Lots of designers compare designing a collection to having a baby. It's painful, first of all. And hard work. Many resort to drugs to cope. In Milan, where the presentation of the spring/summer 2014 collections began yesterday, you can add the idea that it starts with sex, given the sensual nature of most Italian fashion. Its also a new beginning, new life and hope. That sappy stuff.
Ditch the metaphorical: Gucci's creative director Frida Giannini actually did give birth in March shortly after her last womenswear show, to her daughter Greta. Which, presumably, gave her a new perspective on designing clothes for a woman. Certainly that winter Gucci collection, presented in the eighth month of Giannini's pregnancy, was unusual.
It was harsh, fetish-inspired, corseted and cinched at the waist. No billowing maternity-friendly empire-lines in sight. But isn't that exactly what you'd crave at that time? Clothes to help you control a figure that, subjugated to the demands of a life growing inside, you perhaps feel is no longer your own?
Its impossible for motherhood not to colour your perceptions of what Giannini designed for her spring Gucci collection the looser, blouson shapes, dhoti trousers bound at the ankle, the billowing kaftans and butterfly sleeves in chiffon. It was the opposite of the cinched-in bitch dressing she proposed for winter.
Yet, played out as it was in eye-popping metallics and bold shades of cyclamen and cerise contrasted against lacquered black, it wasn't exactly easy. Indeed, it put you less in mind of a new mum in forgiving fluttering layers than of a kabuki David Bowie in his Aladdin Sane incarnation.
