What do a basin and a dress have in common?

Nearly 40 designers presented one dress each before a large audience in the fantasy and pret-a-porter de luxe nominations. Two famous Italian designers were invited to judge the talents and imaginations of this year’s participants — Luciano Barbera, the president of the eponymously named brand and president of the Gattioni fashion house, and Stefano Dominella, advisor to the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.

During its five-year existence Crystal Silhouette has gained many traditions. One of them is to devote each competition to a certain theme. While Faith and Hope were the themes of past years, this time the organizers couldn’t help choosing the simple but eternal theme of love.

The jubilee Crystal Silhouette opened with a fashion show by Gattioni, and this was the organizers’ big mistake. After the Italian’s chic collection, the audience reacted weakly to the sight of the models wearing the designs of mostly young and not always talented Ukrainian designers walking down the catwalk. The designers arrayed their models as wanderers, grand dames of the world, and even dull office mice. Some especially blood-thirsty designers did not pity their models and slashed their clothing with swords — deliberately, of course. But the red-and-black dress called “Untitled” would not have looked half as spectacular if three swords were not sticking out of the model’s waist.

This year the organizers of Crystal Silhouette opted against interactive voting, which explains why an anonymous jury assessed the participants’ works. The designers’ names were announced only during the awards presentation. Yurii Varyvoda won first place in the pret-a-porter de luxe nomination. His dress, called “Giselle,” which must have been inspired by France, immediately won over the jury with its elegance: over a white blouse with puffed sleeves and a black skirt with ruches the designer put a gray corset that emphasized the waist. This outfit is suitable for any wardrobe, which could not be said about the work of the winner in the fantasy nomination.

The designers should not be judged severely because this part of the competition was created in order to fire their imaginations. Aina Hase did not try to restrain herself when she was creating her dress called “He Will Wait” — yes, and he will wait until she gets out of the bath, or rather, with the bath. A basin with soap bubbles made of condoms, which served as the top part of the dress, was lodged on the model’s thighs. The most appropriate accessory for this outfit is a little hat, not an ordinary one, but one shaped like a box of soap.

The jury, which included distinguished Italians, magazine editors, and brand representatives, gave a high rating to Diana Dominika’s work “Cold Medicine.” This was not simply a dress but a whole composition: the model, muffled in furs, followed a broad-shouldered man walking two big shaggy dogs.

The winners of the competition were awarded jewelry and cash prizes. It has not been decided who will go to the Milan Fashion Week.

COUTURE BY ITALIANS

The Italian couture collections by Stefano Dominella and Luciano Barbera, shown in Ukraine for the first time, deserve special attention.

The first part of Gattioni’s collection was devoted to pantsuits. Practically all of them were made of glittering fabric. The designer used gauzy insets on the jackets, under which a blouse with puffed sleeves and a huge collar can be worn. The Gattioni dresses featured a wide color spectrum and were mainly long, fitted, and open. Madonna recently bought one of these dresses for $200,000, the hosts of the competition said.

Barbera does not simply make dresses — he creates an image of a man wearing a carelessly unbuttoned shirt, with his hands in his pockets. That’s the view of the Italian who holds the title “The World’s Most Elegant Man.”

The main part of Barbera’s collection featured a gamut of colors from white to golden-sand, while some suits had barely visible checks. A fashion detail of the collection was a sweater simply thrown over a shirt. The Italian’s clothes for women were also business-like and elegant. The models wore loose white trousers, jackets, and light dresses.

The Italians returned home pleased. The word is that the vice-president of Gattioni, Paulo Filipucci has purchased two garment factories in Lviv, proof that the Italians think that the Ukrainian fashion industry is promising. As Svitlana Novitska, the director of Crystal Silhouette, admitted, they are interested in our designers more than ever.