Winter styles at Milan fashion shows are a flurry of fur, fabric and leather

Milan: Fur, leather, wool combine in latest trend

MILAN — Fur, leather and wool dominated the runways Friday on the second day of Milan fall-winter 2010 fashion week, packed tight with shows as designers scrambled to get their work in while top editors are still in town.

Milan reduced its usual fashion week to a four-day weekend when Anna Wintour, the director of American Vogue, said she could only give a few days to the preview showings. She was on hand for Friday’s major shows.

Ferre, Armani, Ferretti and Versace all played with intarsia, creating patterns by pairing fur and fabric to create new designs. The look was already seen on the first day of fashion week, when Fendi, master of fur craftsmanship, made it the leitmotif of its latest winter collection.

At Ferre, leather was the contrasting element, highlighting graphic lines and seaming, like wood in Germanic architecture. Ferre designing duo, Tommaso Aquilani and Roberto Rimondi, called the look the Bauhaus effect.

It appeared in knit dresses with leather bust and sleeves, or as embroidery on an alpaca wool coat. Leather and chinchilla fur decorated a luxurious evening coat.

For its second line, the Emporio collection, Armani combined materials such as velvet and organza to create a fabric on fabric intarsia. The designer also uses fur for a leather intarsia effect.

With many of the shows marking a bold return to fur, an Italian activist group AgireOra, “Do Something Now,” showed a video exposing the conditions at some fur farms in Finland, one of the world’s principal producers of pelts.

Later, at Versace, intarsia came in the form of leather inserts on stretch fabric, reminiscent of motorcycle garb. The rest of the show was devoted more to subtracting than adding, with slits, cut outs and bare backs part of the latest sexy Versace look. Evening wear included several short Barbie doll dresses in neon shiny techno leather.

Next year’s winter look promises to be relaxed and feminine with a return to a 1950s feel, complete with flared skirts, cinched waists, handle bags and dainty footwear.