Gabriele Colangelo (Q4099)
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Gabriele Colangelo is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Gabriele Colangelo |
Gabriele Colangelo is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2008
creative director
Gabriele Colangelo’s fall collection was loosely inspired by American artist Sheila Hicks’s oeuvre; her medium is yarns, woven and knotted into magnificent, tactile work of arts. The 85-year-old genius is currently being celebrated in a group show at Gagosian Gallery in Paris, titled “Blanc sur Blanc,” running through March 7. It’s a fortuitous coincidence for Colangelo. Craft is definitely having a moment, and rightfully so. Works that feel intimate and human are relevant today, speaking to the desire for a more considerate, thoughtful way of living and thinking.Colangelo’s fashion practice has always been rooted in the respect of craft and a love of textures and fabrics; he often has them designed and made through imaginative techniques. His minimalist shapes are substantiated by elaborate work on surfaces; yarns are often a medium to achieve abstract pictorial effects, marrying technology and handcraft.This was the creative path he followed for fall; on one hand he experimented on handcrafted techniques (wool woven by hand, for example); on the other he explored cutting-edge technology. Printed leather was laser-cut, then thinly sliced into vertical micro stripes; patterns looked distorted and three-dimensional, like a malleable curtain giving the illusion of a fringe when in movement, introducing a certain sensuousness into Colangelo’s restrained aesthetic. “I had a feel for a less rigorous approach,” he explained, “and more sensuality.” He hinted at the current trend for softness with his customary discretion—you won’t find flash chez Colangelo. Bare arms were exposed from the slitted sleeves of a chunky ribbed sweaterdress; nude skin was subtly visible through cuts on the shoulders of a tailored blazer. Interesting color combinations—mint green with pale chocolate, warm burgundy with icy porcelain blue—smoothed his usual strictness and felt fresh and gentle. “Gentlenessis one of my favorite words,” said Colangelo. If only more people (and designers) shared his predilection.
22 February 2020
Gabriele Colangelo is deeply interested in the creative aspects of technology and the intricacies of execution techniques, as well as experimental textural work. Shapes for him are defined by an elaborate, almost cerebral take on fabrications, whose manufacturing process, often handcrafted, he personally oversees.The Spring collection read as another chapter in his very personal narrative; the starting point was a photographic printing process called lumen, where an image is created on sensitive paper exposed to sunlight. The outcome is hard to control, abstract, and often has a pictorial, poetic quality. Colangelo tried to capture these mutating, unpredictable visuals, working on a “distorted color palette,” as he called it—ombré dyes, faint floral shadows, diluted shades of watercolor transparency. Textures were also approached with the same mind-set—think: warped laser-cut leather strips woven into nets, then knotted on elongated cady tunics. Or else jacquard fabrics with inserts of elastic fibers “creating an imbalance,” as the designer put it.While the work on textures was extremely complex and technically challenging, shapes were wisely kept simple, following Colangelo’s penchant for a modernist, pared-down aesthetic. Tunic dresses, overcoats, and soft-tailored pantsuits were loose and roomy, with plays of geometric cuts and contrasting inserts giving lightness.Colangelo is a skilled, experienced designer; his work is complex and subtle, so much so that it could go undetected. To fully appreciate his craft, you have to look at it closely. That takes time, and time often being in short supply, his work doesn’t always get the credit it deserves.
21 September 2019
How can a minimalist designer, who abhors embellishment and for whom decoration is anathema, inject a jolt of energy into spare, clean, almost severe shapes and surfaces? A play on cut and construction, albeit skillfully executed, isn’t always enough to make silhouettes visually attractive—there’s a fine line between supreme simplicity and boring plainness. Gabriele Colangelo, who has never deviated from his sometimes stark minimalist aesthetic, solved the conundrum by reverting to artistically elaborated textures and fabrications. It’s the only form of decoration admitted inside his rigorous design perimeter.For Fall, the list of elaborate fabrications used for the collection’s streamlined looks was lengthy. Suffice to say, Colangelo personally designed and overlooked the execution of each one of them. “It was definitely an artistic process,” he said. The results suggested as much. Velvets’ and cottons’ surfaces were burnt or eroded to achieve dynamic abstract patterns of liquid beauty and lightness. Their sensuous, tactile appeal graced a series of clean-cut dresses: a marigold tunic layered under an elongated wrapped column in blue-gray hues, and a sunflower yellow slim midi dress worn with a cropped asymmetrical gilet with voluminous sleeves in a contrasting cerulean color.By Colangelo’s standards, the collection exuded more ease and confidence than usual. Warm colors were featured prominently on skillfully cut linear shapes and elongated silhouettes. Honey-colored featherlight napa leather gave slightly oversize volumes a tactile quality, while folding and draping were used with a light hand. It all made for a fine collection, in which the designer didn’t indulge his cerebral side but tapped instead into an imaginative approach.
