I'm sticking in another Project Runway reference here for good measure.... or until I get my fix of the new episode online tonight and then I don't have to vent my PR-needs here on the blog. Anyhow, the judges often criticise the contestants for 'overworking' their garments, for doing too much and getting into 'one big mess' (how many times has a challenge ended up being 'one big mess'...?). Perhaps 'overworked' is a criticism reflective of what fashion schools also practise. Somehow, working too hard can just be wrong wrong wrong.
Well, Giambattista Valli toiled and toiled away at his debut collection for Moncler's Gamma Rouge range which I often coo over when I'm in Dover Street Market and have previously expressed an appreciation for. This is levels of overworked-ness that is really evident and the results are highly positive. Duchesse de soie, gazar, macramé lace, fur and feathers (hell there are materials there that I'd be hard press to point out in a fabric warehouse...) were all used in what can only be described as embellished puffawear.
Ok, so Moncler has been peddling the embellished puffawear thing for ages but this AW08 collection that Valli has produced really takes Moncler to a level where you are looking past the puffa jackets and just thinking 'That is a beautiful collection....'. Valli has pushed the sculptural boundaries of what a puffa jacket can do and has played to the volume creating strengths of the materials. I am sweating it out here in my sans-air-con office but I can also feel the chillier days ahead when these perfectly overworked pieces would be required not as functional jackets but just as beautiful feats of work in their own right.
