Simply Pretty & Pretty Ugly

In Milan, Designers Draw Fine Lines, or Need an Eraser

MILAN, Feb. 21

This capital of Italian fashion typically is celebrated for its most flamboyant design houses, Versace, Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana, which have been lionized in songs ranging from disco to hip-hop. But as designers here unveil their fall collections, it has been those using a thousand shades of gray or who evoke a symphony of moods in the drape of a neckline that have offered the most to savor.

One of the most successful was Raf Simons, who presented his women's collection for Jil Sander on Tuesday. The clothes were exquisite and mesmerizing in their simplicity. The presentation was akin to fashion haiku: controlled, focused, expressive and with a complexity that belied the streamlined design and austere approach to beauty and femininity. Simons used the sparest of brush strokes and yet managed to evoke luxury, confidence and power.

How can a designer send out a seemingly simple pair of narrow navy trousers topped with a close-fitting ribbed sweater and leave one marveling at the beauty of it all? What makes his work so much more astounding than the trousers and sweater you might pick up for a quarter of the price at Banana Republic? The difference begins, of course, with the fabric. Even a quick glance reveals its elegant sheen and luxurious drape. Then come the details: in the perfect proportion of the trousers and the impeccable fit of the sweater. The lean silhouette is grounded with chunky heels that keep everything from looking too fragile.

Simons takes a simple dress with short sleeves and a hemline that falls below the knees and artfully drapes the neckline just right. What could have been a dull little dress becomes something a thousand times more interesting because Simons used an elegant pleat like an exclamation point.

A designer has to master his details the same way any creative person must. Just as a chef understands why a quarter teaspoon of a spice is just right and a half teaspoon is too much, Simons understand that in fashion, transformations come in millimeters.

It is especially intriguing to look at his jackets and see the way he has raised the collar a smidge, minimized the lapels a tad and allowed the body of the jacket to swing just a bit. Simons not only has shown an astute understanding of all that the Jil Sander label represents -- modernity, minimalism, confidence, precision -- but he has moved it forward.

In some ways, he has taken up where Giorgio Armani left off in the 1980s when he transformed women's business attire. Armani took the traditional masculine business suit and feminized it. He gave women a jacket that was modeled on a female figure and allowed them to enter a boardroom wearing something that was appropriate in a predominately masculine world but that was undeniably theirs.

Simons makes further changes in the suit. It is even softer, even less obtrusive. The Jil Sander jacket is neither overtly masculine nor feminine. Instead, it is a uniform of elegance. For a woman who hates the idea that in her professional life her clothes are being noticed and parsed for meaning, Simons silences her frocks. He gives her a uniform akin to what men have had for generations. If Armani gave women a uniform that proudly announced their power and confidence, Simons gives them the means for taking attire completely out of the conversation without sacrificing sophistication and polish.

Armani, who put his signature collection on the runway Monday, built his reputation on restraint and refined taste. There have been times when he has turned his back on his own legacy, flailing desperately to be called hip and edgy -- two terms that are inordinately prized within the fashion industry.

For fall, however, he offers a gentle rebuke to all the trendsetters seeking to shock and rile. Perhaps it is also a quiet reminder to himself that the stylish vocabulary he created more than 30 years ago remains viable and valuable. He offered skirts with poetic bubble hemlines and an endless variety of confidently tailored jackets. Some skirts had artful folds along the waistline. Others simply wrapped gracefully around the body.

It wasn't a collection that was cool or provocative, but it contained beautiful clothes that spoke to Armani's historic place within the industry, and more importantly, his current stature among consumers.