A modern, optimistic collection at Emporio Armani
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He called it ‘NEAT’ – a simple word that encapsulated the essence of these strong, simple clothes.
The collection was all about a ‘clean attitude’, said the show notes, ‘a way of being and expressing yourself that is simple and natural, and never too affected.’
Giorgio Armani is a man of pure tastes. He dislikes anything too overt – fashion that is too fashion, too ostentatious, too changeable. He prefers quiet evolution to loud revolution. However, with the season’s big minimalist-sporty story gathering pace, this Emporio collection was the height of fashion. And all about fashion now.
The tailoring was stripped back to the core – jackets with shorts, a simple knee-length coat or a new take on his masculine suit with trousers that were loose and soft or clasped at the ankle like a track pant. The colours, aside from his favourite beige, were pale and iridescent.
If the collection was spare, it lost none of its femininity. Take his new idea of wrapping chiffon scarfs, clipped with a silver crescent moon, around short sharp dresses.
But it was the final line-up of spare iridescent shapes – shorts with sleeveless jackets, crisp cropped dresses with floaty underskirts wafting beneath and strapless tops and shorts - all in soft metallic shades – that summed up this modern, optimistic collection.
Armani is, of course, at his best when he offers minimalism, one of this season’s chief trends – perhaps because he was at the root of it in the first place – but this felt like a brave natural leap forward nevertheless.
