admin In fashion as in life, timing is everything. The launch of the new Emilio Pucci collection coincided with Beyoncé wearing a custom Pucci look for a performance in Inglewood, California, on September 2, as part of her Renaissance World Tour. “It’s been huge,” said Camille Miceli of the placement. A year has passed since her appointment as the brand’s creative director, and having Queen Bey’s stamp of approval is an assist that surely makes the anniversary sweeter.
On stage, Beyoncé and her dancers donned coordinating catsuits printed in the new Pucci Giardino motif, part of the fall/winter collection Miceli has named Supernova—an apt nod to the performer’s stellar status. Miceli has steered Pucci towards expressive, audacious territory that suits high-wattage celebrities and real-life firecrackers alike: “It’s for women with real presence, who are not afraid of showing their confidence. It isn’t discreet. It isn’t under-the-radar bourgeois. It’s a maison for women who embrace who they are, and dare to be noticed,” she said. Demure wallflowers, go elsewhere.
Miceli is building a consistent aesthetic at the label, each season introducing some slight detour that doesn’t stray from the formula she has established to give new luster and pep to the fading Italian brand. “Pucci has always been about crazy prints splashed across rather simple, easy shapes,” she said. For winter, Miceli and her team worked on new prints, upping the ante with even more trippy whirlwinds of graphics and colors. Some riffed on archival late ’50s patterns turned psychedelic, like the Leocorno, inspired by one of the vibrant flags of the Palio di Siena—the wild historic horse race that has taken place every August in Siena’s circular main square since the Middle Ages.
Miceli is partial to an individual approach to style, the more ebullient the better. Here she alternated sexy body-con silhouettes with more billowy shapes, short skater miniskirts with voluminous padded piumino capes, and knitted blanket ponchos with second-skin, tattoo-effect printed mesh catsuits. New this season were evening numbers in crisp black taffeta and what she called “Peaky Blinders suits,” or masculine tailored tuxedos in black velvet with printed lapels. Miceli gave all of them playful, eccentric twists. An asymmetrical top had huge rosettes blooming across the décolletage, while a voluminous taffeta dress was worn under a windbreaker and finished off with a fearless pair of furry over-the-knees Yeti boots. “Playing with contrasts is risky,” she conceded. “But that’s what I find interesting to explore.”
