Arthur Arbesser A/W 2019 Milan Fashion Week Women's

The Viennese designer draws on the bold art and design heritage of his home city for inspiration

Arthur Arbesser A/W 2019

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Mood board: Colour is essential to Arbesser’s aesthetic. The Viennese designer draws on the bold art and design heritage of his home city for inspiration. Arbesser looked closer to his Milan studio for autumn, which was designed by the Italian architect and furniture designer Luigi Caccia Dominioni in the 1940s. Dominioni completed over 100 projects in Milan before his death at 103, favouring graphic lines and a sparse sprinkling of windows. There was a bourgeoisie sensibility in the collection, inspired by the location of the studio, which overlooks Sant’Ambrogio square. There were trenchcoats, silk blouses, handkerchief skirts and V-neck gilets all imagined in Arbesser’s unusual colour palette (with emphasis on browns, golds, reds and lilacs), and his eccentric use of pattern.

Scene setting: Arbesser held his runway show at Rockspot, an indoor climbing center. Its climbing walls, populated with pebbly, colourful footholds formed a serendipitous backdrop to the tones and patterns in the collection, and offered a contrast to those bourgeois silhouettes on show.

Best in show: Arbesser used Tuscan Casentino to highlight the bourgeois elements in the collection, its thick wool fabrication used to create elegant belted coats. More unusual fabrications came in the form of archive photographic lychee and pomegranate prints, featured on skirts, smart trousers and waistcoats.

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