Initial reaction:
The Missoni girl on a wild night out. The collection was a rainbow-hued storm presented in a darkened club-like space completed with marbled carpet – the kind likely to have been seen in a bachelor pad circa 1984. Asymmetric dresses were worn over leggings with giant beaded earrings and perhaps with a pair of arm warmers too. “Knit me up!” the press notes declared as Angela Missoni seemed to be evoking the carefree exuberant spirit seen in Antonio Lopez’s illustrated campaigns for the house in the mid 80s.
The new Missoni space-dye:
Missoni’s signature zig zag patterns evolved this season into wide, blurred bands which resembled television static, and marble veining that looked like abstract tattoos when rendered in skin tight leggings and onesies. From pastel shades and sherbet colours to jewel tones and bright reds – there was the notion of ‘anything goes’. The marble mayhem culminated in the the finale dress which served as a modern day version of Kansai Yamamoto’s famous catsuit for David Bowie – the bands of the wayward pattern contrasted against one another in a diagonal motion.
A postmodern mood:
J.W.Anderson’s show in London was the first this season to propose the 80s as a theme and Missoni’s latest collection ran in a similar mood. Angela Missoni referenced postmodern sculptor and artist Richard Artschwager and Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass. The Missoni family apartment, where guests were invited post-show for an informal dinner, featured furniture by the Memphis Group. The riotous colours of Memphis’ superficial plastic surfaces together with Artschwager’s graphic lines and unusual mix of materials informed the palette of the collection, as well as the trompe l’oeil marbling and moiré patterns knitted into body conscious bodysuits and minidresses, layered up with boxy Miami Vice jackets.
