Rita Ora might have held up the show, arriving more than 30 minutes after scheduled time, but the Diesel Black Gold girl’s got enough rock star attitude to rise above it all.
Using rockabilly as a reference point, designer Andreas Melbostad gave it a new wave twist with a sharp edged silhouette that was sexy and feminine.
High-waisted trousers and skirts were the name of the game and many came sprinkled with stars — some were embroidered, others were made of studs while some were printed. The looks came in blacks, whites, reds and pale blue, contrasted against the flickering stage lights for dramatic effect.
Ora was joined in the front row by model Petra Nemcova and Silicon Valley star TJ Miller who told photographers he’d just gotten engaged to long-time girlfriend Kate Gorney, who accompanied him to the show.
Melbostad, speaking backstage later, said all his designs started from the waist.
“The pants and the skirts were super important. Everything else was like an accessory,” he explained.
No wonder many of his models turned out with bra tops and tiny blazers, the focus clearly on the mid-section.
Of course it won’t be Diesel without the leather and the denim. But here, they kept with the theme: the denims were high-rise, their lengths shortened while the leather jackets were rich and studded.
The belts came with studs too, many of them cinched with double buckles and helped accentuate that mid-section. As empowered as the rock chicks were, Diesel Black Gold’s silhouette, mind you, has always been very lean and slender. So this is not for the faint-hearted.
“I wanted to create that new wave kind of feeling with my rockabilly girl, looking at the post punk late ’70s and early ’80s era but presenting it in a highly stylised and graphic way,” Melbostad added. “She’s sexy, tough but also very feminine.”
The owner of Diesel, the Italian entrepreneur Renzo Rosso, had told me earlier he hired Melbostad after a “very, very long” search. And that he was really pleased to have found someone to take care of Diesel Black Gold, the premium line of Diesel.
He was evidently pleased with the show, hugging his designer tightly backstage. “Did you see the crowd outside?” he beamed, “Crazy!”
