Moncler Gamme Bleu (Q3422)
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Moncler Gamme Bleu is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Moncler Gamme Bleu |
Moncler Gamme Bleu is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
The cognitive dissonance that struck upon arriving to snow-dusted evergreens for the Moncler Gamme Bleu Spring collection didn’t last long. Beyond the pines stood a sea of palms, hybridizing the landscape such that the colorless ground cover was just as likely to represent sand as snow. And just in case guests were slow on the uptake, Vivaldi’sThe Four Seasonswafted through the space before the show got underway. Once it did, a seasonless premise addressing practical imperatives became an arousing, ingenious display that felt vaguely Fellini, vaguely Tati, and unmistakably Thom Browne.Out came down-filled outerwear in coated seersucker, pale cashmere, tricolor plaid, and matte black wool. Despite the pale palette and shorts, these looks were all conceived for cold weather; and no exaggeration, each iteration was as polished as the last. But much the same way a guy who takes off from Heathrow and lands in St. Barth’s is forced to acclimate to the temperature differential, this collection instantaneously shed layers. How? A pair of Adonis types, seemingly interrupted from a day at the beach, unzipped each original jacket from behind to reveal a summer-weight version. Come for a fashion show, get treated to the suggestion of a striptease. Meanwhile, the troops swapped out their skateboard moon boots for flip-flops, which were handily stashed in their giant knapsacks. And just like that, the Moncler metamorphosis was complete. Alas, the frisson of the live action doesn’t come through in the photos. But look closely and you’ll notice how the visuals compress the performance so that what you see are the before and after as pairs; same model, lightened-up look, footwear flipped.Postshow, Browne explained that this two-for-one outing effectively communicated how Gamme Bleu is a line for all seasons. “It’s a great way of showing the strength of Moncler in winter and spring,” he said, noting that the fabric remained unchanged in each switch and only the development of the garment differed. Though he downplayed the hunky helpers, he confirmed that the wetsuit-inspired zipper proved the quickest way to convert the looks. After nearly a decade at Moncler, his reimagining of outerwear as an exercise in tailoring registers as fresh and focused as ever.
19 June 2017
While thisMoncler Gamme Bleuouting was not the first to feature faux snow blanketing the show space, the collection will likely be remembered as the one in which models had no choice but to shuffle along as though hiking through a true winter scene. Taking the mountain-climbing theme to elevated extreme, Thom Browne reduced this troop’s range of motion by binding and lacing their legs at various points (ankle, calf, thigh) and with varying degrees of resistance. Some swished, others waddled; inner thighs and glutes were no doubt engaged.But the mountaineering simulation wasn’t just for kicks; it served as a recurring aesthetic device that projected embellishment originality and punchy graphic appeal. “It directed the design,” Browne noted, post-show. “I wanted to take that detail and do it in non-expected ways.” To that effect, an initial squad of models not featured in these photos surveyed the terrain in gray suits festooned in a lattice of carabiners (99 on the jacket, 105 on the pants) connected by tonal rope to create a giant netted overlay. See Look 12 to get the gist, and note the prevalent placement of the clips and advanced-level knots everywhere else, henceforth relegating studs and grommets to child’s play.Despite all the constrictive binding—which, in a different context, might be suggestive of Japanese kinbaku or shibari—climbing doesn’t come with a default uniform or style of dress similar to other sport references, so Browne had wide creative license when it came to the outfits. Naturally, the outdoor performance pieces were realized according to his tailoring rigor, so that the Chesterfields, pea coats, and blazers will be adaptable to pretty much any situation. Equally impressive: how Donegal and Harris tweeds, herringbone, and intarsias were incorporated into this activewear lineup without discord. Most of these technically enhanced traditional fabrics appeared as a crisp interlude of blue, gray and yellow between the classic Moncler tricolor and Browne’s elegant evening black. Presumably, the palette was extracted straight from the mountaintops.Browne confirmed that several looks—hopefully the quilted suits in flocked stripe and the final evening coat among the mix—will hit stores as shown on the runway since, ultimately, the details are usable. Executed with just enough high-brow finesse to steer clear of kitsch, the concept was also pure Browne to the extent that it left many thoughts percolating.
Models who appeared strung together, for instance, conveyed the spirit of the sport even though they seemed collectively uncomfortable doing so. Climbers, unlatch: you have nothing to lose but your carabiners!
