For many fashion folks, it isn’t unclear which came first. Moncler announced their Genius collaboration in February this year. One of the contributors is Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli. His capsule collection for the Italian brand known for their down jackets is thought to be aesthetically the strongest among the eight designers invited to take part in the interpretation of the Moncler classic.

Mr Piccioli’s stunning versions, available at Club 21 last month, took Moncler’s familiar shape and quilting and gave them a simple but exaggerated silhouette. The most talked about and shared are the floor length, hooded coats (right, the Agnese) that has a familiarity that can be linked to Mr Piccioli’s rather renaissance silhouette he conceived for Valentino intermittently. Moncler’s puffer coats, for the first time, has a couture sensibility about them.

The long duvet coats, in the house nylon Laqué and with their horizontal quilting, recently had the spotlight shone on one of them when Erza Miller of the Fantastic Beasts series wore a black version to the franchise’s—The Crimes of Grindelwald—Paris opening early this month. Fashion tongues were wagging, and the most striking of the Moncler collaborations took centrestage.

Not long after Mr Miller’s red-carpet strut, this version (left) was spotted at the entrance of the Coldwear store in Tampines One. The version, as we learned, is not for sale. But, as the saleswoman told us, it can be made-to-order. And how much would that set us back? “Eight hundred to a thousand,” she said hesitatingly in Mandarin (the Agnese is on the other end at USD4,135). Why was it on display if it wasn’t for sale? “I don’t know,” she continued unhelpfully, “the boss wants it here.”

Cold Wear is a Singapore-based subsidiary of one of Indonesia’s largest manufacturers of winter wear. Their in-house label Coldwear’s coat in question comes in a white that has a hint of blue or grey, depending on the ambient light, sort of the colour of snow after a day or two. The nylon used isn’t as fine as Moncler’s—to be expected—and the down filling is rather thin and limp.

As we allowed the coat to feed our fascination, one of two women walking past the Coldwear store who caught sight of the mannequin’s outfit at the entrance, said to her friend, “Wah, can wear for a wedding!”

Photos: Zhao Xiangji