Missoni SS 2012 Review

This was a poorly conceived collection. Apparently Angela Missoni was on holiday and was inspired by her kids coming home in the morning after a hard night partying and dancing. Then somehow she got it in her head that Missoni is avant garde? Are you serious? Ange, babe, no. Let’s leave avant garde to the Van Bierendoncks and the De Castelbajacs. It felt like all the design departments (that Missoni presumably have) didn’t consult each other as the designs progressed. It’s like they were all given a brief and reconvened 3 months later with a finished product (a well made product) and then put it all together. So many questions. In no particular order: Why did nobody at any stage call bullshit on this collection? Why did nobody say hmm perhaps the shoes could be simplified? Why did nobody say, actually the fringing is too much? And the ruffles. Why don’t we pull back on those a bit?

Get ur shit together Angela

JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC SPRING 2010

This man defines ‘working a theme’ and there’s nothing subtle about his crack-head designs which I love. At first glance I thought, ok, pirate theme, whatever, but then he brings in Donald Duck, Prince and Elvis sequin dresses, grass skirt shoulder pads, Honolulu postcards, souvenir tea towel printed dresses, admiral rope, sailor stripes, tropical fish, coral…well you get the point. The tribal mask dresses were cool, they were worn by models of colour and it’s like you’ve got to be kidding me. If it all sounds a bit Pirates of Penzance (which it was) there were some subdued looks like the cute shirt dress with built in bra detail that was a good balance between prude and whore. It’s annoying when silly styling tricks (parrots?) detract from a collection rather than add. The square handbag with tassles was seriously cool, I want one now. Donald Duck sequin dress? I’ll take two.