Sunday was a nervous day in Milan with Giorgio Armani cancelling his show and the mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala urging people to stay at home. Still and rightly so, Hugo Boss went on with their morning show, which gave a powerful account of the state of German fashion.
Hugo Boss has had its fair share of bad press in Germany. Poor management, boring clothes, wrong prizes and so on. Well, in general the German press has a limited understanding of fashion but is good with numbers. So Boss went to Milan, pitched up a lilac show space and delivered what matters most for a fashion company: a great collection by Ingo Wilts where he showed his critics that he is capable of making colorful clothes and imbue emotion in his designs. It helped that he chose a live orchestra which performed a piece entitled “Down to Earth” composed by Henri Scars Struck and was created from scratch for Wilts in New York. Wilts divides his time between New York to stay on the pulse and Metzingen to get the work done.
Film composer Henri Scars Struck composed a piece for the Show.
The tailoring?
No denying that Hugo Boss is about suits but the way the double-breasted ones hung on the models, mostly worn open, showed that Wilts is a man who understands every millimeter of a cut. Opening with a two-button suit with bare torso on Mona Tougaard also worked well just like the big pleated pants for men.
Tailored suits, here double-breasted.
When New York comes to Metzingen?
New York has been at the forefront of a new type of body conscious clothes with brands like Area and Dion Lee, a vibe that Wilts cleverly channeled in his dresses. Our favorite look was a below the knee skirt and top on Valerie Scherzinger in rust color draped in languid jersey with a trapeze cutout in the back and a V-neck in the front.
The monochrome look was one of the highlights.
The colors and prints?
Apart from lilac and red, we loved the opening section in rust. Wilts also proved that he has a deft hand at color blocking sometimes bringing three to four colors together in one look. It also looked like there were some computer manipulated zebra prints finding their way on coats.
Wilts dared to show everything with a wide range of colours.
The fringes?
Well, it’s official. This is a fringe season and to Wilts’ credit, he showed them the same season as Bottega Veneta and Jil Sander and not after.
Fringes over fringes.
