Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
MILAN, Italy — Alessandro Dell'Acqua got personal today at No.21. For the first time since he launched the label seven years ago, he revised the tropes of his eponymous Alessandro Dell'Acqua collection, which he founded to a certain notoriety in the mid-nineties only to abandon it fifteen years later due to disagreements with the backers. Back in the day, he was renowned for a modern take on Mediterranean, carnal sensuality. Flesh was his trademark colour, together with sheer fabrics, lingerie inspirations and feathers.
No. 21, on the other hand, is rooted in a metropolitan, sporty sensibility and the idea of style as crash and collage. The collection Dell'Acqua showed today was a perfect merging of his two personalities, a clash of the carnal and the sporty. There was a lot of flesh, feathers and crystals, but also hoods and blousons. No. 21 suddenly felt grown-up and womanly, but the metropolitan touches kept the collection from being overly ladylike. There were persistent winks to Prada, but then again Dell'Acqua never made a mystery of loving Miuccia. On a wider fashion scale, No.21's newfound maturity is a sign of the conservative wave that seems to be fashion's next trend.
