Taking place in a green-hued ‘smooth and immersive capsule’, decorated with a collection of enormous cobalt-blue horns, the A/W 2024 collection loosely began with the idea of sound and music, and the way it shapes ‘our emotions desires and needs’ (a live soundtrack was provided by American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Mk.gee). ‘Here, elegance is resilience.’ Jil SanderĪ collection rich in colour and texture saw Lucie and Luke Meier continue to eschew the idea of seasonal ‘themes’ towards a more wide-ranging evolution of their vision for Jil Sander – one rooted, as the pair describe, in a ‘constant search for a balance between sensitivity and form, intimacy and presence, image and intention, concentration and humour’. It is hard to be celebratory at this point,’ said Blazy, noting that getting dressed to begin a new day is an act of human dignity.
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Others were decorated with faded motifs of maps, as if his wanderers were seeking new worlds. Twisted gowns appeared to have been created instinctively, held in place with shiny gobstopper fastenings, while fronds of bouncing pleats at the hems of gowns suggested flames and fire (so too the final slew of dresses, where the fabric looked destroyed and remade). It made for a typically extraordinary line-up of clothing which saw the recognisable – trench coats, collared shirts, knitwear – energised in new proportions (largely expansive and enveloping, like the cocooning silhouette of the curved seam overcoats which opened the show) and fabrications, which will no doubt require closer inspection to reveal their secrets. He did so with an exaltation of the everyday, noting a desire to make the quotidian wardrobe ‘monumental’, capturing a ‘sense of allure and confidence in the pragmatic, utilitarian and purposeful’. Here, it made for a collection of extraordinary surface embellishment – whether the painterly floral prints which decorated diaphanous layers of organza or dainty beaded dragonflies – in hues of pale blues, rich greens, and the intense nocturnal blacks and navies of the closing looks. Titled ‘Winter Flowers’, the collection began by looking towards flowers that bloom even in the coldest months and ‘herald beauty and regrowth’ (in this, there was a link to Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta collection shown the evening before, which looked towards the resilience of desert plants and cacti for his own exploration of renewal). Presented in the intimate Via Borgonuovo space in the house’s longtime headquarters, the designer crafted a collection of languorous glamour which the designer said was inspired by the idea of ‘renewal’.
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It was left to Mr Armani to close out Milan Fashion Week on Sunday morning, a fitting final act from a designer who for close to five decades has been defining Milanese – and indeed Italian – style.