Other subversive. The cover of Style Magazine shows a kind of aesthetics we’re not used to anymore. The politically correct idea of beauty diffused nowadays has been and will be essential to convey an inclusive signal even from who, for example the fashion press, privileged a single idea of image in the past. But if we have to be inclusive, let’s include also the classic beauty (that we don’t dislike at all). On the cover, the 80s reference is pretty clear; the photographic technique, the casting, the grooming and the styling remind us the era of the beautiful and unattainable. While the clothes, by Alessandro Sartori for Ermenegildo Zegna XXX, are the combination of the contaminations and a creative path that, in the last years, have overturned the codes of conformism and tradition of a historic brand looking for contemporaneity.

Feminine Masculine. Feminine/Masculine, Masculine/Feminine. Magazines have talked about this for years, fashion and show biz have represented it for decades. Art for centuries. The most discussed and bickered Sanremo Music Festival of the century bet a lot on the character/artist Achille Lauro: his look and his musical touch (the fact that he mantained the feminine version singing the cover of Mia Martini didn’t go unnoticed) entered the houses provoking dizzy spells on one side and jubilation on the other. If a message needs to be perceived and felt, it has to be screamed. The exploit of the Roman rapper won’t change the popular mind. Good job, anyway: it was a good message of change; we’ve really entered the era of the years to come. Like it or not, let’s take note. We’ve to metabolize the change or we’ll bound to get old prematurely.

And now the male wants to be eccentric. This week’s picture evokes lightness and summer atmosphere; it’ll be more appreciated by who’s leaving for holidays now, than who’s already come back. The three-dimensional photographic expression, given to this shot by Giovanni Gastel, gives back a kind of vitality not common in fashion pictures published on italian magazines, where the subject’s staticness usually wins. The 2011, year of this photo’s publication, and more precisely that spring/summer, represents a turning point in fashion, that from then on admits -even to male apparel- an agility sign that has gradually contaminated the formal dress: colours and prints, that literally overturn the classic austerity, have created a trend loved by a younger and international public. In collections sold now, colour shades are duller – especially on printed fabrics- and, for next summer, patterns will be more geometrical while colours will remain quite bright. Do we have to expect a U-turn or has eccentricity strenghtened not to give way to total-black return? Picture from Style Magazine (May 2011); jacket by Etro and scarf by Alexander McQueen.

S/S 2011 was the first season of all over prints, a trend that lasts. For S/S 2014, patterns have become more geometric, but colors are still bright. Picture by Giovanni Gastel. Jacket by Etro and scarf by Alexander McQueen.