For Milan Fashion Week, women's collections are currently rolling out to buyers, stylists, fashion editors, et al. in the city's coolest, oldest palazzi as part of Spring 2011's ready-to-wear shows, and we're psyched to see the city ebb again with teeming scores of fashion scensters.
One of OC's events -- slipped from her towering pile of slick invites for cocktails, shows, openings, and viewings -- was a cocktail co-hosted by Italian footwear giant Tod's and Milan's Teatro alla Scala, who used the ensuing Milan Fashion Week to celebrate their recent collaboration of joint initiatives (sponsorship coupled with a limited edition product). OC was there on Thursday night (not a guest of La Scala) for the cocktail reception, buzzing off the cheesy club-lite soundtrack, very awesomely chilled champagne, and creative canapes.
The key of the campaign is a five minute commercial, shot inside Teatro alla Scala with the corpo di ballo called “An Italian Dream" (hmmm...we had an Italian dream once and it looked nothing like this!) President of Tod's Diego Della Valle and Scala's Stéphane Lissner devoted a small room to continuous loops -- in (real?) Le Corbusier 1920s club chairs -- of their new commercial. Directed by Matthias Zentner and (very heavily) choreographed by Gianluca Schiavoni, the clip followed Scala's ballerini wrapped in gauzey bandages on Scala's stage (OC's photos of the commercial are above). Interspersed was the old-timey fingers of a Tod's shoemaker, weaving laces across a suede shoe. A sweeping classical music soundtrack was mixed with a beat for an effect that was more aggressive than necessary.
OC's always championed the links between classical music and high fashion, taking opera back to its dreamily glamorous era when Maria Callas floated through cocktails in vintage Biki and Yves Saint Laurent bespoke gowns. Although many problems currently plague Italian opera's enti lirici (and fairly, all opera houses), we love being at the center of this phenomenon, as we've recorded it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. (^takes the needle off the record^)
And if at the end of the collaboration, nothing significant comes from it, we're deliriously happy that style.com had a legitimate occasion to assign Stephan Lissner and Teatro alla Scala their own tags!
And the new Scala/Tod's product? Style.com has a photo (below) of the suede ballet shoes, available in November in Tod's boutiques for $575.