ITALY MUST GO

I don't have much against Italy as a country - friendly people, amazing food, wonderful weather, and Tuscany is heaven on earth. But Italian fashion must go. Gaudy kitsch that Italian "fashion" has produced in the recent years, led by Dolce & Gabbanna and Versace, is beyond vulgar. Ripped sloppy jeans, logoed tshirts, and sneakers - this is not what people who are serious about fashion design should produce. Or, if they do produce it, they must admit that what they make is trash, and that they have no more pretence at being a fashion designer than Brittney Spears does at singing at La Scala.

What is even more alarming is Italy's influence on the emerging economies, such as Russia and China. While sophisticated Europe simply shrugs this trash off, the rich in the emerging countries operate by, "the bigger the logo, the better" principle. Of course Italians are not the only ones that churn out this trash - DSquared are Canadian, Dirk Bikkimbergs is Belgian, and Denis Simachev - but they all operate in Milan, and were all attracted to Milan as a thoroughly entrenched as the ostentatious fashion dumpster of the world that commercially rewards bad taste.

One thing I am glad about is that some fashion journalists have had enough of this as well and no longer sugar coat their feelings on Italian fashion. Read the two articles below, one by my favorite, Guy Trebay from NYT, and one by Maisie Wilhelm from IHT.

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