Visits: 22
Carolina Castiglioni isn’t just passionate about design; she’s a true connoisseur. Her sprawling new flat in Milan overlooking the Castello Sforzesco is filled with a collection of museum-worthy furniture pieces, assembled with an offbeat, cultivated eye. Her Plan C line has the same purity of lines, refined functionality, and unconventional undertones as that apartment. To shoot the lookbook images for the fall collection, she had a set built to recreate a ’50s minimalistic interior inspired by Le Corbusier, a space defined by a series of movable panels painted in the saturated colors she favors.
“Garments have to be functional, I don’t like when details are there just for aesthetic purposes,” she said at an appointment in her showroom, which is decorated with remarkable design pieces from the ’60s and ’70s. Castiglioni worked her rigorous approach on roomy silhouettes, focusing on inventive outerwear made in the substantial fabrications she likes, playing with block colors and accents of bold abstract prints.
What was interesting was the designer’s gently deconstructed take on utility or sport-inflected outdoor pieces like anoraks, parkas, and trenchcoats of voluminous presence, styled with stretchy cycling pants and turtlenecks as underpinnings. On a more feminine note, there were sweeping long dresses with plissé panels in crisp cotton; a particularly appealing version was offered in a delicate floral macramé motif printed on rubbery cotton. Castiglioni likes an unconventional contrast; a sequined pencil skirt in a pale shade of tea was paired with an anorak in sturdy cotton canvas in tobacco, while a slender shift dress in macro sequins was trimmed with sporty knitted details at the neckline. A bold striped pattern printed on a three-piece suit also broke the collection’s rhythm, introducing a touch of eccentricity.
