Abbigliamento | IVO MILAN - Radical Fashion Blog

Welcome back Plantation!

By: Soili Milan

25-11-2016

Behind the apparent simplicity of a line focused on the realization of outerwear, lies the story of a decidedly visionary project, whose debut dates back to 1981, when Issey Miyake launched the brand with the evocative name: Plantation.

It is necessary to empathize with a time when the prêt-à-porter was ruled by trends that emphasized the dominant values of the time: power, career, luxury and the extreme celebration of female physical beauty. Broad shoulders, high heels, tights and sequins, simplifying a lot, were nothing more than aesthetic symbols of a value system that through the dress, not only represented himself, but at the same time it was consolidated.

In the middle of success and consent that these languages, so effervescent in directing the wishes of the general public, obtained, Issey Miyake, among many other experiences that already had, founded the line that still bears the name of birth.

The ideational force of the collection lays in the radical distance from what was happening in the fashion world.Plantation, in fact, was born with opposing ambitions: to completely ignore the identifying and transgressive function of the garment, structuring itself around very specific values, such as comfort and usability in everyday life with little assertive and recognizable forms, dressing people with predominantly craft and natural materials, with a humble appearance, wool for winter, linen and cotton for summer. It was a very interesting and long lasting project, suspended, only for the extreme experimental liveliness of the Miyake Design Studio and the alternation of new creative directors, between the late nineties and the early 2000s.

With the 2016-2017 Autumn/Winter collection is the group A-Net, affiliated to Maison Miyake and who contains also Zucca and Tsumori Chisato brands, to revive the project in Europe. Much awaited among lovers, Plantation returns, in times in some ways analogous to those of its creation, with its ‘formal modernity’, defined by multiple linear and clean cuts compared to the creative acrobatics of the Japanese school, sensitive to textile warmth and to stand discreetly in everyday life. The wisdom of the brand can be found in a decidedly practical solutions: the reversibility of quilts made of the typical smooth canvas on one side and the other in the most opaque and warm coat appearance; enveloping hoods; significant collars, but that can always be placed at will; double-breasted crew-necks that facilitate and claim the winter complement to excellence, the scarf, to integrate and support of a simplicity defended with great determination.

Plantation invites you to a comfortable everyday life and, being an outwear for long use, among its objectives, there is also a considerable care not to exceed with a design too intrusive to tire in the next season.

Find the Plantation collection online on our website:

www.ivomilan.com/en/nuove_collezioni-1/All-0/PLANTATION_Tokyo-327/e-shop.htm

Norwegian Rain – Rain, wind and tous les jours…

By: Soili Milan

11-11-2016

Abbigliamento, Architettura, Art, Arte, Clothing, Design, Fashion, Marchi, Moda, Various

It’s Norway the homeland of a brand that, even in its name, reveals without surprises its undoubted roots: Norwegian Rain!

An unisex product, which in the apparent classicism of the forms combines basic features for both cold and rainy climates. The canvases, strictly made of recycled Japanese polyester, are simulating the typical texture of traditional materials, such as wool gabardine, and do not reveal highly sophisticated and modern properties, such as the inner diaphragm, which guarantees to each raincoat to be both breathable and waterproof. The sealed seams prevent the water from intruding into the fearsome joints, allowing a peaceful freedom, regardless the worst downpours.

It lies precisely in this discrete translation of the high-tech garment, usually characterized by colored zippers or improbable reflective graphics and relegated to the most technical sportswear sector, in an elegant outwear, the most fascinating aspect of this Norwegian reality.

Is the modernity of a northern European language sensitive to aesthetics, grateful to the Japanese formal knowledge which is easily traced in the ongoing article, the Raincho, a garment halfway between the cape and the development of the kimono. Contribute to the complexity of the calm lines, details such as generous interior pockets, with the purpose of sheltering the vulnerable accessories, from wallets to phones, adjustable caps in amplitude with composed webbing and buttons, small panels that can replace bulky scarves, concealed zip pockets, always useful to not soak the necessary and in case you want to give up the use of the bag.

Norwegian Rain faces the everyday life with real prospects, but also with an original determination to integrate with the most complex and creative proposals of the great contemporary designers!

