The Best of Milan Fashion Week Days One and Two

Milan Fashion Week is in full swing. Here, a roundup of the best looks from days one and two, from Emilio Pucci’s wild prints and Fausto Puglisi’s provocative popes to setting sail with Alberta Ferretti!

Emilio Pucci
“Glamour, bling, move, and swing! Glam with a Pucci slam,” read the show notes. This was a very Pucci collection, indeed. While it sometimes veered too closely to its roots in a non-current way, like overly ’70s patterns, other looks, like a lime green sequin dress or a lime green top with floor trailing tassels, felt more of the moment. Pucci used its classic color codes including 526 Cioccolato, 254 Verde Mela,  326 Arancio, 399 Rosa Bon Bon, and 179 Pervinca for an explosion of hues. Throwback Pucci prints felt most at home on electric velvet suits or the long caftans that never go out of style in any fashionable beach destination. To drive home the jet-set lifestyle, some models dragged Pucci printed rolling bags behind them, but it was ’70s vintage suitcases turned weekend bags that were worth showing off on the Boeing (it will stand out against all of the usual LV luggage, anyway).

Francesco Scognamiglio
Clothes made for a sexy little Italian minx! The kind that can eat pasta all day and still squeeze into a pair of lingerie hot pants and a sheer pencil skirt. You could envision any number of these pieces for a night out, but it’s the simple little black polka dot slip dress that will have all of the heads turning.

Fausto Puglisi
Provocative Popes! Naughty Italian Fausto Puglisi took inspiration from the Netflix series “The Pope” starring Jude Law as Pius XIII, a.k.a. Lenny Belardo, the first American Pope in history. Law’s saturno hat has become one of the show’s icons and showed up in both white and black on Puglisi’s runway. A white version also came paired with a take on the papal cape. Every look was worn with black stockings and leg garters. While there were many paired with mini dresses, the best looks were conservative ladylike numbers with slits so far up they almost revealed the models’ nether regions. Even a demure lavender suit oozed a certain sex appeal when paired with combat boots and stockings that felt even stronger than a cut-out mini lavender mini dress. But it was the beautiful fuchsia velvet robe with mint green interior that will have the most devout followers come Fall.

No21
Anne Magnani in the film version of Tennessee William’s The Rose Tattoo was inspiring Alessandro Dell’Acqua this season. Magnani won an Oscar for the film, which was made in Florida in the ’50s (thus the beach scenes on knitwear). But even if you’ve never seen the film, these clothes are so timelessly and beautifully feminine, the inspiration hardly matters. Who wouldn’t feel their own surefire sex appeal in a black embellished pencil dress that purposefully falls off the shoulder while looking haphazard? Surely a ladylike soft red dress sheer enough to see the underpinnings will have most women thoroughly enjoying flaunting their femininity. For some women the most traditional visual messages of feminine sex appeal are still the ticket.

Alberta Ferretti
Alberta Ferretti was born and raised in a small seaside town. These days she spends her free time on her ’50s Russian Ice Breaker yacht Prometej (Prometheus in Greek). “I like to travel to the blue of the Mediterranean Sea coastline as well as the islands,” Ferretti told us last summer. “I really enjoy them all, from Greece, the Sicilian and the Mediterranean coast. Capri is one of my favorites because it recognizes itself as a touristy island yet manages to preserve its authenticity.” It’s no wonder Ferretti set sail this season with a wonderfully romantic collection with seaside stripes, sailor peacoats, and capes that feel made for some summer gala in Venice. And of course, there were beautiful evening gowns in sunset pinks and sea greens that look made for a night of dancing by the water. This was a Fall collection, but it had us dreaming of summer.