16 January 2017
At the heart ofMoncleris camping—not a reference to the schlocky, big-top shows Thom Browne stages for the brand, but in the old-fashioned tarpaulin and sleeping-bag sense. When first founded in 1952, Moncler produced quilted sleeping bags, a single model of cagoule, and tents. All three were on display in Browne’s Spring Moncler Gamme Bleu show, direct from the archives. The Jellystone Park setting of turf and fir trees, and a duo suited like Yogi Bears in mascot-style bodysuits stripping each model down and setting them on their path? That was pure Thom Browne.Browne is an old-fashioned American boy at heart—which exports well to Europe, with its false nostalgia for an American heritage already half-known through film and television, but not as cliched as it appears stateside. Ironically, the American often rears its head most evidently in Browne’s work for this Italo-French company. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? This show, with its 40 perfectly pitched tents and well-dressed models doing the rounds, was a campsite scene straight out of a Hollywood movie. “It’s really just a simple story,” said Browne, citing American boy Scouts and Smokey rather than Yogi as his inspiration. To lay out a little of the plot synopsis, the models marched out in floor-length cagoule–sleeping bag hybrids; the bears went down to the wood and gruffly wrestled each cagoule off each model to reveal their underpinnings. Spoiler alert: The stuff under comprised the actual collection. The two bears then sent the boys on their way, ringing-round Moncler’s campsite. After, they each retired to one of those tents, unfurling their cagoule as a mattress to bivouac down. “I like the entertainment value,” shrugged Browne.The focus of the garments was utility, as befits a scout-inspired show—along with the shorts Browne so adores. Many a model’s well-scrubbed knees glinted like apples below acres of exposed thigh. But back to the utility. “With Moncler, you want to make sure people see utility in the clothes,” said Browne. “Almost taking utility to an exaggerated extreme.” So pockets bristled on everything from knee-high socks (impractical) to the backs of jackets (impractical-er) to safari and field-style jackets and standard wide-cut country garb. An added utilitarian bent came from technical fabrications, nylons and corduroy, waterproofing, thermo-bonding, and even old-fashioned techy textiles like gabardine or cavalry twill.
Played out in earthy hues of acorn, khaki, midnight blue, and black, there was a rustic charm to these clothes, a retro skew to the ’50s, when Moncler itself began, and an obvious wearability. Mostly—a surfeit of astrakhan underlined Moncler Gamme Bleu as the deluxe line of the label, but it’s not exactly everyday, nor easy for most men to pull off.Dissecting Browne’s looks—generally single-hued or smothered in a wide, picnic-blanket plaid—and adding long pants changes your perception: from camp (in both senses of the word) MGM rural coming-of-age tale to valid retail proposition. Art as commerce. You can’t get much more all-American than that.
19 June 2016
Thom Brownesees great value in the repetition of a single notion to hammer home a point. Consider his signature gray suits; his signature shrunken silhouettes; his signature tricolor grosgrain ribbon. Relentless reiteration has ensured his authoritative ownership of said aesthetic shorthands, which, alone, have little signifying value.Nevertheless, there are some ideas that are so intrinsically embedded in the general vernacular it’s foolhardy to attempt to claim authorship. Like, for instance, camouflage, a disguising device that has been in use since the First World War. More recently, it’s been deployed by designers toward the contradictory goal of camouflage designed to make you stand out, rather than blend in. That’s been particularly co-opted as a house trademark by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, whose use of the pattern has established it, in the past few years, as a masculine equivalent of florals for her. Namely, a bit of a visual cliché, but one consumers buy into eagerly.That brings us, in a roundabout way, to Thom Browne’s Fall 2016Moncler Gamme Bleushow. Which wasn’t a game changer, nor even a Gamme changer. A bunch of models marched out, in camo from toe to head—including face-concealing balaclavas. The camo was red, white, and blue. There was a camo cavalcade, which camped out in a giant cube in the center of the runway, a gargantuan hangar space. Guess what? The box was camo, inside and out, the latter transparent, so we could see the camo being camouflaged.Squint at the colliding pattern, and you could try to decipher the construction techniques—intarsia fur, beading, patchwork—jigsawing fragments of yet more camouflage together. I wonder if the camo-cube catwalk represented a box Browne is hoping to break out of; or perhaps just the bunch of corners he seemed to have designed himself into? The latter was more evident than the former, as the gimmickry at Gamme Bleu felt like business as usual. Nothing less, but nothing more.It’s troublesome because you feel like Thom Browne is a better designer than this, with something more interesting to say. His contribution to the cannon of modern menswear is significant, and yet his Moncler shows have quickly devolved into gaggy stage dressing. It’s difficult to imagine any men wanting to wear these garments, despite camouflage being so ubiquitous and easily digested into the male wardrobe.
