Milan Fall / Winter 2006 Wrapup I

Ooooh, this is so exciting! It's Milan Fashion Week, which has always been my favourite fashion week. And finally, there is more Gemma modelling.

Jil Sander

In case you haven't heard the news, Jil Sander is back -that is the true Jil Sander, the brand of pure minimalism and famous for its trousers and jackets. The new long anticipated designer Raf Simons managed to impress the fashion crowd with his debut collection of womenswear, and that is no easy task. Throughout the collection, Raf Simons' training in menswear is obvious. Many of the outfits, especially the black and white ones were very basic 'Jil Sander', but there were a few outfits that were more than meets the eye. Take the dresses as examples: From the front they were basic, flowing dresses, but the backs were cut low in an elegant way. Anyways, every single piece of this collection was monotonous with tailoring as the key focus. And to complete the minimalism look, makeup was barely traceable on the models' faces.

D&G

The theme of the D&G collection is one of the most obvious: this winter, the D&G girl is a snow-girl. This entails dressing in ALL white, from the top (wool, blob-looking hats,) right down to the toes (chunky boots.) There are many different variations of the snow-girl: There is the cute, pixie one; the womanly one; the sporty one; and of course, the sexy and somewhat slutty-looking one. There are a lot of great individual chunky knits and corcheted pieces. I esp loved the skirts and dresses. Socks and stockings continue to play a major role in the world of D&G. Overall, I thought this was an impractical but seriously cute cute cute collection. The only problem were those hideous, chunky moon boots, which were seen in made of fur and ugly pom-poms.

Gemma Ward sporting the chic Santa elf look -so adorable!

Giorgio Armani

This was quite an umm, unexpectedly colorful and embellished Armani collection. The theme looks to be the 40s, with key words being glamorously sleek, pencil skirts, hints of retro and many many dresses. Speaking of dresses, there are too many drool-worthy ones to mention so you must go to style.com to check them out yourselves. The dresses and other outfits I have chosen are only my absolute favourite ones.

Now there is no doubt that every piece in the collection is beautifully cut and perfect for the sophisticated woman. But the collection is not what I would have expected from Armani -where are the pantsuits, and strict colors? How are the amazing Armani-clad businesswomen expected to work through winter in only pencil skirts? And why oh why does this collection remind me a bit of the Christian Dior style?