MILAN — Building a wardrobe for a new season comes easier in Milan.
Italian fashion has always been rooted in well-made practical glamour with a penchant for nonchalant ease in line with the country’s lifestyle.
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From the spring 2024 presentations, WWD rounded up 10 wardrobe essentials, from the perfect blazer and vest to throw-on-and-go outerwear pieces and feminine underpinnings.
The Tank Top: Armarium
Giorgia Gabriele’s Armarium is having quite a moment. Now in its third season, it has recently made its splash in New York with a dinner cohosted by Bergdorf Goodman. She’s made it clear from the start that her goal is to provide elevated wardrobe builders, working on the little details that matter. Her fashion venture is resourceful, and it showed in the captivating spring collection.
She has no interest in embracing quiet luxury as it is described on social media, but rather filling her collections with elevated basics for cool girls eager to toy with fashion as much as to dress for daily errands. This lineup had plenty of handsome options, from the cotton and nylon bouclè tank top with a textured surface worn with tonal pleated chino pants, to the pajama-style set in a chartreuse nuance, with a boxy shirt, cut as if it were borrowed from a men’s closet.
Sartorialwear in mannish fabrications stood out for its rigor, and versatility, with elongated blazers paired with tailored Bermuda pants, while raw-hemmed viscose crepe pencil skirts were all about highlighting craft via details, paired with a thick cotton cardigan.
The Shirt: Cuantico x Vitale Barberis Canonico
A versatile piece that can easily go with business and cocktail looks, the shirt was reinterpreted by Cuantico founders Chiara Apperti, Consuelo Canducci and Chiara Ciolli as part of their spring capsule with Vitale Barberis Canonico. The textile specialist continued to open its doors to up-and-coming names as part of the Heritage & New Talents project.
Apperti said that the firm’s textile archives revealed fabrics one would not expect are apt for shirting, including woolen seersucker, the 21-micron Montecarlo hopsack wool. They cut their feminine shirts boxy with batwing sleeves in popsicle colors.
The Knit: Massimo Alba
Massimo Alba is Milan’s king of chic ease. His soft, bohemian-flecked silhouettes in fabrics such as “baby” pinwale corduroy, lightweight cashmere and wool have long been a mainstay of stealth-wealth wardrobes the world over. This season knitwear took center stage, with oversized fuzzy crewnecks done in fuchsia, cream, acid green and navy, the latter of which he paired with painterly, camo shorts. Alba made fuzzy cardigan versions, too. They were V-neck, belted and worn over cropped trousers or pencil skirts. When he wasn’t indulging in fuzz the designer added his light touch to ribbed knits, or cardigans in shades of dark berry or teal. He teamed some of those knits with paisley sarongs or laid-back men’s suits, some of which were belted at the waist.
The Vest: Yali
For spring 2024, Yali’s founder Pia Zanardi continued to build on her signature genderless blazer and day-to-night cropped vest silhouettes exploring new fabrications to add to the popular yet more autumnal velvet and corduroy options. Cue the charming, color bloc versions in double-face ramie fabric to layer over T-shirts and hoodies, meant to be styled with everything from denim pants to Yali’s new separates, such as Bermuda pants and cute miniskirts to be knotted on a side.
The brand’s distinctive vest shape was also translated into a striped poplin version coming with matching boxer shorts, in a set that made for the ultimate summer uniform. Zanardi imaged it accessorized with beads, shells and vintage necklaces, and styled it with a logoed sweater nonchalantly wrapped around the shoulders that would come in handy while traveling or for those breezy summer nights.
The Sartorial Jacket: Slowear
Slowear is rapidly gaining visibility, most recently with a new space on the second floor of La Rinascente Milan in the “new classics” menswear area alongside brands including Zegna, Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli. For spring, Slowear returned the favor, paying tribute to Milanese tailoring by spinning many of its classic men’s fabrics and shapes into women’s styles. It worked linen, cotton and tropical wool, all with an anti-wrinkle finish, into sleek safari jackets and a lineup of double-breasted blazers with hand-stitched lapels and pocket flaps. With a wink to those who like to look cool while staying cool, there was also a tailored shorts suit done in a linen and cotton blend. Colors were gentle, with a palette of cream, corn and indigo.
The Bomber Jacket: Federica Tosi
Keeping faith to her brand’s sleek aesthetic and easy-to-approach attitude, Federica Tosi conjured a collection of wardrobe essentials with a twist for spring 2024. In addition to her minimal dresses and sharp tailoring, Tosi worked with denim to inject a seductive spin in long skirts with plunging, asymmetric slits and relied on supple leather to craft bomber jackets with a cocooning silhouette, vests and shorts, all coming with stitched detailing. A criss-cross embellishment also ran through the back of a trenchcoat, subtly tweaking its timeless design.
The Trenchcoat: Herno
At outerwear specialist Herno the ambition to offer a total look and expand business toward non-core categories is coming into sharper focus season after season. Working a casual, urban look, the collection had some cool pieces, done in a versatile and subdued color palette of whites, beiges and blacks.
A white denim dungaree worn with a boxy shirt underneath, girly eyelet frocks embroidered with the brand’s subtle monogram as well as pajama-style fluid silky pants and shirt combos suggested ease is key to the brand’s fashion proposition. On the core outwerwear front, oversize gabardine trenchcoats and light padded jackets were among the standouts.
The Cargo Pants: Seafarer
A fashion-leaning reinvention of classical tropes was core in the Seafarer spring lineup, informed by the charm of the ‘60s and defined by a sophisticated colorful palette. Viscose and bamboo fabrics were worked into slim-lapeled, boxy-jacketed suits, or collarless elongated blazers with flared pants, restating the brand’s tailoring prowess.
Timeless slipdresses were revisited with cloud-like watercolor-y prints, while more casual pieces included cargo pants in a variety of textiles, from thick denim and cotton canvas to cotton satin.
The Linen Shorts: Eleventy
Eleventy’s spring collection hinged on unfussy wardrobe builders, designed with the quiet luxury customer in mind in a subtle color palette of earthy nuances, pale blue and whites.
The brand’s cofounder and creative director of womenswear Paolo Zuntini said that his ambition was to “inject clothing with sophisticated elegance, for women who do not like to dress loudly.” Cue the hemp, four-buttoned, double-breasted blazers in earthy tones paired with leisurely linen shorts and knit underpinnings, or the billowing sundresses crafted from silk sourced in Como and tunic dresses bearing Old England floral motifs.
For spring days, outerwear included resort-nodding open-weave knit cardigans matched to comfy linen pants and flowing shirts and perfectly cut leather blazers.
The Little White Dress: Mantù
Known for putting elevated everyday essentials at the core of its wardrobe-building approach, Mantù developed another versatile and polished collection intended to cover different occasions. To this end, the in-house brand of Italian manufacturing company Castor expressed its knack for tailoring, which ranged from cropped boxy proportions to mannish blazer jackets with oversized shoulders and fitted waists.
Targeting chic women on the move, the brand also introduced pretty shirt dresses with cutouts and embellished with knots intended to be worn from work to weekend. In the same spirit, Mantú served another highlight with a pristine rendition of the Little Black Dress, whose essential silhouette was embellished with sinuous lasered cutouts for a graphic yet feminine appeal.
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