MILAN, Italy – Designers often talk about lusting over a sense of ease, paired with a heightened whim for practicality. The new N.21 collection conveyed something slightly different: a feel of ‘contrasting un-hurriedness’ that absorbs cues from the norm and flips them upside down.
Fit and fabrications have long been paramount in Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s oeuvre over the last few seasons: in fact, part of his secret has been returning to the same cuts and materials stretching from Summer to Fall offerings, leaning on slow expansion rather than distinctiveness for mere change’s sake, a key technical component in his design vocabulary.
There was a lot that looked familiar, but that’s not a bad thing. The result this time brought in a slew of toppers made out of ribbed-like fabrications, teamed with polka dots and a utility-driven vibe to match; elsewhere, shirts mimic scarves, wrapped around necklines and collars alike.
On similar territory, billowing trousers paired with frilled blouses offered ample range, while pleats and meshy embroideries emphasised a preppy-meets-sporty vein (which, in turn, conveyed hard-meets-soft notes on glamour). Skirts and dresses in hand-crochet macramé lace resemble bloomer-style minishorts; double-face linen jackets team up with double-face slip-dresses, and a floral number overlays the pink hues.
These jibed more with a Milanese grown-up woman’s style than anything else he’s done to date. It’s easy to picture these ladies breezing into one of the city’s rooftop parties in a slip-dress accessorised in one of this summer’s flats, and today it makes sense, when women are super busy, that they want to look pulled together (especially when, in critical times like these, there’s a lot to muse over besides what to wear).
So I cannot help but wonder: what woman lies beneath Dell’Acqua’s lady for next season? Femininity, for starters, rules supreme. “[This season, the collection] is a mix between a preppy, early 90s, and the beginning of punk, which was starting to emerge,” Dell’Acqua told reporters backstage ahead of the show.
“So it’s a bit of this preppy world, very essential, made of precise clothes and with the shirt on the shoulder. It’s the gold dress, or the Tuscan dress, the brocade, the world. Then there’s the classic coat and the 1940s, which were very classic and light.” Also worthy of mention? “The man’s kilt, which overall made quite a lot of work,” he concluded. “But all in all, this season’s details are very basic.”
by Chidozie Obasi