Dtwice a year, in February and September, punctual and inexorable even if the world goes crazy, accelerates or threatens to turn digital, the good old fashion shows (for how much longer?), the real oneswith stylists and models all in the flesh (lots of bones), they practice filling the gap between how we are and how we could be with a new dress.
There, suspended between the old and new world, we are, that as soon as winter releases the first signs of weakening we wake up like mammals emerging from hibernation and eager to shed their skin. So, for fun, out of habit, like wind chimes, we leaf through the pages, scroll through the windows, search the sites, suddenly lighting up for a detail.
A masculine shirt, with bold stripes, a non-trivial colour (petroleum or orange?), a fabric of substance to give shape to our strength. A slim, powerful skirt, below the knee length, longer than short. A pair of trousers that are looser than tight, lots of pockets to explore without hassle.
Danda Santini, director of iO Donna (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
A soft bag that is nice to keep and know next to you. A slightly oversized jacket, to face the office with aplomb and the evening with nonchalance, resting on the shoulders. A pair of square shoes, perhaps two-tone, with a sturdy heel for walking. Or a thin toe, a delicate heel strap and a hint of a heel to make the leg slimmer. Or a sandal with a strong footprint, so as not to forget to keep yourself anchored to the ground.
It doesn’t take much to modernize a dusty look: a baseball cap with a coat like little girls do, the old jacket tightened by a leather belt like stylists know, bright and opaque tights from the Nineties that are a bit Lady D like social media suggests.
It doesn’t take much to modernize a dusty look (Illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini).
Something that makes us feel a little younger, not like timeless dolls, but ourselves with our knowledge slightly more relaxed, holiday version, projected towards something beautiful. Something that makes us feel light, and it’s not about size, but about the disposition of the spirit, more airy and lively, almost evanescent, like the scent of spring.
Something that gives us back a light and carefree femininity even if we are not light and carefree and the times even less so. Something new, because nothing like something new on the surface makes us take the measure of the world from an imperceptibly different perspective, but enough to travel through it with more pleasure.
Dress again, for as long as the new will last. A temporary illusion, available on the market, not a miracle forever. As Yves Saint Laurent, a couturier who had a relationship of friendship and tenderness with women, claimed: «A dress is not a piece of architecture, it is rather a house: it must not be made to be admired, but to be experienced, and the woman who lives there must feel beautiful and happy. Everything else is just a journey of the imagination.”
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