Is the Aughts’ aesthetic here to stay?
Among the champions of its resurrection, Blumarine creative director Nicola Brognano seems to be able to find every season new ways to open a window on that decade for the plethora of social media-native kids who did not experience it firsthand and crave for it, quiet luxury notwithstanding.
After fall’s dark-tinged, fiery collection, he must have thought “there must be angel”(the namesake Eurythmics song was not part of the soundtrack, though). Quite literally he sent out a few wing-equipped models, including a cherub-looking young man — curly blonde hair, blue eyes and all — donning golden leather pants and bare-chested, as well as a girl in a billowing and frayed blouse paired with denim culottes.
There was little angelic garb, though. Forget about the fur-collared sweater sets that defined Blumarine in the 2000s — they were nowhere to be seen on the spring catwalk. Here was a sugary seductive collection, where butterflies, another of the brand’s key motifs from its heyday, appeared on belts and maxi-earrings and the cute rubber bags that were part of a collaboration with forBitches.
Dresses wrapped the body in asymmetrical draped sashes that occasionally protruded into bows, while catsuits and short frocks were defined by drilled patterns of butterflies. Denim ensembles were reinvented into bustier tops and low-rise, elongated jeans, some dotted with crystals, others made of patchworked butterflies. The opening golden leather looks were hedonistically sexy.
If the Victoria’s Secret-reminiscent wings could be billed as show gimmicks, the collection, already not short on actual va-va-voom clothing, closed with all-revealing clear PVC frocks decked in rhinestones.
The sweep of Y2K nostalgia is beginning to show some signs of fatigue.
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