Italian Fashion Watch

“Couture needs a bit of a shake-up, no?” asked Giorgio Armani as he prepared to showcase his latest collection in Paris. And for two designers sending their creations down the catwalk on Monday it seems the answer was a resounding “yes”.

John Galliano served up an electrifying mix of bold colous and daringly experimental silhouettes for Dior, including a striking, bulb-shaped affair whose contrasting hues were as statement-making as its unusual puffball lines.

Highlights of the show included a Belle Epoque-inspired gown in leopard print and a bejeweled, cinch-waisted affair with fishtail skirt, with the British design maestro’s extravagant creations glowed jewel-like against the runway’s Gothic backdrop. Saucer-shaped, metallic hats, skyscraper platform shoes and larger-than-life hair and make-up complemented the innovative outfits.

Giorgio Armani also had his eye on this season’s silhouette. The Italian designer flirted with out sized collars, bubble skirts and short puffed sleeves to create new outlines explored through a surrealist-inspired use of fabric and color.

Parading in front of VIP guests including burlesque beauty Dita Von Teese and Hollywood star Hilary Swank, models presented eye-catching jackets teamed with a floaty, bow-detail skirts in a color palette of beige and silvers.

It looks like most publications have gone wild after David Beckham has appeared in one of Giorgio Armani’s new jeans ads. Well, a lot has been written about how that’s so unappropriate and so on.

Well, see for yourself.

THE world’s elite are cutting short their Queensland holidays because their chartered super yachts cannot access beaches and reef touted on tourism websites.

The Crown Prince of Dubai and Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who paid more than $100,000 a week to charter the yachts, were among those prematurely cancelling visits.

One yacht owner has threatened to move his boat to Europe to avoid being regulated like a cruise ship.

Boats over 35m have limited mooring on the Great Barrier Reef and in the Whitsundays. Other countries regulate mooring according to weight, allowing greater flexibility for vessels under 500 tonnes.

Three weeks ago, Mr Armani told the captain of the 41m Seafaris he wanted to visit Tongue Point in the Whitsundays after seeing it on the Queensland Tourism website.

But the Seafaris could not get a state landing permit and Mr Armani abandoned his eight-day holiday after three days. He told the crew he was going to the Maldives where he could walk on a beach.

“It is embarrassing. These are the sort of people I thought we were trying to attract,” Seafaris captain Duncan Smith said.

“For someone to leave early on a charter is really unheard of unless there are mechanical problems.

“There really should be greater customising of access.”

The same thing happened when the Prince of Dubai was visiting the reef on the Seafaris and learned of all the places he was restricted from seeing.

Seafaris owner Jeff McCloy, who is considering shifting the boat to Europe, said millions of dollars were at risk because of regulations that “don’t have common sense”.

“We are just the kind of business that tourism agencies should be promoting – high yield and low impact – but we are being treated like we’re a nuisance,” he said.

Mr McCloy said neither the Seafaris, which weighs under 300 tonnes and anchors in 20m, nor its passengers created an environmental threat to the reef.

The super yacht industry was booming and the boats had easier access in the US and Europe, which were clamouring for their business, Mr McCloy said.

A Government spokesman said proposals to give super yachts greater access to the reef were being considered, but larger boats shouldn’t get preferential treatment.

Roberto Cavalli, Italy’s ‘king of bling”, swung his style barometer from strident and sexy to soft and subtle at Milan Fashion Week on Wednesday.

In line with the current mood for fantasy and romanticism that is emerging at these designer previews for next spring/summer, Cavalli turned down the volume on his formally over-the-top fashion formula.

“I used to design for a woman who wanted to flaunt,” he said. “Now, it’s time for a new woman who is more pure, simple and innocent.”

This proclamation, of course, did not stop the flamboyant Florentine from recreating the gilded Hall of Mirrors at Versailles as a video backdrop to his show.

But there was a sweet simplicity in the white broderie anglaise and floral chiffon petticoat dresses, even if some were unbuttoned as if in a boudoir. Fringed suede skirts, vests and trousers were mixed with Marie Antoinette-inspired peasant girl looks in pastels and patchwork florals.

Pale, sequined shifts, generally devoid of jewellery, offered a delicate suggestion of razzle-dazzle. But there was not an animal print to be seen, no splits to the thigh and no plunging cleavage.

Instead, for evening, Cavalli offered long, fluid dresses in watercolour prints of lilies, orchids and peonies, softened with a flounce at the hem.

The British designer Matthew Williamson took the Navajo path in his collection for Pucci at Milan Fashion Week.

The collection blazed a trail of brilliant color, mixing pinks, reds and oranges and dazzling hues of turquoise with black, white and tan.

The prints, inspired by traditional native American blankets and jewelry, juxtaposed zigzag patterns and arrow-heads with sun and moon motifs, on silk kimono-jackets, slinky silk jersey dresses, loose-fitting trousers, A-line short skirts and shorts.

The striking patterns were also worked in gold leather or appliquéd in colored snakeskin on to fringed suede jackets and coats.

Navajo beadwork trimmed the cuffs, hems and necklines of kaftans and was even used for a plunge-front swimsuit — most definitely designed for posing, not the pool.

This collection, for spring/summer 2008, marks the first time Williamson has stepped away from the archives and developed his own prints for the legendary company, founded in Florence in 1947 by Count Emilio Pucci, the man who was known as “the Prince of Prints”.

Williamson, 35, who became creative director two years ago, said he now felt confident enough to move away from the psychedelic swirls that had been the house’s signature and stamp his own mark on the Pucci brand.

“I took inspiration for the shapes from the archives, but the prints were mine.”

The woman who gave the world “ugly chic” and made her fortune with tough black nylon, has discovered that all women really want is to be soft and pretty.

