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MILAN - Emporio Armani had velvets in rich earth browns and blacks, dabbed with shiny patent leather accessories and spangled with glittering evening wear for its womenswear collection for winter 2008-09 shown on Sunday.
The line, designed by doyen of Italian fashion Giorgio Armani, echoed his menswear collections
for the same season shown in January with its focus on dark colours and variations on velvet.
A rich earth velvet coat with a voluminous skirt stopped above the knee for a shorter version of the New Look shape.
Black velvet jackets, some ending just below the shoulder blades, were teamed with grey wool skirts with the same full shape or with high-waisted, wide-leg trousers in dark tweed.
Armani broke into colour with an inch of shocking pink skirt peeping out from a black topcoat or as a nod to a shirt under a sombre pinafore. Emerald green and purple also made appearances in a skirt or a neckband.
Patent leather pumps, handbags and belts or a pair of shiny black ankle boots stepped in to give a shine to the show.
Silver and black were worked into tight ridges on dresses to look like flowing lava caught in sunlight.
But the designer put the biggest sparkle into his evening wear for the Emporio Armani line, with a variety of above-the-knee skirts and dresses spangled with silver and mirrored mosaic for an updated Disco Babe look.
The show was the first by one of the big names in the week which kicked off on Saturday, with 103 catwalk shows and 137 presentations, where models are static rather than walking in the clothes.
The huge number prompted designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to call the week "a senseless circus" in an interview published on Saturday by Corriere della Sera newspaper and call for fewer events of higher quality.
Their Dolce & Gabbana line shows on Thursday while the less formal D&G collection debuts on Monday, on the same day as the Giorgio Armani pret-a-porter collection will be shown.
Earlier on Sunday, Anna Molinari gave her audience a winter dreams set for the Blugirl collection complete with snow falling and ice-rimmed catwalk.
Models walking over a mocked-up bridge wore high-necked cream wool dresses with tulle at the hems, topped with fur capes cut short at breast height. A pale pink fur version sat snugly over a deep pink silk blossom-shaped skirt.
Hats were Cossack-style complete with ear muffs or knitted cowls with a hole to pull your pony tail through. Heels were icicle-high and thin in silver, white or shiny black.
But it was the flat, white, polar bear-paw boots that really stole the show.
- REUTERS