Wide Norwegian Rain waterproof coat with the shape of a cape in recycled polyester cloth, lined in viscose and polyester cloth

Hip-lenght A punto B sweater in cashmere cloth

Wide lined Comme des Garçons skirt in polyester matelassè with floral tapestry

Mascha ‘classic Trippen’ ankle boot in cowhide leather

Altalen hat in felt 100% lapin

Knee-lenght Norwegian Rain waterproof coat in recycled cloth lined in viscose and polyester cloth

Long and wide Boboutic cardigan in polyamide and extra fine merinos wool cloth worked with irregular knots

Classic Comme des Garçons man shirt in cotton poplin

Classic Comme des Garçons – Comme des Garçons man trousers in wool gabardine, cupro lined

Dippy Trippen Shoe in smooth cowhide leather

Knee-lenght Norwegian Rain waterproof coat in recycled polyester cloth, lined in viscose and polyester cloth

Zucca longuette dress in stretch, nylon and alpaca

Mascha ‘classic Trippen’ ankle boot in cowhide leather

The Enlightenment Punk of Comme des Garçons

By: Soili Milan

25-10-2016

Abbigliamento, Architettura, Art, Arte, Clothing, Design, Fashion

For several years now Rei Kawakubo, in Comme des Garçons art, has exclusively dedicated to clues, atmospheres and evocation her own representation of the ongoing collection. Emancipated of any kind of obligation towards the expectations of the global audience, the Japanese designer delights with her exhibitions that are closer to the art world rather than the sector of belonging. The runway is not dedicated to garments but to textile provocations, architectonic structures that surround the sacrificed bodies of models lend to carry oversized sculptures, deliberately cumbersome and disproportionate compared to the available space.

Impossible not to ask yourself why or what is the plausible message content in this artistic drift. Maybe a self-granted freedom of expression, against the monotonous limits forced by the reality of the female body, or a subtle provocation versus a star-system hat becomes increasingly uncritical and exhibitionist. Certainly the dialog has not the purpose of selling. The pared garments are indeed extraordinary pieces of contemporary art that belong in museums or wealthy collectors. The runway show is an idea, a suggestion of the inspiring motif of the season which will be found later translated and much wearable in the development in the show-room. For Autumn/Winter 2016-2017 we witness then poetic collage of antique fabrics, floral tapestries that catapult the public in the XVIII century, the Age of Enlightenment, the rematch of reason over ignorance and superstition.

Rei Kawakubo, however, is not nostalgic and well-mannered, the collage is held together by metal snap buttons, by cuts and raw seams, diagonals that fragment the decorative harmony of time, implying elements defined by herself as Punk, in the most provocative meaning of the term.

Synthetic leather, studs, constant asymmetries and details that can be observed in the motives sewed on skirts, in the curvatures of the nodal points of the joints, reinforced as if they were textile armatures. And extensions, adjustable connecting rings, a flexibility in disassembling and reassembling, a continuously adjustable area in lengths and a delicate balance between order and disorder. It is not said that we can return to the original reconstruction, that many the alternatives are. Modernity and tradition, they also alternate in the processing, the ancient Japanese knowing collaborates with the most daring experimentations of the multi-layerd polyester cloth with rayon, cupro and cotton panels, in an encounter that observes how the material determinants and imposes the final shape of the piece, whether is a jacket, skirt or coat.

Needless to assume how Rei Kawakubo, in preparing an original and personal temporal syncretism, punk and Enlightenment, thinks of women determined to stay in their own time with the vigor and exuberance of who has a critical and imaginative independency

Mix and Match Summer Sale…

By: Soili Milan

29-07-2016

Abbigliamento, Clothing, Design

With summer sales still pacing ahead and the first arrivals of the Fall/Winter 2016-2017, a fresh look to our current catalogue is an opportunity to bring summer back into the limelight. Heatwaves and imminent holidays demand light weights and outfits.

