Feature: Milan fashion week calls on women to build up personal elegance

Fashion experts called on women to become stylists of their own elegance at the fall-winter 2015-2016 women's fashion week which ended here on Monday.

What needs to be done in order to be elegant? "Elegance often does not go hand in hand with fashion," Lucia Del Pasqua, a fashion blogger author of the blog "The Fashion Politan", told Xinhua.

Gucci's floral romance, Alberta Ferretti's delicate lace, Max Mara's pied-de-poule, Costume National's total black, Moschino's maxi frills and Prada's placid charm were just a few of the countless styles on stage these days in Milan.

"But elegance is something different from simply imitating or mixing styles," Del Pasqua went on saying. First of all, she pointed out, women should look themselves in the mirror and have an objective perception of their body and attitude.

"Take away" is a rule suitable for everyone, Del Pasqua added, as the "too much" look risks to transform women into "clowns." "Wear less things, start from simplicity," was her advice.

A good idea, as suggested by Emporio Armani's latest collection, would be choosing colors like black, white or grey and adorn them with something that stands out, for example red buttons or an eccentric necklace.

"And you may always have a Paris style hat in your closet. It always works well," Del Pasqua said.

Matteo Bardi, a fashion trend consultant at the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, focused on a "double concept of feminine elegance" on the runways at the Milan fashion week: "an elegance made of harmonious decorations and another elegance made of technical sports-style materials."

"These days I saw lavish ruffles and glittering prints besides foam and rubber textures borrowed from the sports world," he told Xinhua.

Many brands, he noted, have proposed both the looks, which in fact have been designed for women with different ages and lifestyles.

"On one hand, we have a career woman who does not need to amaze people, while on the other hand we have a teenager with a desire to be cool on social networks," Bardi elaborated.

Choosing a look not in line with one's age or lifestyle, though "trendy," could be not elegant at all, he warned.

"Fashion actually means building up one's own elegance," Leonor Cypriano, owner of the Leonor Cypriano Showroom in Milan, which has launched emerging brands that are now noted such as Piccione Piccione, agreed.

"Fashionable people are those able to look at the overall offer and pick what is most natural for their personality," she explained to Xinhua.

"In other words, if you dress and you like yourself, this is already fashion," she highlighted.

In today's fashion world, she underlined, there is "a desire for ideas, hints that women can use in a variety of different ways, without fixed patterns."

For this reason, Brazilian Cypriano has made of discovering new fashion talents her mission.

"Established fashion houses are very respected, but new stylists are often very good at interpreting the new need for personal elegance," she observed.

"The made-in-Italy fashion remains very attractive. Besides it there is space for all kinds of suggestions from the world," said Cypriano, who so far has not launched Chinese stylists but told Xinhua she would be glad to enhance "their taste for a clean, pure feminine elegance." Endit