In the end, while that camouflage made the Moncler man more visible than ever before, this collection wound up obscuring Browne’s considerable talent.
18 January 2016
In short, this was Gamme Bleu goes rowing. In long—and today's ode to oarsmen lasted only slightly less time than an Oxford vs. Cambridge boat race—this was a rich-through-repetition testament to the breadth of fabrication and the depth of technique at Moncler's disposal. There were two boats, each with twice the number of tricolor oars it should strictly have. Around them clustered four groups of nautilus-honed chaps with thighs like mighty hams wearing white zip-up polos and blue shorts, all carrying kit bags with differently colored webbings. With plenty of backslapping and hearty, helpful collar tweaking along the way—collegiate bonhomie—they proceeded to change into the contents of the bags, and a code emerged. There was team nautical stripe; team red, white, and blue; team faded gray stripe; and team extrovert—who landed lime green, yellow, and pink. Each team wore seersucker shorts, trousers, or jolly short shorts, along with strangely uniform (given the variation of what was above) white-soled navy deck shoes and bucket hats.The star category, of course, was jackets. For the second turn around the runway, these consisted of mostly block colorpiuminoblousons, with the odd flash of stripe. Once they were removed, another turn revealed the looks below, which were the heart of this collection. In various lengths, the essence of it was fantastic variations on the rowing blazer. Afterward, designer Thom Browne summarized thus: "There were a lot of different variations on rowing and crewing stripes: team stripes. There was astrakhan [white] in the striped pattern, cashmere with grosgrain that was embroidered into the stripes, and, of course, there were printed and woven fabrics that were in the stripes. There was terry cloth that had an inlay of sequin in it. There was men's suiting fabric that had seam-taped stripes—so there were a lot of variations." In total the three turns around the two boats resulted in around 160 looks, Browne said. Some in the audience indulged in cox and rowlocks gags as they passed, it's true, but this mighty armada of a Moncler fleet review was some sight to behold. An awesome display.
21 June 2015
Repetition spiked with variation leads to evolution. Once you read the small print, that was the austerely presented but richly demonstrated message of a Moncler Gamme Bleu show that was initially an elusive proposition to fathom. It started with four clusters of models in identically proportioned down jackets in four different color groupings and a wide variety of fabrications. In skullcaps, goggles, and wide pants with zippers or poppers at the side (that should have been a clue to one of the references), they wanly circled a line of slender saplings before standing in front of their respective trees under conveniently placed clothes hangers. Suddenly suffused in a volley of strobes, they did a Magic Mike, whipping off their pants and coats. When the lighting stabilized, the models stood before us, changed. Those broad pants and the first down coats, now hanging in their hands to reveal internal zippers (so, reversible), had been replaced by almost identically proportioned down-filled, popper-buttoned, high-hemmed jackets and jodhpurs. The suggestion—and you expect a sporting reference at Gamme Bleu—was of jockeys' colors. This idea was reinforced by the checks, harlequin diamonds, flashes, crosses, and stripes that decorated the clothes. The jackets ranged in material from nylon to fur, via tweed, knit, and more.The only thing to do when a collection raises so many questions is to ask the designer to explain. Thom Browne said: "We were paying homage to that original Moncler down-filled jacket from the '50s. I saw one in the archives. That's what all the outerwear pieces were at the start." Before Remo Ruffini took control of Moncler just over a decade ago and set about retooling it for the 21st century—plus overseeing an extremely successful stock-market flotation—it was a deflated French skiwear manufacturer whose days as a cool brand among young Italian preppies were a fading memory. When the label was founded, however, it was a mountaineering brand that brought the down-filled coat to Europe from Canada via the French climber Lionel Terray. So this, at least in silhouette, was the original.Browne continued: "I was marrying that jacket with the first jacket I did for Gamme Bleu, which was the down-filled sports coat. And then the fabrics and the patterns came in—a loose reference to jockey uniforms." And the skullcaps? "They were just last-minute.
