Aquilano.Rimondi Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear Collection on Style.com: Runway Review

Aquilano.Rimondi

MILAN, February 27, 2011

By Tim Blanks

The most fascinating detail in Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi's detail-heavy collection was the kick pleat on a pencil skirt. The skirt was backed in gold velvet, and there was something about a kick pleat in that fabric and shade that reeked of the bourgeois decadence in an old Helmut Newton photo. Aquilano and Rimondi insisted they were trying to pin down the moment of liberation in the sixties when the wound-up fifties woman became the free and easy seventies girl. But however much they try to channel that young spirit, they're more absorbed by someone much older, a well-schooled connoisseur of fashion, perhaps, who can fully appreciate the extraordinary, almost suffocating amount of work that goes into an Aquilano.Rimondi collection. The cloth of one coat-dress alone had been, according to the designers' translator, "painted, squeezed, rubberized, needle-punched…" What did that poor fabric ever do to anyone? Although, truth be told, the result was a gilded wonder.

Cleaving to their sixties moment, Aquilano and Rimondi took inspiration from Piet Mondrian. You're right, Mondrian was not of that particular decade, but Yves Saint Laurent used the artist's signature geometric style to create one of the most iconic dresses of the sixties, and it was presumably that resonance that the young Italians were drawing on. Lines of gold crystals picked out Mondrian's grid patterns. So did stripes of net. A more direct reference to the sixties could be found in the dropped waists and the easy shift shapes, but they were fabricated in such a way that ease was co-opted by more of those extravagant fabric treatments. Like the needle-punching that seamlessly collaged fur, satin, and wool in one coat.

Zucchero wailing "I love you so much" on the soundtrack sounded so much more anguished in the original Italian. But if he could do with a little lightening up, that only meant his sound was entirely appropriate for Aquilano and Rimondi. They, too, could let a little sunshine into their obsession—the sunshine, perhaps, of this collection's most winning item, a golden yellow coat that was stunning in its gilt-free simplicity.

See all from Aquilano.Rimondi › Timeline

A.F. Vandevorst	Acne	ADAM
A Détacher	Akris	Alberta Ferretti
Albino	Alexander McQueen	Alexander Wang
Alexandre Herchcovitch	Alexis Mabille	Alice + Olivia
Altuzarra	Andrew Gn	Anna Sui
Ann Demeulemeester	Anne Valérie Hash	Ann-Sofie Back Atelje
Anthony Vaccarello	Antonio Berardi	Antonio Marras
Aquascutum	Aquilano.Rimondi	Araks
Azzaro

Badgley Mischka	Balenciaga	Bally
Balmain	Banana Republic	Band of Outsiders
Barbara Bui	Barbara Tfank	Basso & Brooke
BCBG Max Azria	Behnaz Sarafpour	Bensoni
Betsey Johnson	Betty Jackson	Bibhu Mohapatra
Bill Blass	Blumarine	Bodkin
Bottega Veneta	Brioni	Burberry Prorsum

Cacharel	Calvin Klein Collection	Carlos Miele
Carolina Herrera	Carven	Celine
Central Saint Martins	Chado Ralph Rucci	Chadwick Bell
Chalayan	Chanel	Charles Anastase
Charlotte Ronson	Chloé	Chris Benz
Christian Cota	Christian Dior	Christian Siriano
Christophe Lemaire	Christopher Kane	Christopher Raeburn
Clements Ribeiro	Collette Dinnigan	Comme des Garçons
Commuun	Costello Tagliapietra	Costume National
Creatures of the Wind	Cushnie et Ochs	Custo Barcelona
Cynthia Rowley	Cynthia Steffe

D&G	Damir Doma	Danielle Scutt
Daryl K	David Koma	Dax Gabler
Dennis Basso	Derek Lam	Diane von Furstenberg
Diesel Black Gold	DKNY	Dolce & Gabbana
Donna Karan	Doo.Ri	Douglas Hannant
Dries Van Noten	Dsquared²	Duro Olowu

Edun	Elie Saab	Elie Tahari
Elise Øverland	Emanuel Ungaro	Emilio de la Morena
Emilio Pucci	Emporio Armani	Erdem
Erin Fetherston	Etro