MARK KARL HUGHES

Romeo Gigli - In the 80's

He enraptured the fashion

crowd with a romantic

vision not seen since

the turn of the century

in some hybrid and imagined

orientalist world

Season after season he 

defined beauty

and pageantry

a perfect escape

from the Reagan era

of pearls 

Nancy red

Barbara blue

and everything else

honky white

Raf Simons after my own heart

A column of yellow silk 

the swing of pink atop white

a block of emerald suspended

between jewel tones

a knit sweater of robins egg blue that could

only belong

over tangerine

Magenta tailored

tightly for the little

man

this is serious stuff

Sybilla

she took the late eighties

fashion world

by storm

rejecting shoulder pads

returning our eyes

to poetry

then she

disappeared