23 February 2019
Gabriele Colangelo’s style is all about neat, streamlined shapes; plays of folding, layering, and juxtapositions do not substantially alter the minimalist, stark aesthetic he favors. What makes his looks distinctive is his artsy research on inventive fabrications, elaborate textures, and surfaces, adding a certain tactile depth to his design and softening its sometimes overly severe simplicity. For Spring, a lighter spirit was definitely apparent.As always with Colangelo, experimentation on fabrics was elaborate. This time he was inspired by a painting technique calledpliage, created by Franco-Hungarian artist Simon Hantaï, whose work he once saw at an exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris. The process involves pleating the canvas before painting it, resulting in a crumpled, 3-D texture. Colangelo transposed the procedure on cotton canvas, which, once painted, was knotted, then immersed in a deep shade of indigo and subsequently unknotted, revealing haphazard abstract motifs on its surface. The patterned cotton was used in a series of slim skirt suits worn over narrow pants in silk georgette. A light silk chiffon received the same treatment and graced a slip dress whose elongated waist was finely pleated; it retained a linear precision, but had a feminine, breezy flair.A welcome sense of softness was there throughout the collection; Colangelo seemed to loosen his usual architectural restraint in favor of an easier, uncomplicated approach. Case in point was a beautiful long dress in black silk chiffon printed with the tie-dyepliagetechnique in shades of bright green; cut tunic-like with a delicately pleated bodice enhancing the waistline and worn over slim emerald green leather pants, it looked utterly desirable.Colangelo also showed a more confident sense of color, energizing the collection with a palette of cobalt, indigo, cerulean, and mint. A painterly flash of a warm shade of orange made the message even clearer. Colangelo was in good shape here.
22 September 2018
Textures were the focus of Gabriele Colangelo’s Fall collection. On his mood board backstage, swaths of fringed fabrics, laser-cut leathers, and alpaca yarns achieved what looked like a mosaic. Actually, there was nothing else in sight, no carefully pasted tableaux referencing some cutting-edge, obscure design movement; just an artistic composition of quite unusual fabric samples. “Textiles are what I like most,” declared the designer. “And clarity of shapes, purity of volumes.” It sounded like an honest manifesto.Colangelo definitely indulged his cerebral approach in the collection, working on minimalistic lines and letting the elaborate surfaces do the talking. He just added a few folding, paneling, and draping plays, giving a sense of movement to an otherwise geometric, linear silhouette.When fashion design has such an abstract bent, there’s always the risk of the female body being concealed and almost forgotten in conceptual, abstruse stylistic exercises. Here, Colangelo rose to the challenge, working at shapes with a deft hand, smoothing the edges of excessive severity, and letting his sensual side emerge. He did it through the use of color, which gave light and brilliance to the elongated lines of his modernist outerwear. A dense shade of cobalt blue added a jolt to a beautiful, quirky fringed coat made of an oscillating, floating yarn; it looked like a bizarre, luxurious fur.
24 February 2018
“I wanted the collection to have an artsy feel,” said Gabriele Colangelo backstage before the show. Ready for the usual display of arcane artistic references that usually populate designers’ mood boards, this reviewer was positively surprised to see just scraps of fabrics pinned on plywood. How refreshing. Colangelo clearly wanted to concentrate on artsy craftsmanship instead of abstract ideas—a kind of first for a designer with a quite cerebral take on style.“I started from manipulating textures; I had fabrics pleated by hand, dyed with the Japanese shibori technique, and then coated to achieve a leather-like finish with an organic vibe,” he explained. They ended up being the leitmotif of the collection: cut into long, free-flowing, wavy panels that snaked around cotton dusters or tops, or sprouting out from the back of a tunic, or else attached to a belted skirt to asymmetrical effect. They also served as half of a spliced pantsuit, intended perhaps as a walking metaphor about masculinity and femininity, which honestly came across as a little too literal and, maybe unintentionally, felt a bit Margiela-inspired, too.Shapes had the experimental twist typical of Colangelo’s conceptual style, yet they felt somehow less forced and more fluid; he did not indulge his tendency to overdesign. Lines were kept clean and a little severe, as is customary chez Colangelo; yet a more feminine flair (obviously filtered through the designer’s restrained, minimalistic eyes) could be perceived in a series of beautiful belted tunics and elongated waistcoats made of silk and cotton jacquard, double-printed with blurred floral patterns in shades of red and blue. Neatly cut yet graceful, they looked right.
