A hidden garden on a summer night—that s what Anna Molinari said her starting point was for her new Blumarine collection. The butterfly lace, the white point d esprit, and the fil coupé weave with splashes of coral and gold that started things off seem destined for a June wedding. But this show quickly shifted from friend of the bride to club girl out all night. On the one hand, you had a white baby-doll dress, embroidered flowers picked out on its long sleeves, and on the other you had a T-shirt entirely constructed from a spiderweb of crystals tucked into a red leather hobble skirt. Is the Blumarine woman an innocent or a provocateur? Although the strappy ankle boots suggested she may be more of the latter, Molinari seemed reluctant to make up her mind. That s her prerogative, of course, and in the end it may not hurt her bottom line. The world is a big place, and Italian tastes are different from American, which are different from Russian and those of China and the Far East. But it made for an unresolved collection.
