Milan Fashion Week: The pannier is back, thanks to Alberta Ferretti’s Fall 2013 collection

See the pannier in action at Alberta Ferretti Fall 2013 »

Is that a hip I see? Or rather, two hips, and maybe a bit of bustle action over the behind. The Alberta Ferretti Fall 2013 collection shown in Milan yesterday started out demure enough, with ruffly white blouses and poufy little skirts. But then somewhere around Look 7, I detected a slight pannier---like a little whiff of Karl Lagerfeld’s silhouette for Chanel’s Versailles collection had wafted in.

I am not saying anything untoward is going on here---Ferretti is too talented for that. But it is interesting to see how an extreme idea can be worked in a moderate way, with a completely different effect. Where Lagerfeld’s skirts sometimes bordered on door-crashing, Ferretti’s simply put the accent on the waist in a nice, womanly way. Perfect for cocktail dresses in velvet or touched with floral embroidery.