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MILAN, Italy — After his show for Jil Sander on Saturday, Rodolfo Paglialunga admitted he'd been scared of the design DNA of the label. It was a tough mantle to assume, heavy with preconception, and he was right to worry. It flattened him.
But his new collection had a 'what-me, worry?' lightness that suggested he’d found a way round the legacy. He insisted, for one thing, that he wasn’t out to make a statement. So silhouettes were long and languid, dresses were sashed or casually knotted, tops had a built-in slouch that left them hanging off one shoulder.
The fluidity of satin, the déshabillé of slashed-seam deconstruction, the way that a leather coat dress was belted with a strip of vinyl tubing or straw hats were randomly tacked to fit the models' heads all contributed to a winning carelessness, which seemed exactly the right way to introduce some healthy new strands into that po-faced DNA.