At the beginning I wanted the models to be almost like factory workers, and it just sort of commoditized all of them," he added. "The music is from the soundtrack toMetropolis, from the scene at the beginning where they walk into the factory." With the minor caveat that the performance obscured the fact that we were seeing Moncler's very first product—or at least a memory of it—this was a home run of a Gamme Bleu show that was at turns both bemusing and breathtaking.
18 January 2015
There was no surprise regarding what the theme of Spring's matchup between Thom Browne and Moncler would be. Upon entering the coliseum-like venue, spectators were confronted by a boxing ring wrapped in Browne's signature tricolored stripe and surrounded by bleachers.How did Browne arrive at boxing for this season, one might ask? He just picked it, he said backstage. For no other reason than it's a sport, and that's what his Moncler Gamme Bleu collection was all about. From there, the designer took inspiration from fighters' flowing, decorated robes, high-waisted trunks, and lace-up boots to create one of his most fun, imaginative, and comfortable-looking Gamme Bleu outings yet. It was an exercise in meticulous maximalism. Lacing borrowed from the closures on boxing gloves held together shirts and trousers. The thick bands of stitching from the waist of boxing shorts became a detail used to nip in outerwear to give some shape. Shorts were cut longer and looser than usual and layered over trousers. There were plenty of Browne-ian touches, too—layers of glen plaid, tartan, seersucker, and slubby summer tweeds; button-collar oxfords with color-coordinated rep ties; and long, baffled outerwear.The women's offering didn't pack the same punch, but it still included a few fun peculiarities, among them a pair of fur boxing gloves and a sheer mesh top that revealed much more than anything else in the modest collection. The grand finale was an unexpected twist to end such a macho show—a gown with a long train held up by, who else, two chiseled boxers.
21 June 2014
Thom Browne loves a gender-bending look, but the first nine models to take his Fall Moncler Gamme Bleu runway weren't having us on: They were honest-to-God women. Their presence served to announce that Browne will be extending his Gamme Bleu collection into womenswear as well as men's. Once the mild shock of that set in, the waters were more or less untroubled. Browne has been working to advance himself in womenswear for the past few seasons—most prominently with the ready-to-wear collection for his namesake label—and Moncler's recent IPO has likely furnished the Italian company with a bit of capital to spend. There's the why. As for the what, it was a case study in what's good for the goose is good for the gander. The entire collection was covered with a thick coat of argyle, which was enough to clue you in to a golf theme. Browne's men wore diamond-quilted argyle-printed jackets, blazers, knickerbockers, and knee-high socks. The girls wore much the same, with a few more skirts and something between a leg warmer and a spat covering their shoes.Browne is a master of taking a theme and worrying it down to every last detail, so the argyle here came in every imaginable fabrication, from sequined to woven to knit, and on one ethereal garment from which sheer diamonds fluttered like butterflies. It's hard to accuse him of not dotting everyiand crossing everyt. But for whatever reason, the collection didn't have the force of revelation the situation might have warranted. It might be that, for a designer whose menswear flirts at the border of womenswear (and whose womenswear flirts at the border of men's), bringing the sexes together just makes literal a point he's already spent seasons suggesting. For an ecstasy of head-slapping weirdness, you had to turn instead to the soundtrack, which alternated string music with snippets of Shakespeare. The reader of such tony source material turned out to be none other than the torpedo-breasted "working man's Monroe" of the 1950s, Jayne Mansfield. That tidbit prompted the reaction the collections seem to court: What? Wow!
11 January 2014
The latest sport to come into Thom Browne's crosshairs is…cricket. (Crickets also being the sound the revelation inspired in the American press section. Those little balls lining the grassy knoll of runway were forwhat?) Though he admitted cheerfully that his personal experience was "none," he stepped gamely to the pitch. But as a lens through which to focus his ever-puffed, ever-odd collection for Moncler, the sport worked well. For one thing, the padded, skirted protective gear cricket requires aligns perfectly with the twin requirements (padding, skirts) that define the Gamme Bleu world. But just as serendipitous, it turned out, was the palette. For the first time, the designer stripped the whole collection down to purest white, offset only with his customary tricolor stripe. "I wanted people to really see all the work that goes into the fabrics," he said. "All the textures, the mix of the textures, and the mix of the technical fabrics with the classical fabrics, which has become so signature to Gamme Bleu." The array of padded trousers, culottes with reinforced knees, crop-topped cricketers' sweaters, and coats with oversize ribbon closures did have a new clarity and a sharper sense of focus in optic white.Browne has plied his single-minded trade so long that it's impossible to expect anything at his shows, yet impossible to go away with expectations anything but fulfilled. He's conditioned the world to his weirdness, which is no small accomplishment. The most outré thing on display, actually, for the man who—probably to his chagrin—will be forever remembered as the ankle's liberator, was all thosesocks.