So last night (Tuesday) in Milan, Miuccia Prada, the “high priestess” of Italian fashion, bowed to evolutionary change and offered a new vision which was all about an imaginary, natural beauty.

Her collection for spring/summer 2008 was like a flower fairy fantasy for grown-ups, inspired by the erotic Art Nouveau movement of the turn of the 19th century.

A dress appeared emblazoned with the voluptuous petals of an orchid; or was it a Venus Fly-Trap; entwined leaves and branches suggested ivy – or were they snakes; anything was possible in this verdant wonderland.

Everything rippled and flowed, as sinuous as the curves of a woman’s body, from the exotic printed silk tunics, dresses and trousers to the elaborate, hand-carved-and-hand-painted “flower” heels on the multi-colored shoes.

Colors were as vivid and intense as a “Garden of Eden” – woodland greens, soft pinks, shades of citrus and crimsons as rich as painted lips – and the flowers and foliage of the prints which decorated the clothes just as decadently depicted.

Dress featured puffed sleeves, a tracery of ruffles at the shoulder, a curvaceous cut-out delineating the neck. Trousers were loose and languid to the ankle, or blossomed into a flounce at the knee. Little knits were worn with skirts which were like clouds of exquisite fabric, floating along the catwalk.

Sheer silk and a new knitted silk-organza mixed semi-transparency and transparency, giving the clothes a fluidity, unusual in a Prada collection.

The look of the models, too, was a first for Prada. With tousled hair caught in loose pre-Raphaelite chignons and shadowed with metallic red and gold, they had an ethereal, fey beauty which matched the clothes.

“This is the first time I have gone soft,” the designer said backstage. “There is nothing straight in this collection– like nature. Before, I wanted to show women as tough and powerful, so I used thick fabrics, with dignity. Shapes were vertical to represent strength. But I discovered women like soft, they like pretty. It was hard for me, because if you use soft fabrics and cut on the bias it is boring, all it does is show the body. So I did a new soft with experimental prints and fabrics.”

Francesca Versace is the latest member of the legendary family to hit the fashion industry and will show her debut collection at Paris Fashion Week next week

Francesca, is the daughter of Santo Versace- who controls the business side of the company and also the niece of Donatella who took over as creative director when her brother Gianni Versace was shot on his doorstep in 1997.

It’s just a year since the 25 year old graduated from Central Saint Martins and already she’s warming up for one of the biggest ‘gigs’ in the fashion world. “Well I was looking around for something after I graduated and this happened,” she said, speaking about starting up her Francesca V label.

There were doubts over whether the Versace fashion house would survive after Gianni’s murder following declining sales and making markedly less than it did when he was alive.

However Versace now seems stronger than ever, after Donatella’s hard work and the new addition of Francesca, who received praise from the press at her graduate show in London in 2006.

“Having this name can work against you or for you. Right now things are going very well,” Francesca told the Guardian in a recent interview.

Today, Giorgio Armani launches his first store in cyber space with a shop in Second Life. Visitors to the virtual Armani store, which is an exact replica of Armani’s concept store on Milan’s Via Manzoni, will be able to buy Armani virtually, with Second Life currency (that’s Linden dollars), or click through to the Emporio Armani website where they can shop for real.

The store is the second designer offering in Second Life, following Stella McCartney’s anti- fur animal rights protest, staged in Second Life earlier this year.

There’s also an Armani cafe within the virtual store (just like in real life shops) but here you might actually bump in to Mr Armani. “My alter ego will be present much of the time to check on how the store is doing” he has said about his new adventure.

Sounds thrilling…though we can’t help but notice Mr Armani has given himself some rather impressive pecs in Second Life. Ah! The wonder of the web.

Donatella Versace not only gets coal in her stocking every Christmas, she’s also a great personality match for something that’s so destructive and detrimental to the environment. As Plenty Magazine revealed Friday, Versace’s eco-crimes are a laundry list of sad excess, cruel practices, and plain indifference.  Where to begin?

For one, Versace travels with all of her furniture so that she can “feel more at home” wherever she goes. In addition to the private-jet lifestyle, The Guardian reports that For £10m or so Donatella will fit out your jet with her trademark leather sofas, or for £100m you can have a Versace 747. All this from a woman who screamd for her face creams during an earthquake, according to her ex-husband. It gets worse.

Versace is also a supporter of skinning pythons; a craze that has lit up the fashion world and stimulated demand. Want a taste of this cruelty? Here’s a snippet from the Daily Mail:

“The snake is stunned with a blow to the head from the back of a machete and a hose pipe expertly forced between its jaws. Next, the water is turned on and the reptile fills up — swelling like a balloon. It will be left like that for ten minutes or so, a leather cord tied around its neck to prevent the liquid escaping. Then its head is impaled on a meat hook, a couple of quick incisions follow, and the now-loosened skin peeled off with a series of brutal tugs – much like a rubber glove from a hand. The python’s peeled body is simply tossed on a pile of similarly stripped snakes. After a day or two of unimaginable agony it will die from the effects of shock or dehydration.”

While we are all buying our jumpers and winter coats, top designers are at least six months ahead of us, showcasing the must-haves for spring and summer.

One collection that certainly stood out was Diamond Seduction range which used underwear as outerwear

The London-born model strutted down the catwalk in the Luxe collection, which combines minimal bikinis covered in gold mosaic or coloured sequins with chiffon scarves, shawls and dresses.

Campbell is now using her charm to promote her Fashion for Relief campaign, which raises money for victims of the UK floods.

She was sporting a sparkling sequinned swimsuit and chiffon cover-up from the collection.

One collection that certainly stood out was Diamond Seduction range which used underwear as outerwear.

Around 80 designers showcased their collections on the catwalk this week. They include big names such as Giorgio Armani, Versace and Dolce and Gabbana.