Karoline Vitto, Avavav, Rave Review, three new names to follow

The last day of Milan Fashion Week’s Spring/Summer 2024 women’s ready-to-wear shows was clear proof that fashion design remains lively and open to the world. On Sunday, the Milanese runways showcased three new international talents whose collections shone for their personality, each featuring its own unique mood. Karoline Vitto with her sexy-inclusive style, Avavav with its quirky, playful vibe, and Rave Review, a label that recycles upholstery fabrics.

Karoline Vitto was endorsed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who hosted her in their space in via Broggi, making a personal appearance to hail her Milan debut by attending her show on Sunday morning. The young Brazilian designer, now based in London, put the female body centre-stage, unselfconsciously celebrating its shapes and curves.
 
Vitto mostly picked curvy models for her show, their silhouettes sublimated in bold, sexy outfits that never strayed into the gratuitously vulgar. Some models’ bodies were encased in stretch-fabric dresses, sometimes with large side splits, held together with metal loops or suspender fastenings in which handfuls of coins clinked.

Other dresses gave glimpses of generous breasts clad in different bra models. Ready for the beach, some models did not hesitate to don bright red swimsuits and bikinis, worn with a silk top leaving the midriff bare, with a tight skirt, or low-waist jeans.
 
Vitto left her native Brazil in 2016 to settle in London, where she studied at Central Saint Martins and trained in fashion design at the Royal College of Art. She founded her own label in 2020, and presented her first collection last year in London, with a runway show that made headlines as part of the local Fashion East incubator.

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The Avavav show was highly anticipated. Founded in 2017 by Linda and Adam Friberg, the label was bought in 2020 by two young, energetic Swedes who, in the course of a few seasons, built quite a buzz around it, thanks to their inventive creations and offbeat sense of humour. They are Johanna Blom, who runs the business, and Beate Karlsson, the label’s creative director. Their maiden appearance on the Milanese runways lived up to expectations.

The show, as well as the collection, seemed to have been improvised at the last minute. The label received its guests in a hastily arranged room, containing two rows of misaligned chairs on which the guests’ names were affixed with post-it notes. Someone came to stick the label’s name up on a wall, scrawled on sheets of paper, just before the show started. A first model walked out and then turned back immediately, panicked. Another strode down the runway at full speed, her torso bare, a third had slipped on her hoodie the wrong way round, the hood hiding her face, a fourth finished dressing on the runway and another, in tears, showed up wrapped in coils of silver adhesive tape.
 
The clothes matched the mood. Safety pins replaced thread and stitching in some dresses. Fabric strips added extra length to other dresses and skirts. A row of buttons seemed to snake around a bustier dress’ neckline. A necklace was made of mismatched buttons. A hoodie bore the words ‘Made in Italy’ followed by, in parentheses, ‘Or China, Can’t Remember.’ Pick of the bunch was a suit entirely covered with post-its in yellow fabric.

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The collection included some of Avavav’s most popular accessories, like the four-toed black rubber boots, the glamorous three-fingered gloves and the baseball hat covering half the face, with two eye-holes. This season’s addition were a pair of squarish vinyl Moon Boots, matched with two rectangular vinyl blocks in lieu of a skirt and bra, scribbled with the words ‘Add Shape.’ Other slogans included a ‘Filthy’ Rich’ tattoo, and the words ‘No Time to Design’ penned in large white letters on a cropped sweatshirt and a black dress.
 
“I wanted to express the anxiety caused by the fashion industry’s dizzying pace through this collection, which condemns lack of time, as well as the attendant stress and frustration. I tried to convey this with irony,” Karlsson, 28, told FashionNetwork.com backstage. “Streetwear is my world. I love making clothes that I wear myself, and that amuse me. Our philosophy is entertainment, design, innovation and humour,” she added.

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Another emerging Swedish name that caught the eye in Milan was womenswear label Rave Review, among the first to engage with upcycling. The label was founded in 2017 by Josephine Bergqvist and Livia Schück, who had just graduated from the Beckmans College of Design. It was a semi-finalist at the LVMH Prize in 2020, and has collaborated with Gucci for the past two years. Bergqvist and Schück began by observing that there were no recycling-oriented labels in high-end fashion. Using upholstery fabrics, they started producing highly polished garments made entirely from pre-existing fabrics and clothes.
 
Lace doilies, curtain offcuts, throws and rugs, vintage terry towels: the two designers love fabrics with a history, adding a homely, even nostalgic feel to the clothes they make. Over the years, they have become experts in the art of boldly combining floral prints, checks and other patterns in asymmetrically cut items. They also create knitwear from regenerated yarn, as shown by the collection’s socks and stockings, knitted in spider web fashion.
 
A dark, rebel-rocker mood predominates in Rave Review’s next summer collection. Even if the first looks featured lily-white lace and ruffles, the register soon became more boisterous, with tank tops, frayed oversize jackets seemingly covered with scars, and low-slung belts worn over swirling skirts. Bergqvist and Schück dug deep in their fabric stocks, using upholstery, wallpaper and menswear wool, and skilfully arranging different strips of material into coherent patchwork clothes.
 
Elsewhere, flowers cropped up on a denim skirt, and a plethora of white lace appliqués enhanced a black jacket and a sheath dress. The style was fresh, dynamic and contemporary.