The latest collection from Dolce & Gabbana was entitled King’s Angels. Thanks to serendipity (and a beauty contract) The King of the North happened to be at the show. So what would he think? A suggestion that Jon Snow might be into the brown long-hair shearling worn by Roberto Rossellini didn’t stick. But when he spotted the look sported by Luke Shields – a black mid-length shearling, a black brocaded suit, and a rakish wide-brimmed hat – Kit Harrington issued his decree: “that’s my outfit!”
This was another millennials show in which scion sons of famous families, and some who have made their own fame, walked the Metropole runway, many of them wearing crowns. It opened with a long filmed montage identifying them before the curtain rose to reveal a mise-en-scene of five opening looks worn in front of a putti-inlaid marble ballroom backdrop. Christian Combs, Austin Mahone, and Cameron Dallas got walking in a series of gold-brocaded tailcoats over slim pin-striped pants: dynastic gear as imagined by Dolce & Gabbana.
As the collection unfolded so the menswear genres and periods the designers drew from broadened. There was a significant showing of closely-fitted large-lapel suits in colours that ran from pink, lilac, and green to Harrington’s favourite all-black, and came either brocaded, pinstriped, embroidered, or all three. Frogged velvet jackets were teamed with silk jacquard pants and jewelled slippers.
A red brocade suit was worn under an overcoat of ripped up and refashioned denim jeans. Tracksuits in velvet or silk jersey were heaped with collaged embroideries of heraldry, sequined shorts were worn with collegiate-stripe oversized embroidered sweatshirts, and a ceramic-floral bomber jacket was topped by a backpack fashioned to resemble a golden angel.
By the time the Colombian performer Maluma came on wearing a gold sequin suit to sing a couple of numbers for the finale, the non-stop mix and match, maximalist opulence of this collection overwhelmed: There was just so much in it and of it to try and take in. These were raiments as much as garments – competitively street-regal and unstintingly extravagant. Autumn/Winter is coming.
