Milan Fashion Week, Fall 2008: Best of the Rest

Look at pictures of the gold-"dipped" furs at Fendi (yes, people, real furs whose tips were gilded in real gold), I couldn't help but think about how high fashion is dealing with news of the upcoming recession. Often the attitude this season was "What recession?", what with an emphasis on luxury fabrics, couture-like detailing and, um, furs dipped in gold. I think it's evidence that high fashion is banking on the appetites of the newly mega-rich coming out of emerging markets like China, the Middle East and Russia -- as well as the mega-rich everywhere, who probably won't be affected right away by any economic downturns. (One look at this season's Gucci show demonstrates how the luxury house is banking on Russia to keep it afloat.) This is so interesting to me, especially in juxtaposition with the Lee Miller biography I'm reading now, where I'm at the part where the editors of Vogue (for whom Miller photographed for) knocked heads together and came up with ingenuous ways to make fabric rations, shorter haircuts and other forms of deprivation glamorous and beautiful. I'm not saying fashion has to embrace potato sacks and look depressing -- just noting that at some point it was able to deal with social realities in an imaginative, dashing way that doesn't seem to exist now. The visual evidence of the ever-widening gap between rich and poor makes me a little uneasy, even as I'm appreciating the surprising elegance of line and structure at Versace or the color and exuberance of Matthew Williamson's work for Pucci or the charm and delectable color palette at Marni.

(l-r: Daks by Giles Deacon, Dolce & Gabbana)

(l-r: 6267, Alessandro Dell'Acqua)

(l-r: Roberto Cavalli, Dsquared)

(l-r: Fendi, Gucci)

(l-r: Iceberg, Luisa Beccaria)

(l-r: Marni, Max Mara)

(l-r: Pollini, Pucci)

(l-r: Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace)

Posted by Kat in Fashion Weeks
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