What is it about tops for men that close at the back? They suggest a helplessness so deeply transgressive that it s a wonder more designers don t tap into their power. Consuelo Castiglioni offered a tunic top in her latest collection that closed with a zip all the way up the spine. "Would you zip me up?"—a line of pre-party domesticity in a thousand Hollywood movies. Except, of course, it s always the woman doing the asking.
Castiglioni is scarcely a sexual politician of Miuccia Prada s ilk, but her new Marni collection nevertheless posed a question or two about the contemporary male. Restraint bordering on restriction was a subtext. Aside from that back-zipping item, the collection was defined by a kind of capelet/shrug. When this fragment of a turtleneck reined in a suit jacket, it had a kind of armorial flair. It also embodied the collection s short-over-long proportion, as in jacket sleeves cropped over much longer shirt sleeves, or a bifurcated navy sweater. There was an intrinsically goofy boyishness to such a look; the glasses with their heavy resin frames helped. But what brought one up short was the plangent tones of Neil Young s "Hey Hey, My My" on the soundtrack. Did this most elegiac of songs offer a clue as to what Castiglioni was trying to say about that contemporary male? And the fact that the furs, a Marni signature, were weasel (surely a fashion first) was simply more grist for the mill.
