Gabriele Colangelo had Gerhard Richter s over-painted photographs on his mood board backstage. As he s done in the last couple of seasons, Colangelo looked to the work of a contemporary artist to spark ideas about fabric innovation. His Richters, so to speak, are made from jacquard that s been printed with an image of the sun setting over the ocean, the faux paint splotches created by pieces of the material that don t absorb the print. Complicated stuff, to be sure, but the results were rather sublime on a full, A-line skirt that he paired with a white semi-sheer top.
Colangelo, like his fellow young Milan designer Marco de Vincenzo, is interested in synthetics. A different jacquard, this one woven from nylon, looked like there were water bubbles trapped inside it. Wait, there s more. He overlaid a tank dress made from the stuff with a trapeze whipped up with silicone thread. It glinted under the lights.
But for every runway-only experiment there was another piece that could step right off it. Top candidates for that honor included an elegant blush linen coat-dress edged in neon yellow; a cobalt blue dress stitched from thousands of thick strands of silk with sheer long sleeves; and boyish, low-slung trousers shown with a jersey tee. Still, it s the boundary pushing that makes Colangelo s development interesting to watch. It s what landed him his new gig designing for the Italian heritage label Genny.
