Exuberance is paying off for Fausto Puglisi at home in Milan. His first runway show for his signature label was a moment we might remember as a turning point for young designers there. He s having a harder time getting the Emanuel Ungaro relaunch off the ground in Paris, though. There are a number of factors at work: too many similarities to his own line, a borderline garish color palette—but, most of all, it s that exuberance. Puglisi gets the house codes almost too well. More often than not, there was just far too much going on in a single look: patch pockets, stripes, polka dots, and ruffles? Enough already. Puglisi was better today when he was thinking along simpler lines, as in a densely knit yellow and black striped tank worn with leather pants that had a single sculpted ruffle down one leg. "For me," he said, "it s important to be not just a couture celebration but a real-life celebration." That s the right attitude: Design clothes not just for special occasions but for women s daily lives. We ll swipe the credit card for that. Unfortunately, a reliance on chiffon—an Ungaro essential that Puglisi hadn t explored until now—meant there weren t enough of the deluxe basics he was preaching about. Next time, he needs to find a middle ground between all the excess and those plain white T-shirts with "Paris" splayed across the back.