22 June 2013
Thom Browne's latest spectacular for Moncler Gamme Bleu was set in a winter wonderland of snow and ice-silvered trees—one with a few dead-in-their-armor knights lying around it.Game of Thrones? a few wags wondered.Ach, no. The first look made all clear with the tartan (one of four developed specifically for this collection), the kilt, and then, the keening bagpipe sound: "Scotland, all things Scottish," Thom confirmed after the show. The Highlands agree with him. The land of men in skirts, the man who never shied away from one: They've had this date from the beginning. But Browne demurred. It was the kilts' traditional pleats that wowed him, and he spun them off onto capes and belted fencing-style jackets, too. The Scottish isles being the home of some of the world's finest wool, there was no shortage of Shetland here. But just as wowing was the way Browne combined it with Moncler's more technical garb, most impressively in parkas and vests that seemed to bleed from wool to puffer down.The idea, Browne said, grew out of his madras-filled Spring namesake show. He's on a plaid world tour. The knights—those were real suits of armor, for the record, some hundreds of years old—may be felled, but Browne lives to fight another day. Next stop? Who knows.
12 January 2013
Navy camp goes back to the Village People and beyond, and it's a natural fit for the blend of sport and smirk Thom Browne brews at Gamme Bleu. The sweltering Milanese heat didn't stop a line of dancers in custom Browne-ified sailor suits (spare no expense!) from tapping their way through the Charleston routine fromThe Artistunder a banner of semaphore flags. Kelly and Sinatra would've been proud. Milan, Milan—it's a helluva town!The collection itself drew on sailing, the latest of Thom's athletic ferments. Though he confessed backstage that he's an indifferent sailor, the theme inspired an appealing collection. Maybe it was that he didn't belabor the point. Yes, there were the usual showmanly flourishes, like the sail cloth spinnaker clipped to Arthur Kulkov's evening look and a buckle-backed knit dress that looked like something you'd sooner find at Browne's namesake line. But if being on the briny inspired the rain slicker parkas and blazers, the net-mesh details at gussets and pant stripes, and the penny loafer espadrilles, it's a trip to take. There seemed a skip in Thom's step as he came out after the sailors' closing dance to take his bow. If only it had been a tap.
23 June 2012
Dozens of Matchbox race cars arrayed intricolorestripes on the floor of a salon room in the Palazzo Clerici announced the theme. Thom Browne, who selects a new sport each season for his Moncler Gamme Bleu collection, had settled on Formula 1. As it turned out, the late, great Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna—subject of the 2010 documentarySenna—gave Browne the plot. "I wasn't that familiar" with Formula 1, Browne admitted pre-show. "But he was the coolest guy."That Senna (who died in 1994 behind the wheel at the San Marino Grand Prix) would hardly have recognized the clothes he and his sport inspired is several laps beside the point. Sport is a launching pad for Gamme Bleu, which has run through fencing, fox hunting, and biking in recent seasons, and part of its zest comes from how far Browne can lead uniform attire astray into the realms of puffer fashion. A few mechanics' jumpsuits at the outset were fit for the pit crew. After that, the wheels spun toward what-you-will. There were shorts suits peppered with Moncler logos like sponsors' patches, and perforated pieces derived from racers' garb. On the salable end, Browne showed patchwork puffa suits of tartan and windowpane check, his now-standard blazers, and a few playful Chesterfield coats. An announcer read off the models' names and explained their looks as they paraded one by one. And while the wildest—a full-on boiler suit in Persian lamb—was introduced with barely a cough, one young man's getup was proclaimed "a look you can wear to the North Pole" (a long drive, that). Another was declared fit for his wedding day.That one, actually, gave you pause. Thom can likely cycle through athletics for several more years without a blink. It looks as though he might. But imagine what fun he could have with that more traditional fashion-favorite blood sport: bridal.
