The invite featured a detachable mustache along with the exhortation to "feel surreal", and the bowler-hatted models who filled the runway recalled René Magritte by way of Pierce Brosnan and his decoys from the museum scene in "The Thomas Crown affair". Moschino's collection wasn't intended to shock, though; rather it offered a peppy, look-on-the-bright-side take on one of the main emerging trends of the Milan shows : traditional English menswear. A regimental stripe, in either green, white, and navy or red, navy, and white, appeared on everything from ties to the lining of a hood to the trousers that were paired with a smartly cut double-breasted coat. And speaking of regimental, Moschino's proper British gents were interspersed with a squadron of guys in military jackets or ponchos, pants tucked into laced and zippered combat boots (something to wear if the bright-side scenario doesn't work out, perhaps).
That surreal feeling emerged in a series of trompe l'œil effects. These started out as subtle -the white stitching that picked out a brogue pattern on black suede shoes- and soon became harder to miss. A blazer was printed to look like a leather biker jacket; a puffer coat to look like a trench. And a white tee with the outline of a jacket superimposed on it was only a drawn-on bow tie away from becoming a good old tuxedo tee. Franco Moschino, the label's late maverick founder, might have made hay with the tackiness inherent in that concept. This collection was ultimately tamer than that. Still, it had an upbeat energy, and one outfit toward the end -a velvet-collared coat paired with a bowler and narrow trousers in a paisley motif- had the jauntiness of the John Steed character in the Surrealist-tinged British TV show "The Avengers".
That surreal feeling emerged in a series of trompe l'œil effects. These started out as subtle -the white stitching that picked out a brogue pattern on black suede shoes- and soon became harder to miss. A blazer was printed to look like a leather biker jacket; a puffer coat to look like a trench. And a white tee with the outline of a jacket superimposed on it was only a drawn-on bow tie away from becoming a good old tuxedo tee. Franco Moschino, the label's late maverick founder, might have made hay with the tackiness inherent in that concept. This collection was ultimately tamer than that. Still, it had an upbeat energy, and one outfit toward the end -a velvet-collared coat paired with a bowler and narrow trousers in a paisley motif- had the jauntiness of the John Steed character in the Surrealist-tinged British TV show "The Avengers".