23 September 2017
The Thousand and One Lives of a Rectangle—this could be the title of Gabriele Colangelo’s Fall collection. Geometry was big on his agenda. He explored a zillion iterations of the rectangular shape with unrestrained gusto. Checks were laser cut and redesigned on wool gabardine. Grids were crossed by strips of two-tone wool and perforated with needle-punching techniques to create a larger check pattern. Macro squares of felted wool were embroidered with a motif emulating the stitching of men’s tailoring. A diamond motif graced a pleated skirt, breaking the vertical flow of the pleats. The level of complexity of treatments, textures, and construction had such an inventive emphasis, it was almost impossible to take everything in.Volumes and shapes were elaborate and based on geometric cuts and trigonometric solutions. The construction revolved around asymmetry, draping, and folding, and translated to imaginative shapes. A feminine flair could be perceived in dresses made of strips of fabrics let loose to enhance a sense of fluid movement.Colangelo has a cerebral, analytical design approach. His relentless play on experimentation is certainly compelling and shows a rational, intelligent sensibility. However, the complexity of his work, which seems to reference the conceptual lineage of ’90s Japanese designers, at times feels simply too complicated—and slightly enigmatic. It’d be great if his expressive talent for invention and research would be infused with a more palpable sense of lightness and ease.
26 February 2017
You have to hand it toGabriele Colangelo; usually, it's the models who look uncomfortable, not the audience. But thanks to the rows of perplexingly narrow lucite chairs set up at the Palazzo Visconti, showgoers were pressed cheek to jowl to take in the designer's Spring offering (and it's not as if the fashion crowd is known for its girth). Perhaps this was intentional; a little personal discomfort certainly underlined the contrasting ease of the clothes. This was a collection that was, in places, leaps and bounds ahead of previous collections. Which is not to say it was a total departure: Colangelo comes from a family of furriers, and so the odd clump of animal hide is somewhat expected. Here, it covered a single breast in Amazonian fashion; elsewhere, it erupted from a midsection like a burst seam—but a series of plongé napa leather dresses (the best in pale blue, full of graphic slits that made the underlying striped shirting visible) was something that felt both entirely fresh and utterly welcome."Decomposition" was the keyword Colangelo cited in his runway notes, and that was mostly communicated by clunky woven tops with dangling strips or quite lovely floral embroidery inspired by the work (and especially the open warps) of Dianna Molzan. The artist's “Untitled, 2010” had special resonance for the designer, who replicated the piece's hanging threads in various places on the body. There were shades ofJacquemusin some straitjacket-style shirting, which could very well be to Colangelo's benefit: Interesting shirting (off-the-shoulder, spliced, diced) seems to be where the market is. But it was the mid-calf length skirts and smooth silk slip dresses that really held the eye.
24 September 2016
Experimentation is necessary for creativity, and in this retail climate, probably for survival, too. But there is real power—in any context— in knowing your strengths. Fur, in all of its sumptuous, finger-sinking glory, isGabriele Colangelo’s, and he demonstrated that on his Fall 2016 runway, whose “wavy geometry” was inspired by the artist Christian Maychack. Generous, elegant robe coats strode out in understated shades of slate and a deep aquatic astrakhan; lovingly worked mink was cut into the vertical stripes on a long straight coat; silver fox was cut into a mosaic on the back of a wool topper, in coats long and lean or shorter, chubbier, and ample in their fluff.When things were not so warm and fuzzy, such as in the case of raw cut separates in wool, velvet Devore and jacquard, they took on a hurried air, with skirt hems left intentionally uneven, threads loose, and trousers in light men’s wool split at the ankle, puddling over the foot. The more finished ensembles carried a sense of the swashbuckling, largely due to either their propensity to have sashes tied around the waist, ends left dangling, or because of the silhouette. Mutton-sleeved transparent tops (or the odd plastron) were paired with knee-length culottes, straight patent leather skirts and tall leather boots.Not all the fur worked. I suppose having a pelt dangling from your waist is in step with fashion’s current fondness for charms and keepsakes of all sorts, as seen atPradaandTod’s, but the ones slung across shoulders and waists here seemed straight out ofThe Revenant. Things came back together with the arrival of a pair of richly pigmented patent leather coats in navy and chocolate blue with extended furry collars. More of those sleekly chic fur coats, please!
