It is possible that come fall, all everyone is going to want to do is crawl into bed, pull their blankets up over their heads, and burrow in. But if you can’t do that, at least you can dress as if you can.
That’s what designers in Milan are betting, anyway. By the time the shows came to an end on Sunday, blanket statements had become the most ubiquitous trend of the week: big enveloping coats with bigger shoulders that swamped the silhouette; shawls and skirts that looked as if the sheets had been pulled off to make an outfit; and knitwear that resembled coverlets complete with hoods. Think of it as portable comfort dressing, given a cosmopolitan overhaul. You can take the bedclothes with you.
And you can understand the impetus. Life is particularly chaotic and scary at the moment, from major geopolitical shifts to the banality of the completely unpredictable weather (New Yorkers on their way to the European shows left a blizzard at home, only to discover an early spring in Milan).
What is more soothing than snuggling into bed? It may be the place most people feel safest. Certainly, all the swaddling on the runways offered a welcome change from the corsetry and constriction that has dominated catwalks in recent seasons. At its cozy best, it allows women to breathe again — though at its worst, it suggests they want to hide.
No one summed up the situation better than Simone Bellotti, who in his second collection for Jil Sander even made a short cream-colored dress inspired by … an upholstered mattress. That sounds weird, but looked appealing; like slipping into a tiny down-filled duvet.
That set the tone for the week.
“We wanted to try to create a sense of protection,” said Matteo Tamburini before a Tod’s show that featured wrapped skirts and wrapped pony skins, padded leather jackets with raised peplums and slouchy wool pants. He wanted to emphasize, he said, “The body as a form of shelter.”
He wasn’t the only one. There were voluminous cashmere greatcoats and long cashmere dresses at Max Mara, accessorized by elbow-length suede gloves and high suede boots so not an iota of skin was exposed. Blousy navy sweaters at Ferragamo were paired with even blousier knit pants, and silk satin duvet coats at Ferrari.
“Armor” for going out, but make it soft, said Louise Trotter after a Bottega Veneta show that was half Brutalist-inspired suiting — rounded shoulders, rounded hips, more wrap skirts suspended from leather belts, and pants so big they created their own flexible exoskeleton — and half Furby masquerade costume. (At least when it came to the women’s wear; the men’s wear was more restrained, and the better for it.)
Shaggy coats and shaggy dresses were made from shearling transformed to resemble fox; loops of silk thread were layered to form fragile pelts; and bristling fiberglass quills jounced and shimmied with movement. They were so big, the figure inside got lost. Was it a person or a woolly mammoth? Hard to tell. It was a mind-boggling experiment in materiality (especially because Ms. Trotter said each piece was engineered for lightness). There may be an element of self-soothing in the ability to pet your clothes, but it’s hard to imagine the woman who wants to dress like Fuzzy Wuzzy.
Hidden among the reverse anthropomorphism were some great squishy intrecciato bags and the occasional simple leather, but they were swamped by the fabrications. There were even little throw pillows — sorry, beanies, small and lush — on almost every head.
(Speaking of trends, hats are another one: In addition to Bottega, there were hats with every single look at Loro Piana — bucket hats and fezzes and fedoras; hats at Etro that resembled dog beds; and knit hats at Sa Su Phi that looked like firefighter helmets and the lids of Moroccan tagines. I blame Giorgio Armani, who died last September but whose influence still pervades this city, and who never met a decorative hat he didn’t want to put on his runway.)
Which is why Mr. Bellotti’s Sander show was so striking. It wasn’t just a literal interpretation of fashion-as-refuge, but an exploration of the tension inherent in the idea of home as what he called “the place you want to escape from, and then escape to” — not to mention a sly play on the way a fashion brand is referred to as a “house.”
For a designer, getting a new job means taking over someone else’s house, then redecorating it without destroying the foundation. When it comes to Jil Sander, Mr. Bellotti has done it brilliantly, and with nuance. (His father, he said in a preview, was a furniture upholsterer and made mattresses by hand, so this was personal.) He has kept the minimalism associated with the brand, but given it a subversive twist.
Put another way: He has made a very neat, very functional bed which suggests nevertheless that someone with a vivid fantasy life lies within.
Simple straight skirts peeled down from the hips like they were coming undone, or were split at the seams to flash a bit of leg. Coats with shrunken lapels had an extra tail fin of material flying down the back, like sheets that had been tacked together. Tunics gathered to billow at the bottom topped neat tailored trousers, or became strapless dresses. Jackets were wrinkled in weird ways, or scrunched up at the back to form a little trapeze, as if they had gotten twisted up in the night.
After, you know, a kind of sweaty dream.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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