14 January 2012
At the end of her show today, a reporter said to Miuccia Prada, "Golf, who knew?" "Yes," Prada replied, "But golf as an excuse for craziness." Thom Browne could probably relate. Sports as an excuse for craziness could serve as the credo for the collections the American designs for Moncler Gamme Bleu. Each season he manages to wring the maximum amount of enjoyment out of a different athletic endeavor. Today it was fencing's turn. The show was set in a real club with trophies and photos of fencers lining the walls, though the giant, fluorescent sci-fi lights had been imported just for the occasion. The connection between a fencer's padding and Moncler's skiwear heritage is a fairly obvious one, but surely only Browne could make the link between his swordsmen's garb and the storm troopers inStar Wars. To the tune of the movie's "Imperial March," his masked corps filed out and lined up against the back wall of the club. The designer then had his usual fun with uniforms, sending out such Browne-isms as a plaid codpiece, tricolor Speedos, and little pleated white skirts for men.This was all good entertainment, but what makes Browne's collaborations with Moncler so fruitful is that his themes also throw up so many wearable yet newly animated pieces. Today those included a zip-front bomber in a navy mesh fabric with white trim, a smart gold-buttoned pea jacket, a crisp white military jacket, and terrific suede or mesh slip-ons in navy or white with contrasting soles. In this show, Browne's wit and his clothes were both rapier-sharp.
18 June 2011
One of the favorite guessing games of Milan fashion week involves Thom Browne and what kind of spectacle he might be preparing for his always-elaborateMoncler Gamme Bleushow. Last season, it was bicyclists at the Velodrome; the one before, in Florence, a barracks full of slumbering soldiers. This time around, the designer laid the scene at Centro Ippico Lombardo, a horse track a ways out of town.At trumpet's call, five horsemen, in long red Moncler riding coats bearing the Browne tricolor stripe, trotted out to greet the chilly crowd. And then came the guys on foot, each trailing a reluctant beagle or two. The hunt gave Thom his juice. Cue jodhpurs, high boots, saddlebags, and puffer parkas stitched with shooting patches.A red rider's coat in the Moncler archive was the departure point for all this. It set Browne on a spin through the fabrics of the chassé, the English houndstooths, and Prince of Wales checks you'd find at a country house party. There were tried-and-true Browneisms—a smattering of shorts suits, some collared with soft Mongolian lamb—and plenty of the quilted, covetable puffer coats that fly off shelves. But it seemed almost churlish to focus on them in the midst of so much spectacle.Lord knows where Browne will go next season, but likely on hiatus from animal acts. The showman had a word of advice to those seeking to follow in his dramaturgical wake: "Don't work with dogs."
15 January 2011
Thom Browne doesn't need fashion journalists in his audiences, he needs musical-theater critics. Someone with a background in all-singing, all-dancing spectacles should be able to find Browne an appropriate niche on Broadway.Of course, it's fashion that's his game, and he plays it very well. His Gamme Bleu collections for Moncler have boosted the company's profile to the moon, changing the look of Milanese streets in the process and proving that, as a designer, there's more commercialnousto him than people originally imagined. He has given Moncler's extreme-sports legacy a surreal, seductive, and intelligent update.This season, Browne took the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia as inspiration, borrowing competitive cycling items such as zipped racing tops and shorts, adjusting his cuts by extending jacket hems at the back (even adding a peplum effect here and there), and inserting gusseting to ease body movement in his tailoring. He also introduced a Neapolitan ice cream color palette—pink, white, brown—before closing with a classic biker jacket in black leather, a wittily tough little kicker at the end of all that precise, even pretty clothing.A pair of Thom Browne shorts fit almost as snugly as the spandex kind worn by cyclists anyway, so the theme just gave him a chance to do what he loves most: put on a show. He had his models—dozens of them—parade all the way around the Milan Velodrome before mounting the line of bikes in the center of the field and taking them around the track (to Kraftwerk's "Tour de France" and Queen's "Bicycle Race," naturally). It was the most fun a fashion crowd could have, and a shrewd commercial move to boot.The cyclists kept spinning around the track while an orchestral medley of Beatles songs blasted out of the Tannoy (Browne's favorite band, the Beatles, played at the Velodrome in 1965). The music was loud enough that carloads of Milanese pulled up outside to find out what was going on. How could you possibly explain it to them?
19 June 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
17 January 2010