27 February 2016
“Lockdown was hard but it definitely helped boost my creativity,” said Gabriele Colangelo. “I had more time to sharpen the focus on my vision.” His first resort collection was designed during the time he spent in confinement; its production was made possible by the recent restructuring of his independent company, which received investment two years ago from the Chinese Redstone Group, owner of the brand Giada, of which Colangelo is creative director. Having more resources at his disposal is critical for expanding the international development of his namesake company; a step in this direction was the opening in August of its first two stores, located in Shanghai and Beijing. Lockdown has definitely been good to Colangelo.Speaking from his pristine headquarters in Milan, the designer acknowledged that working on a resort collection for the first time was “a learning process,” in that it required him to consider a different set of issues to those he considers in his catwalk presentations, where he’s free to indulge the artsy-crafty approach he favors. Being more realistic and pragmatic about his clients’ preferences in these particular and challenging times has smoothed the edges of some stylistic hyperboles, while retaining their aesthetic flavor. Colangelo’s signature minimalist construction is still there, built around a verticality of lines to achieve a lean, pure silhouette for city coats, blazers and day dresses. Yet he introduced an element of fluidity, “a soft structure” as he called it, through the use of lighter fabrics and less overworked textures. A play on cut added a skillful yet discreet decorative quality, as did high-end handmade finishes like elasticated smock stitching; slits at the back of tops and along the sleeves of pristine shirts suggested a hint of sensuality. Color was used sparingly, with just a few accents of pistachio, lavender and cerulean breaking a mostly neutral palette; a watercolored tie dye effect looked charming.Colangelo uses fabrics free of polluting dying agents and he’s further increasing his commitment to good practices. He’s also adamant that what he cares about going forward is maintaining a sustainable pace: “Our creativity as designers has a priceless value, it isn’t disposable and has to be protected, supported and communicated the right way,” he said. “Behind every collection there is enormous work involving hundreds of people.
I believe in the ‘less but better’ approach: Less product, less waste, smaller collections. And the best quality possible, to make pieces last and be treasured.”
4 September 2020
It’s the rare bird who admits he’s not interested in dressing exhibitionists, butGabriele Colangelois one such individual. “There’s no sparkling embroidery here,” quipped the meticulous Italian backstage. Listening to the designer, who hails from a family of furriers, animatedly describe his seasonal fabric innovations is an uncommon experience. For his Spring collection, utilizing technology to an extent seldom seen, he shifted his attention to experiments with velvet (laser-cutting it to resemble the age-old dévoré technique) and kidassia (aka goat’s fur), transporting the materials into shape-shifting textiles and remarkable summer statement pieces.The overall silhouette was long and lean; narrowly pleated silk tunics were paired with contrastingly hued trousers in lavender, copper, turquoise, and an eye-catching mustard. Sleeveless tops, velvet-accented slip dresses, and a wonderful velvet jumpsuit possessed a similarly elongated feel. Symmetry was occasionally broken by the unexpected tweaking of a jacket’s sleeves, many of which had extended cuffs.One of Colangelo’s most interesting new fabrications is a variation of Kente—the West African cloth produced in narrow overlapping strips and usually woven of cotton, silk, and sometimes gold thread. Colangelo’s version is distinguished by sheared silk threads, which from a distance resemble fur. He used the fabric to create wispy coats, trousers, and jackets that were pretty and light as a feather. Many of the outfits that followed were similarly tonal and textural, at times employing pleats under transparent silk or creative use of kidassia: For a handcrafted feel, he applied the tufty tone-on-tone material to necklines and hems or worked it as stripes, adding a ’70s undercurrent and an enticing, of-the-moment feel.
26 September 2015
The look that stood out on Gabriele Colangelo's runway tonight was an ivory dress—sleeveless, with a bias-cut drape that twisted around the torso and hitched from one hip, falling gracefully to a few inches below the knee. It incorporated some of the complicated patternmaking techniques that Colangelo is fond of, yet remained quite effortless in its execution.Despite being rather minimal in spirit—there were no prints, and you could hardly say there was an excess of color—few of the other pieces here achieved that kind of easeful simplicity. Pants were sliced vertically at the front hem or affixed with large metal snaps at the thigh, which gathered excess fabric at the sides of the knees. They seemed unnecessarily complicated. Dresses and skirts came with vestigial bands of fabric of their own that were fastened asymmetrically here and there, while coats featured hems that peeled back on one side to flash whatever was or wasn't underneath. If the effect fell short of messy, it was certainly tricky. Colangelo has proved to be a rather precise designer over the years, but this collection might've just been too ambitious for him. He should go back to that languid dress and start fresh for Spring.
