After his first-ever runway show last April in Los Angeles — a grandiose spectacle complete with pyrotechnics, Pusha T and a soulful piano performance — Jerry Lorenzo kept it intimate in Milan, embracing the showroom presentation format and letting his fall collection do the talking.
It was a continuation of that Hollywood Bowl display, hence the familiar silhouettes: blanket-like tailored layers; elongated blazers nipped at the waist and paired with wide-leg bottoms; fluid pants spilling over dropdown suede booties, plus A-line overcoats and bold-shoulder leather numbers with enveloping volumes and lot of swagger.
Lorenzo said they sprouted from the 30 percent of ideas and looks that didn’t make the final edit of the Los Angeles show, and evolved into a celebration of “American Symphony,” all the cultures and influences the country has had on him.
“How do all of these cultures come together and really have one American point of view? I think this [collection] is even a more refined point of view on the way I see my influences from America, which are from a bunch of different cultures and that all are sophisticated, elegant, and super cool to me,” he said.
Displayed on racks in the showroom, the collection looked like a shared wardrobe for men and women, save for the pointy booties with a sculptural heel, and look-book imagery showed how wonderful it looks on female models, such as a plush drawstring, workwear-nodding leather pant paired with a turtleneck and a long, boucle coat.
The round-shouldered, slightly cropped suit in beige; the lapel-free tailored jackets layered over silky T-shirts and matching neck scarves; the luxurious shaved shearling jackets, piled atop one another broadcast Lorenzo’s ability to do quiet luxury his own way.
Amid plural and at times formulaic reinventions of tailoring this Milan season, Lorenzo’s wondrous vision is a gift to American fashion that hopefully will keep on giving.
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