Last year, Moschino designed the official team suit for Italy s Aironi rugby club. The job got Rosella Jardini and head designer Bill Shapiro thinking: mens sana in corpore sano—healthy mind, healthy body. Healthy wardrobe, too, evidently. At Milan s Arena Civica, the label staged a rugby match and a fashion show, the catwalk peopled by models and thick-thighed rugger players both.
Sport and fashion have a somewhat uneasy relationship. For every Aitor Throup who melds the traditions with seamless innovation, there are plenty of missteps. Moschino s collection fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. There was an appeal to the tailored pieces accented with the athletic double stripe. They re not for everyone, but a happy enough compromise for those whose usual business suit is a track suit. There were funny little twists on expectation, like the rugby shirt reborn as a down jacket, or the blazer in tech jersey. And it wouldn t be Moschino without a few yuks—here, a footprint-covered tux, for the gala-goer trampled in the scrum.
