The test of a designer s true popularity is the number of industry professionals who turn up to her show wearing her clothes, and by 10 a.m., as the audience assembled in Consuelo Castiglioni s edge-to-edge coats, egg-shaped dresses, quirky sweaters, and clumpy heels, the gathering looked like a Marni convention. They got what they came for: a collection of simple-seeming but ingeniously cut pieces, sharpened with a new dash of sportiness and accented with shots of bright patent to modernize the neutrals of spring.
Castiglioni worked on the tough-to-wear difficulties inherent in the concepts of "volume" and graphic tunic-dressing that surfaced in last winter s round of collections. Her to-the-knee tunics were pulled in at the front with a threaded-through chunky belt that then left the back to float free. Under that, she put cropped sport-leggings and high, patent-leather, wood-block clogs.
Marni s signature dropped-shoulder looks and circular cuts were made up in light, papery, waffled, and coated fabrics in shades of white, stone, slate gray, and plaster, and there was a re-introduction of prints—some commissioned from the artist Richard Prince. The negative here was a slackness in the edit, and to non-converts, much of it came over as predictable. Still, the faithful left happy and—as is customary with Castiglioni— the news from her show (this season it s going to be the breezy anoraks and sporty pieces) will carry far. Afterward, asked how she feels about being so widely copied, she smiled: "It s a bit not nice. But in a way, it s a compliment."
