Italian ‘tendencies’ towards autumn

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 16

Italian ‘tendencies’ towards autumn

From

in London

“These are the tendencies for next autumn. You need only look at these and you will know exactly what the fashionable will be wearing. Italy is the home of fashion. Here there are 70 companies and. they lead fashion.” The speaker is Beppe Modenese, the place, the fabled hotel Villa d’Este on Lake Como, the occasion, the textile exhibition called “Ideacomo,” for which he is the spokesman.

“There will be lots of gold,” he says. “No silver. Gold. There will be gold on black, gold with strong dark colours and gold on lightweight silks for evening. “There will be gold brocade and damask. There will be gold on stiff fabrics, and gold on light-weight open weaves. Gold will be printed or woven as small motifs on traditional prints — the paisley for example. Paisleys will be important whether as small tadpoles or large distorted pear shapes — and the paisleys too will be dabbed with gold.” Beyond doubt — almost, for there is- always the chance of fashion turning viciously on its promoters — Modenese will be proved right. In London, on the night Modenese opened “Ideacomo” at a New Zea-land-hosted club fashion party, all the women were in black and gold in fabrics similar to those shown as the trend-setters.

The Italians may be proud of their new products but they do seem to have a problem with their timing — or is to their security? I have a feeling that they would claim to have been copied, in advance.

ANGUS STEWART

The best collections were Bernard Nevill’s for Cantoni. Cantoni is one'of the biggest and best of Italian textile producers and . Nevill is Britain’s unquestioned design star. The combination is impressive.

“My banded prints should not be thought of merely as stripes, but rather as strips of multi coloured material sown together — interposed with ribbons, some metallic,” Neville says. Never one to leave details to others, he has his fabrics made into garments. Those illustrated here have velvet bodices appliqued with flowers cut from other prints in the same collection, the flowers themselves scattered with golden sequins. Nevill’s range includes many velvets which express the trends exactly. They are dark, almost muddy, multistripes of brown and beige, with brush marks in gold irregularly breaking the uniformity.

The Cuccitelli collection was warmly autumnal with checks, chevrons and stripes in marvellous combinations of orange, mustard, amber and reddish ochre.

Stucchi Strange were intoxicated with the gilded look and had marvellous lame and brocades, heavily golden, the metallic tones shining against deep ground colours such as a red - that was perilously near black, and a brown that was almost red, but in some lights could be black. This company had the bright idea'of producing matching glitter and background colours in different weights, so the stiff brocade could be married with a gossamer silk.

Modenese was insistent that a big trend is for woven patterns, i.e. stripes and checks, to be printed and then overprinted with small or large floral motifs, of the ever present paisley. This is a design that Nevill has used from the start, but it is attractively copied by the Italians.

Co-ordinating clothes are still the customer’s dream, and the manufacturer’s chance of multiple sales. Argenti catered for that appetite with prints on wool; loose strokes of colour-decor-ated plains, and these were allied with “pure” plains. More traditional stripings not only matched the plains, but could also be associated with delicately conceived patterns of feathers or flowers. The colouring was deep and subtle, reminiscent of Gauguin; arid the overwhelming feature was thefree space which made the motifs sit in deliberate isolation, like perfectly punctuated prose. The Italians are never ashamed of copying a good idea, so after the establishment of “Ideacomo” two other exhibitions have developed. “Como Imagine,” which accepts exhibitors who

are not Italian, had in my view, the only collections which equalled Nevill’s in interest — Abraham and Jacob Schlaepfer from Switzerland and Bucol from France. If a silkworm could see what these people do with his cocoon! They spin, weave, print, pad and tease this beautiful raw material into so many structures that there seems little point trying to describe, them. Their stands were a museum to inventiveness .and they prove that mass production can equal and in some ways surpass the ingenuity of the craftsman.

These three companies had the foresight to have some of their fabrics made into clothing and one could only gasp. The evening gowns were ravishing; huge sleeves, small bodices and great crinoline skirts that , stopped at ankle lengh; the fabric a dark navy decorated with sequins, the whole wrapped in a featherweight mousseline.

Because the fabrics are so rich, the clothes had an air of elaboration and recalled the Tudor style or the very young girls in the family groups of Winterhalter. Also at “Como Imagine” were the very best tweeds —

not Italian but Irish. McNutt from County Donegal has for some years had a devoted following all over Europe and America. For those who are well attuned to colour and design his tweeds have a tonal stamp which is a beacon. John McNutt describes his collection as coloured by the local mountains and foliage, and anyone fortunate enough to have visited Donegal can easily see what he means. To be one among many and have a collection which is immediately individual and remarked on is an achievement. While using a rich autumn palette, heavily touched with orange and russet and the natural tones claimed as their own by Harris tweed, McNutt also played with cream and grey, and sharp soft pinks, greens and lollipop shades. It is an amazing collection out of the mainstream, but with its own very strong current. The third exhibition, “Comomoda,” was disappointing. Giorgetti, comparable with the Swiss and French, displayed fabrics in clothing which echoed the elaborate structures of the seventeenth and nineteenth century.

Trends as they were expressed at Como were for an increase in formality and structure under clothing, a suggestiong I found at variance with the clothes that were worn by the fashion people who were there. The fashion stylists seem to pursue a course which is not entirely subservient to the textile “producers. Their clothes were very soft, almost simple, but in very expensive fabrics. The cut was always beautiful and severe. the detailing imaginative and controlled and their accessories elaborate.

Talking to the manufacturers I found a despondency despite the talk of better times to come. They are frightened that China might stop selling them silk, and they regret that post-war American inspired industrialisation destroyed their silk producing industry. They do not like to acknowledge their dependence on China, but it nags them.

Perhaps the last word should be by Perluigi Ricci: “If you have a tartan in pure silk you do well, if not, you must pray for inflation to come down.”