Diana Vreeland. Queen Elizabeth II. Loulou de la Falaise. Nancy Spungen. Anna Wintour s first Vogue cover. Nobody has visions like Fausto Puglisi does. He s always loved the brazen mix, but with his part-punk, part-regal, and entirely over-the-top mash-up, he out-Puglisi d himself tonight. It was entirely intentional. After a season or two of exploring new lengths and attitudes to somewhat uneven results, he reported backstage that he d decided to give his customers what they come to him for: exposed skin, electric color, and unalloyed bling.
The news was in the kind of bling: Mounds of polished coral from Puglisi s native Sicily traced the asymmetric neckline of a little party dress, trimmed the front hem of miniskirts, and swirled atop the graphic black and white motif of a knit bra and leggings (both Vreeland and de la Falaise were big fans of coral). There were piles of brass pendant necklaces, medallion belts, and single shoulder-duster earrings. The jewelry owed a debt to Tony Duquette and Ugo Correani, and was apparently made with the help of a master craftsman who spends most of his time working on commissions from the Vatican. Not everyone has a cutout cocktail number and a hip-high slit evening dress kind of lifestyle, and as much as Puglisi lives for that kind of thing, he gets it: Jewelry could be a lucrative category for him.
He pushed his vocabulary in other ways, too: adding easy to wear (but not simple to make, he pointed out) intarsia knit separates like asymmetric gladiator skirts, and throwing in some bleached denim for a lo-fi kick. Well, not so lo-fi if you consider the brass medallion embellishments that decorated a bomber and a pair of hip-slung jeans. Anyway, it was good to see Puglisi digging in and finding his groove here.
