Gianfranco Ferre S/S 2012 at Milan Fashion Week IT’S not been plain sailing over at the house of Gianfranco Ferré of late – in February of this year it got itself a new owner in the shape of the Dubai-based Paris Group and in April its

creative directors, Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi, were reportedly asked to leave. And last season’s money-is-no-object attitude in terms of their woman’s wardrobe might well have been the issue.

So today it was a new start, wiping the fashion slate clean and showing a collection designed by Stefano Citron and Federico Piaggi. And it was a sentiment they certainly wanted us to understand, noting “a new image”, “a free, sensual, determined woman” among the key points of the collection - which was most certainly futuristic and optimistic in its outlook. Think minimalist, think riffs on things you think you know but then a sleeve is missing and in its place judo sculpted detailing and you do indeed find yourself surprised.

The show notes told us that it was a collection “high in seduction potential” – was there perhaps a double meaning in there in that they were trying to persuade us (not just the lucky Ferré woman’s man), that all was well and good and that this new chapter had lots to give?

What was given today was all about clean lines, geometry, asymmetric cuts and shirts that were at the same time macs and shorts and no longer shirts at all. Waists were encased in thick metallic cases, with fluid drapes to form dresses above them. Collars were off kilter and seemingly not attached to anything at all. Colour-wise and it was all white and nude – with punches of magenta and raspberry very sparingly mixed in – the wheatsheaf feather dresses in nude and white and indigo were a surprise too, more ornate than the starkness that had preceded it.
 

Summer is always an optimistic season – and no more so than at Ferré, where it (be that high seduction appeal, modernity or difference), is only just beginning.