Avant-garde Fashion Week in Milan

With Paris Fashion Week in full swing, highlights of the Milan shows continue to resonate. Fendi and Pucci both celebrated 20th century counterculture in their Spring/Summer 2015 collections.

As it prepares to move the headquarters of the house to the Palazzo della Civilità Italiana in Rome in 2015, Fendi paid tribute to the building’s neoclassical architecture. Emerging from wide arches inspired by the structure, the looks designed by Karl Lagerfeld expressed a radical and boldly contemporary aesthetic. Fur was shaved, leather sliced into strips, clothes encased in perforated plastic, and bags interpreted in miniature formats like little lucky charms. A new icon for the brand debuted too, as Karl Lagerfeld reprised a now extinct orchid variety that bloomed in prints, clasps on shoes and leather hairpieces.

At Emilio Pucci, Peter Dundas mixed 60s hippie counterculture with the elegance of Italian tailoring from the period. Emblematic Pucci prints got colorful, airy floral interpretations and appeared in swirling tie-dye maxi dresses in silk gauze, secured by stunning gemstone clasps. Plays of transparency added to the collection’s fresh feel with loose knits, lace, and round leather pieces worked into chain mail to create jackets and evening gowns.