Blumarine, Anna Molinari, gave retailers a big gift for spring 2011. The brand which Ms. Molinari has built has retained its DNA and rung mental cash registers for those who watched the spectacle of a Blumarine Spring. Of course, the collection is loaded with animal prints and full of color not to mention all the silhouettes that employ the components of the collection. While these clothes are not for the shrinking violets and certainly not for weekly supermarket shopping, they will give the wearers reason to smile and make retailers sing.
Emilio Pucci, Peter Dundas, have taken this collection into the 21st century and left behind the Pucci that your mother loved in the 20th century. Mr. Dundas has extrapolated the DNA and turned into modern rockstar sexy clothes. The prints exist, albeit; just in a very different kind of way and the simple silhouettes have more or less disappeared. The collection is as modern today as the original collection was when it was started by its namesake in the 1950’s.
Jil Sander, Raf Simons, gets a standing ovation, in words, for the brilliant collection that was just shown in Milan for Spring 2011. This is a tour de force of what is possible when there is a new designer for an already established brand. Mr. Simons has done many collections for Jil Sander but this is the culmination and a distilling of his talents and the brand DNA. He has shown that it is indeed possible to retain the original and expand upon it in an astounding way. It might be said that what he has done would never have been accomplished if Ms. Sander had remained with her namesake company. Raf Simons has catapulted the brand into a new dimension that is sure to exponentially grow Jil Sander awareness, distribution and salability beyond anyone’s expectation.
Bottega Veneta, Tomas Maier, took the opportunity to show yet another collection which is long on rhetoric and short on look. With a rather bland palette and rather nondescript shapes, the collection takes on a very ‘earth mother” kind of look which has never been part of the ‘luxury” ready to wear business unless you consider Eskandar. There is no news to report here, other than the fact that the brand had better keep on selling those woven handbags for a very long time.
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