Damir Doma's Multicultural Accelerator

MILAN, Italy —"I can be very brainy in my work. This season I thought it was time to get more direct and straightforward," said Damir Doma of his show on Sunday. "I want my customers to understand very clearly what each piece is, with no reason for further speculations."

The newfound clarity gave an unexpected boost of energy to the collection, which looked like the Doma we all know — a brutal purist in constant pursuit of multiculturalism — shattered in pieces and then put into a metropolitan accelerator.

While puzzling at first, and a little confusing at times, the unexpected move worked. Sporty pieces developed with Lotto were a welcome addition, while the prints kept up a certain exoticism. The show was a brutalist bomb into itself: it was held in a cavernous, slightly sinister and yet terribly charming depot below Milan's central railway station.

Individuality was the key to the looks. Doma imagined a posse of travelers, each of them picking diverse elements from different cultures or styles and mixing them together at a whim. Of course, this is a theme that Doma has delved into many times and he is the first to admit it. What he added, successfully, was a bit of energetic chaos and the concrete jungle, not the temple, as a backdrop. Balancing raw energy and clarity might be a good next move in order to progress further.