Milan Fashion Week Haunted by Size-Zero Spectre of Recession

This season’s Milan Fashion Week was overshadowed by the recession, from the mood of the designs to the actual financial troubles of the designers; some of the city’s fashion elite, including Gianfranco Ferre and a subsidiary of Just Cavalli, face bankruptcy. The impending doom is so near that three government-appointed administrators filled the coveted front row at Ferre’s show last Friday as it faces bankruptcy proceedings. And just two days before the start of fashion week Just Cavalli cancelled its show, after half of the collection was not completed due to a lack of the cash money. He blamed his licensing company Ittierre, which filed for bankruptcy protection February. Countering the blame Ittierre obtained 30 million from Italian banks, and said it was considering legal action against Cavalli because of the cancellation.

With all this going on Roberto Cavalli still showcased his main line that featured a toned down version of himself, a big departure from his usual bright colours and animal prints. There was an array of suede miniskirts, cropped jackets and spray-on leggings - the whole combo looked almost armour-like, to metaphorically fight back against the economy. Cavalli said: “It’s not a time for romance. You have to be aggressive to win.” He added that he had “declared war on the (financial) crisis.”

A return to our hunter-gatherer roots was the predominant theme of Prada’s contribution. Drawing inspiration from the recession, designers attempted to take us back to utilitarian styles of the past, with colourful tweed jackets, sweaters and massive hip waders. I’m not too sure how the massive hip waders fit into the theme, unless they’re assuming we’ll soon have so little money that we are going to have to fish for our own dinner, and we can do this with our stylish new Prada hip waders. Who would have thought that the concept of absolute poverty could be made to look so posh? 

The collection was also filled with very sensible and scratchy looking tweed suits; just like the Milan menswear lines, they pointed at a frivolity-free future. The models were haunting with their overly teased hair and ghostly pale faces; maybe their faces are sombre due to the uncertainty of the week itself, or maybe it’s the fibre-pill-and-cocaine breakfast they had. 

So the theme in Milan seems to be wearable pieces, driven by the economy, but the paradox is that the collection is designed for the elite few that can actually afford to buy a simple sweater and some hip waders for an outlandish amount of money in order to prepare for an economic collapse. Most of us would have to sell everything we own and actually take up fishing to feed ourselves just to afford one of these low-key pieces, which doesn’t seem to help.  

The difference between the fashion collections was significant as we discussed previously, New York’s fashion week was aggressive and took a frightened attitude toward money troubles while London laughed in the economy’s face with its ridiculous “mashups” and technicolour palette. Now Milan is taking a conventional approach. What is next? Space suits for the elite to move to the moon with? Zoolander-style “Derelicte” where the fashionistas and hobos look one and the same?

Posted by Trista Orchard in Creative Economy | March 6, 2009 12:23PM |