This is stretching the boundaries of conventional fashion reviewing a tad. Yet as this was Neil Barrett’s womenswear presentation in Milan—model-less, crowd-free, and serene—held relaxingly in his studio with only your author, the designer, his PR, and chief confrere Nicole Phelps, well let’s do it.
Without the dynamic of a show to report, it was telling instead to observe Phelps’s interaction with the rail. Phelps was tugged as if by tractor beam to a handsome notch-lapelled doubled-breasted jacket of chambray blue—actually, middleweight Japanese denim—with slits south of the armpit that allowed the wearer to choose between conventional wear or hands-enabled shoulder robing. “This,” she observed with emphasis, “is very cute.” As Barrett explained, visibly gratified through meticulously groomed exactitude as Phelps ran a languorous finger down a pale blue lapel, the jacket is one of three pieces—along with an oversize boyfriend jacket and an elongated version—that comes in three shades of denim, plus suiting fabric, plus a tuxedo finish.
Barrett, of course, is a menswear guy. He was the creative thrust behind the conception of Prada menswear, and his own men’s collection is the financial thrust behind his business. It is no surprise that his laser-like ruthlessness at reduction then rebuilding of masculine codes can be applied with equal power to women’s as to men’s.
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