Sportmax was in the mood today for extravagance as an antidote to Italy s never-ending austerity binge. It was imaginative to opt for Jackson Pollock s extravagantly messy paintings as inspiration for the splatter jacquards that closed the show. The same spirit of densely colored abstraction found expression in a big, messily intarsia-ed sweater dress, and, to a more restrained degree, in big multicolored mohair coats. Except those pieces weren t really about restraint. They had all the energy of letting go. At the same time, they made for a diverting reevaluation of the label s workmanship, which is more often appreciated in smartly modern Italian tailoring.
There was certainly enough of the sober tone as well, although an infestation of vivid red mohair on a gray sweater dress was just one example of how the sober can be persuaded to show off. The subtly extravagant gesture was a winner.
Less so was the onslaught of animal and reptile that opened the show. Used as an accent—the python armlets on a gray flannel blazer, for instance—the philosophy of "less is more" is usually a safe bet, especially for a label that doesn t equate with decadence. Sportmax has achieved spectacular effects with the most deluxe materials in the past, but here the excess fostered a sense of heaviness and stiffness. And ironically, the luxury that these pieces endeavored to represent was probably one of the things that Pollock was railing against in his revolutionary work.
