Sometimes in fashion it’s hard to see the trees for the forest. The dramas at Dior and Balmain have taken up so many column inches they have pretty much overshadowed everything else, including designer Vanessa Seward leaving Azzaro and now creative director Mauro Orietti (along with his father, production director Mario Orietti) leaving Zagliani, the Italian handbag company that achieved outsize notoriety for Mr Orietti’s patented use of Botox to make reptile skins particularly malleable. Except the latter is not going gently into that good night, and in his story lies a particularly contemporary moral.

 Read more