Antonio Marras Spring Collection

Designer clothes Antonio Marras is Milan fashion's romantic poet, so there was a perfect synchronicity in his latest inspiration: Bright Star, Jane Campion's movie about the doomed romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. As limpidly gorgeous as that film was, Marras saw it and raised it 20. One of his favorite scenes shows Fanny and her sister releasing a butterfly, so his invitation was a box of butterflies. And 40 models walked through clouds of paper butterflies for his finale, wearing outfits reconfigured from old aprons with lace and embroidery. They were unique pieces from Laboratorio, Marras' "couture" studio, but it looked like just as much work had gone into everything else on the runway.

That's because Marras is such a great collagist, stitching together not just fabrics but times and places. And with fashion taking a turn for the romantic, his magpie vision has rarely looked better. Case in point: Keats being English and male (however intensely consumptive), Marras took a cue or two from British menswear traditions, in particular the trenchcoat. But he sliced off sleeves, added floral inserts, and tacked on a lace hem, so the trench became an entirely personal statement. It was the same with his prints. Gardens are blooming all over Milan's catwalks, but Marras layered roses, wrapped a floral apron over a flowing white dress, shirred a vintage bathing suit from blooms…and then paraded a chiffon shift of poppies that was surely the ravishing last word on the trend.


Marras gets the past in an instinctive way that few other designers can match. But he is much too canny for simple historicism. This collection also included silver flip-flops, a graphic black-and-white cropped jacket over one of those shirred bathing suits, and a pleated black waistcoat decorated with handfuls of coq feathers. They were just some of the stand-alone pieces that attested to this designer's grasp of an easy, modern glamour.

Acne Spring Collection

Designer clothes Jonny Johansson sent a mixed message with today's show of Acne Studio's womenswear. "Nothing retro, no references," he said of the clothes, after a presentation that had taken place in Apartment 1A, Princess Margaret's old digs at Kensington Palace, about as retro a location as the Establishment allows. Photographs of old-school glamour-puss Margaret by then-husband Lord Snowdon covered the walls, and the distant thumping was surely the sound of her flipping in her grave as a parade of serious teens filed by in Acne's casually diffident clothing. You could imagine the old girl snarling, "Damn hippies." That was, after all, partly the reaction Johansson was courting.


Asked to define what was "Swedish" about the clothes, the designer answered, "Spiritual, natural… hippie." The question of identity was a valid one, because it is actually quite hard to discern just what makes Acne distinctive and yet it's a wardrobe staple for an impressive number of stylish women. Here, they would have latched onto the languor of a lo-o-o-ong red sweater over a floor-length tube. If they fancied layering up in blue, there was a navy knit over a floating chiffon shirt and leggings. If they wanted something up to the minute, there was a look that echoed the vintage bathing suit cum playsuit that is popping up all over for Spring.
Anyone looking for a harder edge or maybe a flavor of Acne's former collaboration with Lanvin could settle on the silver python-print shift with the big zipper that Alber Elbaz loves so much. There was tough glamour in leathers studded with freshwater black pearls. And there was an interesting backstory in other skins that had been embossed with Samoan motifs by a new collaborator, a female tattoo artist. And maybe that all adds up to a brand of distinction.

Zac Posen Spring Collection

Having shown his new contemporary collection, Z Spoke, at home in New York, Zac Posen decided to present his signature line in Paris. Gutsy move. The competition here is nothing if not formidable; then again, Posen has never been a shy guy. Today, he not only chose a venue where Yves Saint Laurent famously used to show, but further upping the ante from his Fall collection, which had a focus on daywear he turned his attention almost exclusively to evening.

After opening with some smart tweed jackets with puffed shoulders and stand-up collars, the designer wasted no time getting to cocktail hour, and that's when all the black lace, feathers, and fur kicked in. The vibe: showgirl boudoir. Posen's signature silhouette hasn't changed; it's still nipped and paneled at the waist, but cutouts are part of the sexy mix for Spring and that meant there was a lot going on, sometimes too much. The pieces that will make it into the closets of his party-set fans and onto the red carpet were the least fussy, like a vibrant red silk dress with a swirling, draped bodice, or a black ombré silk gown with a spray of feathers on each shoulder. Subtlety has never been Posen's MO, nor are we suggesting it should be, but it wouldn't have hurt if he'd picked up a few pointers on chic simplicity from Monsieur Saint Laurent.

