Rave On

I've been spoilt with a series of not one but two MAGICAL evenings.  That's Disney magical and Thursday night involved the elements of the skies to add to the dramatics, something that designers invited to do events for Pitti get the option of playing with. 

It was of course big news that Jil Sander decided to move their menswear show for the season to Pitti Uomo in Florence.  I was going to leave the elaborate commentary to people more well-versed in menswear lest I get a virtual tomato-chucking for stepping on territory that isn't mine.  I thought I might be leaving the show saying "Eh..well… err… nice suits!…" 

This quote as part of a very insightful interview with Raf Simons pre-show gave hope though that I'd be thinking otherwise…

“I believe in the Jil Sander heritage, but the brand can’t always be about double-face cashmere and a white shirt."

Choice words to set before his menswear show as the special guest of this season's Pitti Uomo and so the hints were dropped before the show that it wouldn't be the purist interpretation of Jil Sander that Raf Simons would tap into.  In fact, a woman wandering around the show grounds beforehand wearing one of THOSE dresses from the S/S 08 collection, the one with all those violent sunset colours interplaying with each other, was actually a good indication of what we'd be getting. 

Weather watching was the theme of the day as the show was held in a beautiful beautiful garden tucked away in the hills on the outskirts of Florence (flats were advised on the invitation… saw quite a few Jil Sander brogues actually…) and the two-bus journey to get up there was well worth it when we got there and saw this sprawling mass of sky, lush greenery, dotted with Tuscan-style houses.  It was chucking it down earlier on in the day and there was no indoor contingency plan but then we got a sunset like this, another indication of the palette to come…

The thing is, this text is almost irrelevant unless I highlight each letter in that annoying ICQ way in basic web colour shades.  It's irrelevant because the pictures below are plain to see.  This was the kind of colour wheel play that represents the side of Raf Simons (for Jil Sander) that I love to see him toy with more, in both menswear and womenswear.  If he's not going to shackle himself to the JIl Sander of old, then can push design strands out in different sections, be it shape, texture of colour and this time it's the latter. 

It was a mastery of bright bright colour blocking that would confuzzle most people at first and then on second glance, you're nodding going "Right on!".  The nodding I'm referring to by the way is the sort where you're bobbing your head to belearic beats. because you can't away from those cycle rave elements – the reflective strips on the back of the jackets, the soft tailoring that looks like it could be roughed up a bit on the go and the colours themselves.  All I could think of leaving the show was "Tyres would love him some of this…".  Who is Tyres you ask?  E-driven, rave-meister, traffic light beep-junkie, cyclist who should have made more appearances in my most-watched TV series Spaced.  On the bike or gurning in a club, he'd own these colour combinations.

Random cult TV characters aside, we have here the first of my S/S 11 galvanisations and to be honest, it's a bit early in the season for me to be inspired for S/S 11 seeing as womenswear shows haven't begun yet.  I will be sorely disappointed if these strokes of colour mixes don't show up in some way in the womenswear show, and in which case may lead me to go to the other side and start poking around the menswear instead.  For a start, it would be criminal if the floral t-shirt didn't come in and join the party with my floral Doc Martens which I had on at the show.   I actually liked the influx of pattern through Day-Glo stripes and these floral prints, both watercolour and itty and enlarged and photographic on a white shirt, breaking up the colour-blocked separates and adding a different dimension to it all…

Either way, there's no harm in even taking a stab at replicating these sort of colour combinations.  A student at Graduate Fashion Week told me it was my mission to bring back the colour.  I've never shied away from it of course and if this show is as agenda-setting for the summer of 2011 as I think it is, then hopefully more of these type of outfits might ensue… 

Oh dear, I seem to have left the narrative of the show rather abruptly.  Champagne, quaff quaff.  Sunset.  Seated for show.  Models walking through a beautiful preened garden with colour working amazingly well against deep green shrubbery.  Then final walk-through comes and drops of rain start falling.  Models couldn't walk any faster if they tried to, to the ravey soundtrack.  If fuschia knocking about with neon orange and royal blue in a rarified surrounding wasn't dramatic enough, the sky had a dab hand in adding the final bit of theatrics.  Just realised there's whole lot of rave in this post – in all senses of the word.  I promise whatever 'E' that was there was not at all chemical…