28 February 2015
The wordminimalismhas suffered from a severe case of overexposure in fashion parlance, so much so that it has morphed into meaning something almost impersonal. Most of the time it doesn't adequately express the complexity—in terms of both concept and execution—of the creative process that lies behind the clothes to which it refers. This applies to the work of Gabriele Colangelo, whose reserved, discreet manners conceal a refined sensibility and quiet determination. His clothing, consistent over the years, perfectly reflects his attitude: At first glance, you just see sharpness and clarity—clean lines, rigorous structure, a restrained palette—but a closer look reveals a compelling depth and intricacy. This was expressed in Colangelo's Pre-Fall collection, built around elaborate research into innovative materials: overprinted and "scratched" velvet jacquards; masculine wools bonded in oxford cotton; thick satins washed and bonded; embossed chevrons; laser-cut velvets reapplied on techno cady; mohairs coated with transparent polyurethane…the list goes on.Despite being so technically elaborate, the lineup seemed effortless and organic thanks to skillful control of silhouettes and volumes. The shapes revolved around the trapeze and the rectangle; a sportswear feel was achieved through a special stitching technique used for ergonomic high-performance garments. Asymmetry added a touch of lightness, as in a short dress in pinstriped wool with a structured, couture-like draping on just one side. A voluminous full skirt in Japanese silk, woven in a vintage obi-inspired abstract pattern, was also cut with an asymmetric hem—worn with a deceptively simple bicolored cashmere sweater (which was knitted with a spiral-like technique), it added a feminine feel to a thoroughlyépurélook. And talking about deceptive, is not fur—Colangelo's family business—the most sensual of materials? And how does it fit into such restrained vision? It was obviously treated with the same relentless, experimental yet sensitive engineering process: Mink, astrakhan, and pekan (a precious kind of sable) were bonded in leather to achieve a weightless, supple effect. Pearl mink, three-colored fox, and murmansky were vertically sliced and chromatically reassembled in intricate yet elegant patchworks. Rabbit and mink were frosted and painted in an elusive cerulean shade that, in its gentle severity, perfectly summed up the mood of the collection.
19 January 2015
The rest of Milan may be trying to turn back time, but Gabriele Colangelo has his eye on the future. Not that we would expect much different from the LVMH Prize finalist. Colangelo has been focused on fabric innovation since he launched his business six years ago—with a furrier for a father, you could say it's in his blood. Spring found him continuing his explorations, only this time he was preoccupied with lightness and deconstruction.Maybe unconstructed is a better word. The designer's clothes are rigorous and precise; no dangling threads or frayed hems and seams here. In that sense, Colangelo owes more to Margiela and Philo than he does the Japanese. The back of a coatdress or a long sleeveless vest was cut away between shoulder and martingale, exposing something lacy underneath. A T-shirt was lasered with tiny slits so it looked like netting stretched over the torso, and side seams on many pieces were split to create a sense of movement. There was a lot of skin, but the effect was clean and sporty rather than indiscreet.Some of Colangelo's experiments didn't hit the mark: Pinstripe pants with the netting effect looked tricky, and the blue ponyskin of a miniskirt and a coat was stiff. But other pieces really impressed. A silk dress woven with fine copper wire had a molten, metallic texture. The lace, meanwhile, was actually nylon thread embroidery coated with polyurethane. It had a nice cling. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the simplicity of a light-blue cotton poplin shirtdress was appealing. Colangelo lived up to the new attention he's been receiving since the LVMH competition.
20 September 2014
A continuation of the designer's admiration for Japanese culture, Gabriele Colangelo's Resort collection started with shibori dyeing techniques. "I tried to reproduce the aesthetic using special treatments," the designer said, pointing to a cotton coat that was first pleated, and then printed to re-create kimono-like details. Born into a furrier family, the designer has long been obsessed by fabrics. This collection, like most of his, was comprised entirely of exclusive materials. With its easy shape, a loosely woven jacquard T-shirt dress was a special standout. Elsewhere, a pink-and-red jacquard coat distilled the shibori technique to the bare basics. But while Colangelo looked eastward for inspiration, the uncomplicated lines skewed distinctly Western. "I like the notion of beautiful Japanese fabrics with easy American lines," Colangelo said. "I like to be multicultural when I do a collection. That way, you can become more international in terms of taste." Resort marks Colangelo's first foray into handbags; as he does with his clothes, he experimented with color-blocking and collage. The best of the bunch was a structured yet slim tote.
18 June 2014
Each season, Gabriele Colangelo chooses an artist's work and builds his collection off it. Sometimes the referencing is just glancing, other times it's quite literal; his Fall show belongs in the latter category. Anyone familiar with Bandau's grayscale watercolors of geometric shapes could make a quick connection between them and Colangelo's clothes. A shift dress featuring panels of sheer gazar layered at askew angles looked as if it could have come from the hands of the artist himself. Colangelo approached many of the pieces here as if they were a canvas for his minimalist embellishment. Well-executed though they were, it gave them a two-dimensional quality that left the show feeling emotionally flat, a quality that wasn't helped by a black-and-white palette. Bright chartreuse and baby-pink leather accessories provided the only hits of color.You wanted more soul from Colangelo, or at least a bit more heat. Without it, he'll have a difficult time breaking through to a wider audience. Before the end, there was a glimmer of promise in a group of black pieces inset in a gridlike pattern with small studs and beads.