Together with Jennicka, Sari’s shots around our shop in Padova will take you on a swift tour of our Summer deals…

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto two pieces wide dress: wide t-shirt in cotton jersey, short sleeve, wide V neck, small buttons at the bottom to be closed in holes of the trousers, short sarouel in polyester and polyurethane Prince of Wales, with belt and detachable belt pouch, two welt vertical side pockets, t-shirt and trousers are detachable

Sha double sinamay hat with wider brim at sides and smaller at rear, small cotton ribbon trim at the edge

Trippen (SPIDER) flat shoe in soft cowhide leather with laces and side stripes, open on upper part, laces closure, leather stripes coming out from the sides suggesting a ‘spider’ design, two separated shells rubber sole

Junya Watanabe calf-length dress in polyester georgette with a zebra-stripes print, flared sleeve, wide rounded neck with a shawl effect on a second dress, back central slit, straight line

Comme des Garçons-Comme des Garçons wide shirt in cotton poplin, cut with stitching and pleating ‘impero’ style, rounded neck, strings closure on the front, short sleeve, hip-length, wearable also as an open jacket

Comme des Garçons-Comme des Garçons long and wide pleated skirt in washed linen canvas and printed with bi-colour polka-dots, elastic and waist band at the belt, side vertical welt pockets

Un-Namable over-fitting t-shirt in iridescent cotton jersey, wide crew-neck, circle line, flared asymmetric bat sleeve with raw cut edges, central vertical stitching on the front and the back

Un-Namable soft trousers in cotton crêpe with narrow vertical pleats, diagonal small panel on the front, elastic at the belt, a side diagonal small pocket

Daniela Gregis big shopper bag in hand-knitted palm leaves wrapped in a cotton vichy canvas with knots going through four holes in the upper part becoming a double handle, the piece of cloth could be worn as a shawl, h cm 30 x l cm 32 x d cm 20

Trippen (IBIZA) flip flop sandal in soft elk leather and cowhide leather parts in contrasting colours, wide and asymmetric band wrapping a foot side, Velcro closure on the front, open on the back, classic rubber rounded sole

Un-namable calf-length doubled dress in treated cotton muslin and with a cloud effect printing, wide crew-neck, sleeveless, diagonal stitching at the waist, wide bottom with side stitching and selvage at the hem, raw cut edges, wide and asymmetric line

Yesey hat straw

Trippen (HOREN) flip flop sandal in soft cowhide leather along the edges with open-toe, separated flip flop ring, shoe laces twist along the foot upper part to be tied around the ankle, classic rounded rubber sole

Y’s Yohji Yamamoto, S/S 2016

By: Soili Milan

27-05-2016

Abbigliamento, Clothing, Design, Fashion

Y's Yohji Yamamoto Spring/Summer 2016

Maybe not everyone knows that before coming out with the line that now bears his full name, Yohji Yamamoto made his debut in 1972 with the Y’s. A possessive case strongly indicative of the paternity and affection feelings of the well-known Japanese designer towards his work and his young performance.

Y’s, in the true sense of ‘it belongs to Yohji’, could not then be considered today a second line, but instead an everyday alternative of the bolder stylistic codes reserved to the runway collections.

It is not a rare event that, in the wide Paris showroom in Rue Saint Martin, we find us facing the spoiler of choice between a fèmme piece or its Y’s similar, reflecting from time to time if privilege a more abstract and mature feminine interpretation or a more immature and practical one.

The final decision is usually commit to the more precise correspondence between shape, colour and composition, with the world evoked by the garment in question.

In the Y’s too, Yohji doesn’t scrimp on the involvement of distant artisans, last repositories of the rich Japanese textile heritage, and with extraordinary confidence and discretion leads these unmissable knowledges in refining the everyday life. Linen and cotton patchworks, gussets kept together by laborious stitchings, polka-dots spread on complex wideness, doubled fabrics, barely sketched and overlapped pleats, ad hoc placed darts, precise distribution of the empties and the voids, in a continuos, careful game around the details, the small particular, in order to confuse the position of dresses, jackets and knitwear, in two opposing worlds: one classic and conventional and the other more unpredictable and personal.

The effect is a displacement typical of Yohji Yamamoto’s trait, always in conscious and affected balance between the austerity and the unconventional.