The invention of a new stilistic project and the conception of the way it communicates have to be grounded on three main foundations: experience, culture and intuition. Designers are often elaborating concepts that have been originated by chance: they get the idea from a picture, a color, a sentence from a book, a song…it’s hard to say why they would choose one thing instead of the other. Nobody knows the reason why, through all the audio-visual information baggage we built through the years (or even recently) something stands out compared to the rest. Although a fashion designer committs himself to a perception which he does adjust and stransform along with the stylistic developement of the collection. Some designers always get it right, others may loose their way getting distracted by commercial strategies. Normally, those who never listen to anyone but themselves make it. Hedi Slimane, after dedicating a few years to photography, is now the new creative director of Saint Laurent Paris: an air of mystery always surrounds each new project he has, nobody ever knows anything about the fashion show till the very last minute, not even the location. Slimane is a free agent, reluctant regarding attending social events, shy, quite solitary and he always seemed to go beyond all expectations: the photographs that he took for the current advertising campaing are amazing. He has detected a kind of aesthetic which is very different from the present one and has identified the image into an atemporal dimension, avoiding falling into the same old retro- rhetoric. Singer and songwriter Christopher Owens, original picture by Hedi Slimane.

In the post-feminist era at the beginning of the 80s, women felt like enhancing their beauty and men, driven by vanity, started taking maniacal care of their looks as well. At that particular time, it was not about awareness but most likely about showing off. The messages that the designer’s kingdom, Milan’s fashion quad, was sending out have been creating a new breed of ever-tanned bodybuilders with hair slicked back and hardened by Tenax, who used to wear obviously only designer clothes. In Milan, they used to gather around Mc Donald’s, but it was really happening everywere and not just in the capital of Lombardy, heart of Italian fashion. And made in Italy it was. Magazines had different points of view about style: on the one hand they had to satisfy the trend, on the other hand fashion directors and fashion editors had to fulfill their personal vision. That vison was way classier than those trends, in fact it was suggesting a different kind of beauty: pale skin, inner attitude and also a bohemian posture in order to contrast the arrogant stride of those prevailing machos. What about female models? Instead of chosing the super-beautiful ones we used to prefere the androgynous kind, to dress them up as a man. Picture by Claus Wickrath for L’uomo Vogue, July 1987. Dresses by Enrico Coveri.

Every passing decade leaves different shapes of clothes behind. In the past I already wroteabout the beauty of knowing how to mix and matchvintage with modern pieces, even suggesting fabrics and trends that we haven’t seen in a while. Of course, there’s always something that cannot be proposed ever again, like the Varty and Cleaver’s typical nuance of white (the couple of designers who has made Byblos glorious in the 80s), that was their signature sign;  in an ideal world, where we would have the chanceand the space to preserve our clothes in perfect conditions, one should never get rid of their pieces!The latest kaleidoscopic fashion shows are pushing the bouderies, in favour of creativity. A great example of repechage would be ashirt in a very light and soft corduroy fabric with a smooth velvet tie, so that their rubbing against eachother wont reduce the natural movement of fabrics. Since velvet is quite a thick material, the jacket to wear should be made in a lighter fabric as a consequence. Perhaps a wool crepe or a silk and wool blend one. And maybe who knows… even the white ankle lenght longcoat could always make its comeback..

Image by Davide Cernuschi, from a 1997 Harper’s Bazaar Uomo issue. Woolen suit, velvet shirt and tie by Giorgio Armani.

Sunglasses have been a must-have since the maisons have decided to focus on accessories, realizing ad hoc advertising campaigns. Always keeping an eye on savings though: while they are shooting the colletion, in the same location, with the same sobjects and -obviously-the same photographer, they take some pictures on the side to represent the most desiderable of all designer accessories: sunglasses. Corrective lenses are for every season, but now the same strategy it’s being applied to sunlenses, which are not anymore being proposed only from april to july, the “hot” magazine issues. It’s interesting to think about how our habits have changed, if we take a look at our family album’s pictures prior to the 80s. Before then, sunglasses were only used for practical reasons. Only celebrities used to wear sunglasses even on rainy days or indoor, but as always, society is indulgent with them. Even though I’m not part of the Very Important People, I can’t resist the temptation of hidind my eyes even during the winter, is it that arrogance or insicurity? Mah. One thing is for sure: not taking your sunglasses off while you’re having a conversation it’s a sign of intolerable rudeness.