21 February 2014
As the son of one of Italy's top furrier families, Gabriele Colangelo has had an abiding interest in fabric from the start. In the past, he's turned one painter's brushstrokes into jacquards, and used another's chunky blocks of color for a geometric print. This season, Colangelo was less interested in surface details and texture than he was in materials that hold their form. He turned to bonded fabrics with the spongy consistency of scuba gear for coats and jackets with raglan or kimono sleeves. Stripped of any adornment and featuring raw, unfinished edges and seams, the pieces had an austere sensibility. They wanted for warmth. That's where Colangelo's furs came in. He included no fewer than two dozen in the collection, some of them featuring the very latest advancements. Among the ones that stood out: minks that came with thin vertical stripes of black cross fox—inspired, he said, by Barnett Newman's canvases—and astrakhans dyed almost imperceptibly a hint of pink or lime.
20 January 2014
Chalk it up to his family's background in fur, but Gabriele Colangelo can't get enough of texture. In the past, he's lifted surface details from painters, Gerhard Richter included. For Spring, inspired by a quick trip to Japan, he riffed on the three-dimensional quality of raku pottery. Colangelo transformed its lacquered swirls into graphic jacquards; he tucked and pleated leather to re-create its curving seams; and, most luxuriously, he replicated its patterns in sheared mink. It's a tribute to his light touch that it didn't all come off as overwrought—as his collections sometimes have in the past. Slim silhouettes, notably a bib-front sleeveless sheath (gorgeous in sapphire blue), helped matters. So did the clothes' uncomplicated, almost geometric shapes, influenced, Colangelo said, by kimonos and samurai uniforms—see the sleeves of jackets, widest at the elbow, and the pleating details on cropped hakama pants. With Colangelo's devotion to texture, pieces like an unadorned sleeveless black silk dress with a split front seam (it was actually pants) were few and far between. The show could've used more of them. That said, Colangelo seems to have learned from last season's heavy-handed mistakes, and is pushing forward.
20 September 2013
Gabriele Colangelo made his first trip to Tokyo recently, and the experience stuck with him. "I was so impressed that when I came back, I couldn't clear it out of my head," he said. It was probably inevitable that even as his business in Milan ramps up—he was speaking from his new, larger showroom—a trip like that would seep its way into his collection. Colangelo translated the traditional shibori-dyed pieces he saw in Japan into their contemporary equivalent: Pass on the time-intensive shibori process, bring on the polyurethane. The poly-splashed pieces, intended to simulate the effect of the wax used in shibori, fit nicely into the lexicon of his prints. A bit trickier were some of the shapes and cuts he introduced, like an articulated sleeve he called a "suspended shoulder," which mimicked the cut of a kimono but lost some of its natural elegance. On the whole, his simpler shapes and subtler experiments won the day, like the pieces cold-dyed to produce an irregular, mottled effect.
23 June 2013
There was extra cause to be rooting for Gabriele Colangelo today: With a new production deal recently signed, he'll have a much easier time making and delivering his collection if and when U.S. retailers come calling. They've been sniffing around the designer for a few years now; unfortunately, this wasn't a show likely to make them bite. Riffing on the artist Laurent Segretier's distorted photographs, Colangelo manipulated materials so they shaded from matte to shiny, opaque to sheer. He kept the silhouettes fairly straightforward, borrowing memes from the military and menswear, but his experiments with fabric felt clumsier than usual. It's not only that he has used a lighter touch in the past, but also that this time he combined the tech fabrics with woven textiles shaggy with fringe. Combinations like a hand-loomed wool tee trailing loose yarns and a glossy, almost slick pair of trousers just didn't click. Meanwhile, Colangelo seems determined, despite much evidence, that women will want to wear stiff nylon mesh. We didn't buy it when he used it for the sleeves of a pre-fall fur coat, and we're not buying it now as a viable option for pants. The direction he should head in next season was suggested by the simplicity of a black coat in a high-tech nylon so glossy it could've been patent leather.
21 February 2013
Gabriele Colangelo is a young—by Milan's standards—designer who hasn't been able to gain a foothold in the American market, despite innovative fabrics and a real finesse with cut. Recently, he's gained a shareholder in the form of Pattern Torino, which produces pieces for the likes of Tom Ford and Burberry, among other top-of-the-food-chain brands, and he's hoping the new partnership will set him on his way to a new beginning.His pre-fall collection looked especially fine, with clean, precise tailoring (if perhaps too fond a feeling for a high-tech mesh fabric) and more of the innovative fur techniques he's known for. Colangelo comes from a family of furriers, and the stuff he does with skins, fusing them to knits without a single stitch, is pretty next-level. Again, he was sometimes guilty of overthinking a coat, adding synthetic sleeves to an otherwise ultra-luxe product. But most of the time it was easy to picture these clothes hanging in a high-end department store next to collections from his older and more experienced peers.
