Loro Piana set up its fall presentation, titled “Nomadic Reverie,” like a film set — not for a murder mystery, but for luxurious fashions on the Orient Express.
Guests traversed a corridor of train windows broadcasting blurred landscapes, and then alighted into a chic waiting room wallpapered in paisley and decorated with screens, stacks of vintage suitcases — the real ones used by traveling Loro Piana fabric salesmen back in the day — plus the odd chaise lounge to drape with shawls and leather goods.
The men’s and women’s collections were displayed on mannequins in little groups reflecting “blurred memories” of exotic travels. No places were specified, but the ensembles variously evoked Yves Saint Laurent’s 1976 “Ballets Russes” collection, the Austrian Alps, the English countryside, and perhaps a fancy Milanese dinner party.
Many outfits stopped you in their tracks because of the sheer beauty of sublime fabrics like baby cashmere or the brand’s Gift of Kings wool, the sumptuous color combinations that riffed on paisley, or from sheer surprise, like a coach jacket done up in rust suede, or a pumpkin-colored cardigan with bell sleeves embroidered with boiserie-like patterns in the same yarn.
Here was a fall collection that made you pine for cool weather — a nearly tissue-thin double-face cashmere robe coat is just the ticket — or a polar front to don a luscious shearling blouson, round like a snowball.
There was practical chic, too, in multipocket reporter jackets for him and her, Horsey jackets in Pecoro Nero, and handsome tuxedos — part of an expanding eveningwear offer — with shawl collars in cashmere, not satin.