italian for beginners.

Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi hit it big four years ago when they won first prize in Franca Sozzani's Who Is on Next?-the Italian version of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards. These two gentlemen behind 6267 are riding a wave. While we waited for the spring show of 38 looks to begin, my friend Jim Gold told me how their designs fly out of Bergdorf Goodman. A retailer's dream? You know it. This was my first-ever collection by the design team, whose label came from the identification tags Rimondi's mother would hand-embroider into his summer-camp uniforms every year. He attended the prestigious Istituto Carlo Secoli in Milan, while Aquilano studied painting at the Accademia di Costume e di Moda of Rome. What struck me about the collection was the balance of a long white spring coat over a sharp navy-blue satin shirt and trousers and the huge abstract florals in this great show, the only one I attended in Milan where the applause roared as if at a soccer match at San Siro Stadium. Fans were not about to rein in their response to the designers' interpretation of "part samurai-as if Marie Antoinette had traveled to Japan." As among most young designers, as well as Miuccia Prada, there is the current obsession with fifties couture. "We love Dior, Jacques Fath, Balenciaga," they said through ...