24 January 2013
The Russian suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich and a Moroccan coat the designer picked up at a Paris flea market were the starting points for the strong collection Gabriele Colangelo showed tonight. Colangelo regularly looks to the work of artists for fabric and silhouette inspiration—Malevich provided the geometric shapes, the pure primary colors (white, navy, and tomato red), and the dégradé effects here. But the Moroccan coat was something new; Colangelo hasn't explored ethnic motifs before. In addition to re-creating the vintage topper in a spare, modern silhouette with Malevich's rounded shoulders, Colangelo used the woven panel as a decorative detail on a strapless dress, and turned another panel into the front of a narrow midi skirt worn with a bandeau top. All three looks put him in the minority in a Milan season that has so far been about sixties rigor, but they worked persuasively, warming up his clean, minimal aesthetic. And the designer turned up the heat in other ways too, cutting his dresses with deep front slits and making use of sheer fabrics for blouses or the overlay on a pair of pants. Here and there it conjured images of Céline. There's one thing Colangelo can definitely stake a claim to as his own, though—as the son of a furrier, he cuts a wicked sheared-mink strapless dress.
20 September 2012
"I'm always interested in light," Gabriele Colangelo said at a preview of his Resort collection. This season, the designer started with a long-exposure photo of the urban landscape, its lights glowing in the blur. Screened on shift dresses and pencil skirts, the motif became a kind of collection totem. It was transformed into faux plaids (a print actually made up of photos of streaks formed by fast-moving lights), shining threads of Lurex woven into a 3-D jacquard, and, somewhat less successfully, into sequins glittering among tufts of alpaca. The silhouettes, meanwhile, continued Colangelo's explorations of midcentury styles à la Dior. They were, however, much shorter than the master's. Call it a concession to modernity. Same goes for the sporty stopper pulls scattered throughout, on simple shifts and skirt hems.
24 June 2012
The contemporary British artist Jason Martin has replaced Gerhard Richter as Gabriele Colangelo's new muse. Martin, not unlike Richter, creates textural, three-dimensional canvases with acrylic paint. Colangelo modeled a swirling print on his work, as well as a jacquard with an uneven surface that juxtaposed matte and shiny. As always, innovative fabrics were a big story here. A coat that shaded from charcoal through olive, white, and red to black is in a category of its own this season, cool and unique.The other part of Colangelo's plotline was silhouette. Christian Dior's New Look by way of Phoebe Philo was the inspiration for tailored jackets with rounded shoulders, full sleeves, strongly nipped waists, and exaggerated hips. Tunics worn over tapering pants or pencil skirts followed the same hourglass lines. With other designers putting an emphasis on peplums and bustles for Fall, Colangelo has placed himself firmly within the fashion conversation. It's a relatively new position for him, but he belongs there.
23 February 2012
Just when you're ready to sound the death knell for prints, along comes Gabriele Colangelo's first pre-fall collection. The Italian up-and-comer designed a gorgeous forest-scape suffused in either chartreuse or fire engine red that made a strong argument for another season of bold color and pattern. We'll be surprised if one street-style star or another doesn't snap up the sharply cut lapel-less coat in the collection's final look for the upcoming fashion show circuit.With statement-making prints like that, Colangelo was smart to keep silhouettes clean and simple. The minimal streak extended to a pair of faux fur coats that were as streamlined as they were shaggy. Those look like they could be a hit with the fashion crowd, too.
1 February 2012
Gabriele Colangelo had Gerhard Richter's over-painted photographs on his mood board backstage. As he's done in the last couple of seasons, Colangelo looked to the work of a contemporary artist to spark ideas about fabric innovation. His Richters, so to speak, are made from jacquard that's been printed with an image of the sun setting over the ocean, the faux paint splotches created by pieces of the material that don't absorb the print. Complicated stuff, to be sure, but the results were rather sublime on a full, A-line skirt that he paired with a white semi-sheer top.Colangelo, like his fellow young Milan designer Marco de Vincenzo, is interested in synthetics. A different jacquard, this one woven from nylon, looked like there were water bubbles trapped inside it. Wait, there's more. He overlaid a tank dress made from the stuff with a trapeze whipped up with silicone thread. It glinted under the lights.But for every runway-only experiment there was another piece that could step right off it. Top candidates for that honor included an elegant blush linen coat-dress edged in neon yellow; a cobalt blue dress stitched from thousands of thick strands of silk with sheer long sleeves; and boyish, low-slung trousers shown with a jersey tee. Still, it's the boundary pushing that makes Colangelo's development interesting to watch. It's what landed him his new gig designing for the Italian heritage label Genny.
