographers and of course all those journalists who fly
in to bear witness to one of the greatest shows on earth – Italian fashion.
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| Moschino Spring/Summer 2016 |
Fashion is a huge business here. Traders on the
Milan stock market closely follow the fashion shows and the design trade shows.
Milan’s financial newspapers run special fashion sections each week, and Milan
is home to an international news service dedicated solely to the fashion
industry. Who’s lunching with Krizia and who’s having dinner with Donatella are
not just items for the gossip mill, but serious industry indicators.
Like other rites of passage, the rites of fashion celebrate change,
and every three months, designers must create a new miracle. Each season has to
have a new set of commandments on color, length, cut, fit and fabric. Nothing
can be the same. A new a blouse, a skirt, a dress, a coat and don’t forget the
accessories, need to be new, never seen before, and then artfully presented,
for the presentation is part of the show as well.
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| Dolce and Gabbna, Fall/Winter 2015/2016 |
Some fashions are meant to shock, others are designed to fill
you with waves of nostalgia, but mostly it is scramble to catch headlines, to
be the most outrageous or the most beautiful – the most talked about. Fashion
is fluid, it moves, sometime slow and sometimes at breakneck speed, and while
we may feel a little sea sick along the way, we do eventually catch up with the
ideas designers present. But that doesn’t mean no one complains.
You can’t imagine the public outcry when in 1917 Coco Chanel grabbed
up bolts of jersey and turned them into dresses. There was a war on, all the
fabric mills were busy turning out materials for military uniforms, the only
fabric left was jersey, and at the time, jersey was used exclusively for men’s
underwear. It was a shocking idea, but not for long.
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| Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2016 |
A few years later, when Chanel put on a pair of trousers and
went to a posh garden party, the guests were once again scandalized. They had
never seen a woman wearing trousers before, at least not in public. Shocking
ideas come and go and then somehow work their way into normality. And even
though we know that every fashion show has the potential to make us gasp,
somehow we are always caught off guard when that moment comes.
So as the men paraded down the runway wearing sequined sweaters
and colorful little flowers embroidered on overcoat sleeves, the audience tightened
their seat belts and hung on.
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| Prada Menswear Fall/Winter 2016 |
The way fashion news is presented depends on who the readers
are. Working for the Milan bureau of Women’s Wear Daily (WWD),
a New York based publication for the fashion industry. It is considered the bible
of the fashion industry and my job was to tell our readers what was hot and
what was not in the world of Italian fashion and design.
WWD is not a slick magazine like Vogue, it’s a newspaper, a
workhorse, a deliverer of industry news and trends. Vogue, on the other hand,
is a magic carpet. As we turn the pages of that slick magazine we are taken
into a dream world, a fanciful myth, a fantasy dressed in aspirational clothes.
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| Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2016 |
We all know we will never look like the super models on their
pages, but who cares. A little daydreaming never hurt anyone. Besides, it
fattens the bottom line of the designer’s financial statements, although not
necessarily in the way you might think.
Picture the fashion industry as a pyramid, a fashion pyramid divided
into three parts. The very top of the pyramid is reserved for the super
expensive haute couture lines, the clothes you see on the runways. Those
clothes are rarely sold and primarily serve as publicity generators. It’s that
need for publicity that is behind the elaborate fashion shows staged during
Fashion Week in Paris, New York or Milan, and Red Carpet events at the Oscars
and other award shows.
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| Moschino, Spring/Summer 2016 |
You already know the first question celebs are asked as they
approach the interviewer, “who are you wearing.” That’s when the big names
start rolling off their lips like dew off a grape: Armani, Versace, Prada, the
list goes on and on.
And if you think those celebs have reached into their own
pockets for those gowns or tuxedos, think again. Most of the clothes are “on
loan” which often translates as possession is nine-tenths of the law. I’ve got
it – I keep it. So the top one third of the fashion pyramid on its own doesn’t actually
translate to big sales, in fact it hardly translates into any sales at all.
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| Cavalli, Menswear Fall/Winter 2016 |
In the middle section of the pyramid you’ll find expensive
clothes, but not as expensive as haute couture. The price tags don’t seem to
faze the top earners in London, Tokyo, New York and Beijing, who are not shy
about spending big bucks for clothes in general, and especially for special
events. But while the middle of the fashion pyramid does generates its share of
profit for designers, it falls far short of the real moneymaker - the bottom
third of the pyramid.
The bottom third of the fashion pyramid is where you’ll find
$250 Gucci belts, $300 Prada scarves, key chains, wallets, small accessories,
bed linens, sunglasses, cosmetics and perfume. Flashing the much sought after
designer label, this is where the designers make the money to buy villas in
France and penthouse apartments in New York.
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| Moschino, Spring/Summer 2016 |
Those who are not able to afford the higher-ticket items will buy
a little something from his/her favorite designer that makes them feel part of
the bigger, more glamorous, picture. And the products are good. I’m not a
designer junkie, but I confess, I love Chanel 5 parfum and I don’t feel at all
guilty about spending money on it.
While most fashion journalists try to maintain a neutral
position regarding the designers and their creations, they rarely succeed. We
are all dazzled, bewitched and bewildered by the magic fashion creates, and
even if a journalist struggles to find something positive to say about a
particular line, most hope that they have been able to convey a little of the
magic.
Copyright © Phyllis Macchioni 2016
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