Emilio Pucci / Spring 2013 RTW

Peter Dundas knows who’s going to be seen around in his clothes next summer: the hottest girls who like to show as much of their gorgeous bodies as possible without actually being arrestably naked in public. Some of these international sirens were popping up and down in their seats to be photographed in their trophy Emilio Puccis before the show, displaying eyefuls of plunging backs, and dresses with slashed flanks and sheer lace sides. The others were the models on the runway, flocks of whom are personal friends of Dundas, who’ll now have no qualms whatsoever about the trend toward smothering themselves in such boring garments as looser shirts and fluid pants when he’s around. Why, dear Peter lets us see straight through all of them!

It’s a fine line Dundas is treading here between the fun-loving louche and the faint memory of the house of Pucci’s Italian classiness. He’d picked “the opulence of Indochina” as his theme, so that meant lace and crystal ethnic-inspired embroideries, often layered under sheer veilings of organza and chiffon. In at least one case, no matter the finessing of layers in one long column dress, it was the very visible pair of black panties beneath that were the object of swiveling-eyed interest in the room.

Still, a man can’t make a business on sheerness alone—and a woman needn’t be an actual prude to wonder what she can buy from Emilio Pucci that covers her nakedness next summer. Dundas did have answers. His talent for cutting a tailored jacket was present (if you could drag your eyes upward) in a beautiful white jacket, paved with crystal embroidery, at the beginning. Other opacities were provided in his segue into sporty-cum-ethnic shapes: translations of blousons, jumpsuits, and wrapped jackets, decorated with dragon embroideries or mixed prints. A few came emblazoned with the house of Pucci heraldic insignia.

All of that caught some of the general crosscurrents of trends that are swirling around fashion at the moment. A calmer section of long, slim dresses at the end was stunning: the best, a single red, slashed-side cheongsam-influenced dress on Joan Smalls. Yet, there’s a dimension to this house—all the swirly, summery psychedelic Pucci print of Principessa in the sixties provenance—which has been relegated from the runway recently. We know it exists, and that it’ll be there in the stores, come what may. Somehow, it’ll seem just as right-on trend as anything in the show today.