Calvin Klein Spring Collection

At his fashion show after-party at the Lion, Francisco Costa said, "Calvin once told me something brilliant; he said, 'It's not about right or wrong, it's about the right time or the wrong time.'" Well, today was the right time for Costa. He's been practicing his brand of architectural minimalism for seasons. Now that the fashion world has come back around to the less-is-more ethos, he's gone and turned out a superconfident, uncompromising collection that shows everybody else how it's done.


Costa has occasionally seemed more interested in fabric treatments than cut. For Spring he stripped everything superfluous away, focusing on proportion and fit to persuasive effect. He opened with a white racerback tank jumpsuit devoid entirely of embellishment save for a most delicate silk ribbon sashed at the waist. Anybody who ever doubted that minimalism could be sexy was instantly corrected, and the looks that followed had a similarly sensuous simplicity: Take, for instance, a loose-ish silk shift in a shocking shade of coral, or a silk crepe mid-calf dress with a plunging V-neck. A washed white silk tunic and matching cropped pants spliced by a sandy beige leather apron belt had a lot of fans at the after-party. "I saw it and it's all I want to wear," one guest said. "It wiped everything else away." Costa could probably tell you, endorsements don't come any better than that.

A.F. Vandevorst Spring Collection

Being inspired by armor is familiar ground for Filip Arickx and An Vandevorst, their signature look being one that falls into the category of the urban warrior. But for Spring, the duo took that notion and evolved it into an exploration of metal in all its various forms. Perhaps unintentionally, it made for an uncharacteristically flashy look (not necessarily a bad thing). Let's call it Glamour Armor.

Arickx and Vandevorst ran the gamut of metallic treatments. There was the stiff, aged silver herringbone beading, used on the cap-sleeved dress that opened the show and on more constructed pieces like a breastplate-cum-shell top. A softer fabric covered with silver-gray sequins was draped up into sexy skirts. And the glam factor really got going with gold mesh (hello, A.F. Versace!) and liquid bronze and gold lamé. The pair kept their hard edged fighting spirit by layering all that shine with skinny sliced ribbon pants and knits crafted to look like chain mail.



Perhaps as a sign of their own little revolution, one model came out carrying an A.F. Vandevorst flag. (Was this Liberty Leading the People into shiny new territory? The Delacroix reference did appear to be echoed in the sashlike draping on dresses throughout.) Yet if the dedicated A.F. Vandevorst fan isn't up for the glitz of a gold mesh halter top or lamé harem pants, there were lovely stiff canvas coats and jackets cut in a fabric based on painter's canvas hand-painted in watery strokes. In all, this was a bright and fresh moment for a collection that easily turns doom-and-gloomy.

Anna Sui Spring Fashion Collection

Anna Sui is celebrating the 20th birthday of her business and, as the new tome that marks the milestone shows, she has been utterly true to her vision from day one. Her collection today included the baby doll dresses, the handkerchief-hemmed skirts, and the print mixes that have always been part of her work. But the heart of the issue was, as always, Sui's ability to build an extraordinary mythology around her story for the season.



She cited Days of Heaven, the Terrence Malick movie from 1978 that is one of her favorites. From it, she extrapolated a dusty, sun-faded world of pioneer women, which led her on to Joni Mitchell and the girls of Laurel Canyon in late-sixties L.A. Sui is in love with the artisanal, so there was a strong feel for the human touch in hand-crocheted sweaters, waistcoats crafted from granny squares, and cross-stitch embroidery. But these solid, homespun pieces were paired with floaty chiffons and antique lace. "I've always loved Anna's girls, because they look so dreamy," said Bruce Weber in the front row.


True enough: It was the one time during fashion week when the 16-year-old models who have swarmed the catwalk actually looked their age and all the prettier for it. Sui momentarily cut the sweetness with a group of vampish black outfits, the kind you'd imagine Joni and her girlfriends finding in vintage clothing stores in Hollywood way back when. Then she ended the show with a group from her bridal range: Lily Donaldson in linen-toned tulle patterned in gold beads, her head wreathed in gold leaves and wheat sheaves. No lovelier way for the designer to close the book on her first two decades in business.