22 September 2011
Last season Gabriele Colangelo name-checked Wolfgang Tillmans. For Fall his artistic reference was slightly more obscure: Alberto Burri, an Italian painter who worked with unusual materials like tar, burlap, and pumice. Burri's collages prompted the almost camouflagelike nature of the material Colangelo developed for the show. It married what looked like iridescent nylon with coppery red and navy wool bouclé in sheer and opaque patches. If it sounds fussy, it wasn't. Colangelo is smart enough to know that when your fabrics are graphic and quite tactile, it's best to keep the shapes clean. That he did, sprinkling streamlined pantsuits in among the vaguely A-line dresses, both sleeveless and long-sleeve, that he made with his innovative textile.Colangelo learned to experiment with fabrics from his furrier father. And he put his dad's skills to good use in this collection, cutting sheared astrakhan into remarkably lightweight coats. These came in deep, saturated hues that also deserve a call-out. The last one to hit the runway appeared to be copper-leafed in jagged, asymmetrical strips running diagonally across the body. Again, it could've been tricky, but the designer has a light touch. It's safe to say that in a season positively swathed in fur, that coat didn't look like anybody else's.
24 February 2011
Milan is notoriously tough on young designers trying to break out, but there are signs that things are looking up. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have just opened Spiga2, a two-floor boutique on the Via della Spiga that stocks their handpicked selection of up-and-comers, andVogue Italiaeditor in chief Franca Sozzani is taking her Who's on Next program to the public on Monday, staging a show at the Piazza del Duomo for an international crew of on-the-rise talents.Friday night's epic rainstorm probably kept some people from his show, but Gabriele Colangelo, who won theVogue Italiaand Alta Roma award two years ago, is worthy of a second look. Inspired by a recent exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans' work in London, his new collection is in step with some of the season's key trends; he showed good timing in opting for whites and pale colors and for a fresh, minimal sensibility.The key piece was an asymmetric shift with a rounded volume. There were hints of Marni and Maria Cornejo here, but Colangelo made the look his own with boundary-pushing fabrics, including one that shaded from opaque cotton to sheer silk, and another with an ombré that faded from midnight blue to dove gray. A few dresses came with horizontally arrayed copper wires to create malleable shape, while pants were cut from an innovative material made from thread encased between two layers of organza.Plenty of designers talk about lightness, but not all of them can pin down the concept. Even when Colangelo was experimenting with embellishment, as he did with a lovely sequined nylon lace belted dress, he nailed it.
23 September 2010
Gabriele Colangelo's first passion is fabric. For Fall, he got interested in the idea of erosion and rocks, which gave him the basis for a coolly elegant color palette of grays, beiges, and icy whites and provided a starting point for his deeply tactile materials. Among them: the richly textured, fissured wool he used for the opening leather-belted wrap coat; the chiffon trapped between double layers of organza that became a softly draped shift; and the charcoal flannel he twisted and tucked to evoke swirls of marble on an otherwise simple dress.His sheared astrakhans and minks intrigued, too—you can chalk that up to the family furrier business. Thanks to new techniques, the details of which he wasn't divulging, Colangelo's vests, coats, and even skirts require no lining—call it double-face fur. No doubt his background helped him come up with the crinkly lightweight leather he cut into a streamlined collarless coat. In a Milan season of great outerwear, it was right up there. In all: another promising outing from this up-and-comer.
26 February 2010
Gabriele Colangelo had a tough time slot—8:45 on a Friday night—but he had a big hometown crowd cheering him on and a smart collection that was cohesive and well-made enough to potentially encourage some of the out-of-towner no-shows to book a studio appointment. Before it got started, the 34-year-old designer said he was inspired by an exhibition of paintings by the late German-French artist Hans Hartung. For the uninitiated, Hartung was known for his gestural, abstract style; the hand-painted scratch motifs on afil coupedress and the same design rendered in Swarovski crystals on a micro-beaded evening coat were cribbed from one of his works.It wasn't necessarily the embellishments that impressed, though. The lush, asymmetrical volumes of Colangelo's shift dresses had a clean, unfussy appeal. They were minimal yet still sexy, a tough combination to pull off. And with their sloping, saddled shoulders and pushed-up sleeves, his jackets—which he paired with tapering, cropped pants or narrow Bermuda shorts—looked very right-now. Colangelo comes from a family of furriers, so there were also a couple of oversize short-sleeve jackets in sheared mink—a teaser, maybe, of what he might push further next season. The sleeper hit of Milan? Could well be. This designer is definitely someone retailers should be paying more attention to.
24 September 2009