There may have been hints of romantic flirtiness with pastel dyed fox fur and a painterly pale pink fluttering mini dress, but Giles Deacon’s Emanuel Ungaro collection was nothing if not fiercely aggressive this season. Picking up on the sex factor of one of Ungaro’s signatures, lace, Deacon showed hip-grazing dresses, lots of knicker-exposing sheer fabrics, fitted jackets, feather lined dresses, leather pants with back zippers, torso cinching corsets, short leather skirts, and leather dog collars for a collection that reflected to a tee what the designer noted in his show notes – he wanted “sexual provocativeness in the clothing.”
While there may not have been anything innately exciting about the collection (there’s nothing particularly innovative about a designer trying to provoke with short dresses that leave little to the imagination or long ones made out of stripped sheer fabric), it’s undeniably impressive to see the details Deacon was able to create while using delicate, light fabrics. How many of these looks will end up in stores, and on how many worst dressed lists someone risks ending up on if opting for the sheer eveningwear, remains to be seen.
While there was appeal in the fitted daywear, it’s a pity that Deacon didn’t work in some of the draping that the Ungaro brand was once known for, especially given that we saw promising hints of it last season, for at least some of his eveningwear.
Photos: Vincenzo Grillo, IMAXtree.
