Antonio Marras response to fashion s fiscal woes was an escape into the romance of Mother Russia—with winsomely detailed show notes rolled up inside little matryoshka dolls that waited on everyone s seat. A passing nod to Doctor Zhivago cued the designer s focus on love in a time of revolution: For every folkloric flounce there was a Bolshevik reference, too. It made for a collection of distinct contrasts: the pouf-sleeved, tiered dress in a gilded floral print that opened the show, say, versus a jacket and skirt of transfigured military fatigues. An army jacket over a floor-sweeping skirt brought to mind Diane Keaton in Reds, but Marras was rarely that literal. One apparatchik ensemble was banded in fur; peasant patchwork was quilted into a high-necked coat-dress; another coat might have been suitable for the front line if it hadn t been sequined in gold.
There was a lot of inspiration in Marras source materials—all those "lonely dachas," as he put it, filled with embroideries, tapestries, and carpets. He ramped up the florals in a series of draped dresses, but the show s doses of floor-length action made it hard to escape the lingering sense that the air in those lonely dachas might be a bit stuffy. A cable-knit dress studded with holly berries (that s holly, not Halle) scarcely blew out the cobwebs.
