In his roundabout way, Alessandro Dell Acqua always manages to express something pertinent about the current mood. But it certainly wasn t there at the beginning of his collection, when the queasy combination of heavy felted camel-colored corsetry mixed with orange poufy silk (beige with tangerine, help!) had his late-night audience fighting back the urge to charge for the door. Stoicism was eventually rewarded, though. In the show s final passages, the things Dell Acqua did with black moiré taffeta (a strict high-necked, long-sleeved tailored dress), fur-paneled coats (with perverse chokerlike satin standup collars peeking from beneath), and sheer/opaque/embroidered black dresses made an intriguing counterpart to Miuccia Prada s line of thought about femmes fatales. Quite why there should be a tide of sinister eroticism seeping into things this season is yet to be diagnosed. But it s out there, and Dell Acqua has sensed it rising.
