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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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032089
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03208900.015
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1990-09-17
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LIVING, Page 94Fashion Without FrontiersTwo top Italian designers defect to France
Pass the smelling salts: Valentino has deserted Italy for
France. And that's not all. Romeo Gigli will take his
pseudo-cerebral fashions out of Milan and plunk them down in the
middle of the Paris runways. Desertion! Infamy! Tribal politics!
Frets Beppe Modenese, program organizer of the just concluded Milan
fashion week: "Both Valentino and Gigli have done big damage to the
Italian fashion image."
So have their clothes, but then that is a matter of taste. By
choosing to absent themselves from their home turf, Valentino and
Gigli have sent the kind of political signal that is beyond debate:
Paris is fashion central, and Milan is just a big backyard. This
is not news to the French, of course, who responded to the story
of the traveling Italians with the kind of equanimity that barely
skirts smugness. "Paris is still No. 1 in fashion," says Jacques
Mouclier, president of the Chambre Syndicale, which sponsors the
twice-yearly ready-to-wear fashion shows held in the jammed
courtyard of the Louvre. "The Italians have come because they've
realized they can't do without us. The Milan ready-to-wear draws
far fewer journalists than the shows in Paris. Need I say more?"
Perhaps not. Gigli and Valentino have already said plenty. "I
don't believe in frontiers," reflects Gigli. Explains Carla
Sozzani, a business associate of the designer's: "Romeo's all for
1992 and a united Europe." Valentino has announced some similar
geopolitical aims. "I am going to Paris as an Italian designer to
speak for Italy," he says. "I will never betray my country, but I
need the challenge to do better." Elaborates Giancarlo Giammetti,
Valentino's partner: "Rome is becoming a very provincial market,
and it's simply not stimulating the creator."
The Creator may have finished his big job in six days, but
Giammetti's creator works full time to fuel his fashion empire
(estimated wholesale haul for 1989: $600 million), and has for some
time been trying to seem like an internationalist. Valentino's
ready-to-wear has been on view in Paris for the past 14 years
without attracting a commotion. Gigli is looking for an imprimatur,
separating himself from the excellent elegances of Milan in favor
of the more experimental company in Paris. The intrepid Japanese
designers show their stuff in Paris; so do the haut trendies like
Jean-Paul Gaultier and Claude Montana. The company is faster there
than in Milan, where Giorgio Armani, Italy's premier talent, casts
a very long shadow indeed. "Presumptuous," is the way Armani
characterizes Gigli's move, adding, "He may want to be
international, but his move is premature."
Milan has been bucking Paris and all its traditions for over
a decade, but the City of Light still holds a clear lead. Milan
staked its claim in a time of flux, when the fashion establishment,
still shell-shocked by the '60s, was not quite so restrictive.
Italy came on with a rush of fresh talent: dazzling designers (like
the Missonis), some fine hands (like Gianfranco Ferre) and some
naughty boys (like Gianni Versace). But, in Armani, it produced
just a single world beater. Paris, on the other hand, can still
offer a wider spectrum: sumptuous Saint Laurent, engaging
Lagerfeld, generative Miyake, fast-flash Gaultier, ebullient
Patrick Kelly. As ever, it is center stage, the arena on which
designers want most to play, especially if they are coming on (like
Gigli) or consolidating (like Valentino).
There was also some suggestion around the Milan shows last week
that Gigli had left in a bit of a huff, having lost a wrangle over
a choice scheduling spot to Ferre, whose revenues ($390 million in
1988) currently carry a good deal more clout than Gigli's (under
$10 million). "One day I just woke up and thought I'd like to show
in Paris," shrugs Gigli, perhaps forgetting that Paris, for other
Italian designers (like Simonetta), turned into a nightmare that
left them disenfranchised, with no singular creative identity. "I
shouldn't yet take all this for more than a one-season wonder,"
said Suzy Menkes, the savvy fashion editor of the International
Herald Tribune. "All designers are prima donnas to some extent, and
I expect Gigli just wanted to teach the Milanese organizers a
lesson."
For his part, Valentino was playing the diplomat. "It's a great
joy for me to show in Paris," he said. "I'll certainly still show
in Rome, but couture is my metier, and I learned it in Paris. But
I always keep my Italian accent when speaking French, and so do my
clothes." By the time some State Department of Fashion has worked
out all the coded signals and careful contradictions in that
dispatch, the dust will have settled. There is always a lot of it
around during fashion season anyway, especially when the clothes
aren't good enough to clear the air.