Elisabetta Franchi tossed fashion’s rule book out the window this season, mixing sports looks with tailoring, corsetry, and lot of sheer fabrics. Her woman is still the same, “she’ll never renounce her sensuality,” said the designer, but she’s more “spontaneous, audacious” and doesn’t want to dress by the book.
Franchi let it rip, mixing cycling shorts with roomy tailored jackets, including a fine tuxedo style, and adding corset-inspired cross-lacing to the back of shiny leather coats and trenches. Corset-inspired belts added an extra dollop of sex appeal to skirts as sheer and stretchy as a pair of tights.
She took the lingerie theme further, layering a structured leather bustier with double gold zips over black cycling shorts — a look that’s sure to grab attention at the next Giro d’Italia.
There was certainly a lot going on — what with all the layers, lacing and shrunken jaguar prints on tights, blazers and elbow-length gloves. It was dizzying. And, as always with Franchi’s collections, the simplest silhouettes were the best.
They included a slinky white dress with a racer-style front and high collar, and a red-hot ruched top-and-skirt combo with cutouts. A ruby red sequin slipdress, worn with a black tuxedo jacket, and a lineup of spangle-covered skirts were fit for the Broadway production of “Chicago.” It was ideal eveningwear for the audacious Franchi woman.
