Matthew X: Giles for Emanuel Ungaro: Fall-Winter 2011-12.

Giles Deacon for Emanuel Ungaro: Fall-Winter 2011-12

Last season at his debut for the maison, the rapturous Giles Deacon told the Telegraph that his spring collection was predicated on a quote from Monsieur Ungaro himself, wanting to elicit the image of ‘clothes trembling on a hangar.’ What would follow was a kaleidoscopic celebration, a party some might say, staged on a set of hanging gardens exploding with decadent, feel-good optimism. Ungaro, for the first time in a long while, was going through a formidable revival. It was about moving forward and blossoming in a culmination of blinding color in order to forget the crazy vicissitudes of the house’s history and the humorously blundering collaboration of Estrella Archs and Lindsay Lohan. With Giles’ inception into the atelier, Ungaro is guaranteed the stability and work ethic of a scholarly couturier to firmly plant and nurture a coherent brand identity. The cyclical ins and outs of creative directors and their short bouts of wild experimentation, I fear, have tarred the name. But the high-tech craftsmanship and oeuvre of a true British designer is exactly what Giles can offer Ungaro’s business. Last season’s artisanal joie de vivre was fun and aligned itself perfectly into certain Ungaro codes and house specifications. It offered a full reinstatement of the name, punctuated of course with the flirtatious celebratory approach to excessive, piled-on glamour expected of Deacon (and seen at various stages of his eponymous line).

[ Spring-Summer 2011-12 Emanuel Ungaro by Giles Deacon finale ]

For Fall-Winter 2011-12, the architecture of atelier dressing was to come to the forefront. At first glance, it appeared as though it was carrying over the attenuated severity of the cyborg-goth of Mugler or even the expressionistic complexity one comes to expect of a Scognamiglio showroom. But Giles is never one to borrow or download. In fact, the collection offered a certain degree of transplantation from his own line’s next autumn-winter with a stringent looking liturgical silhouette, corseted eveningwear, brocade harness tops, and form-fitting leatherwork. The disquieting visage of a snarling wolf, which appeared on the sweaters of supermodels Izabel Goulart and Karolina Kurkova, bodes well and even mirrors the menacingly coy glances of the panthers seen appliquéd on the dresses at Tisci’s outing at Givenchy. All in all, Deacon is one of fashion’s forefathers of transition and the linear, silhouette-demanding exercises seen here foreshadow a healthy marriage between the beauteous archives of Monsieur Ungaro and the anarchic vision of an endearing personality such as Giles.