I followed your advice and I looked for synonyms in the collections you suggested to me. I still have a few doubts. (the questions marks).
1) Since his murder, his sister Donatella has assumed control (taken over) as the head of design and she has mantained (kept up) the brightly coloured (flamboyant) nature of collections.
2) Penelope Cruz is a dream come true (synonym) for Mango. She not only designs clothes for celebrities but also jeans and knits (synonym??) for more casual daywear (synonym??).
3) The celebrity-fashion mix is hot (??) right now with Kate Moss designing a capsule (?) collection for Topshop and Madonna enganged by H&M.
4) This was a first business activity (venture) into clothing for Penelope Cruz.
5)Her clothes are based on old but high quality pieces (vintage) from her own wardrobe and this year will include three distinctive themes: evening dresses for every occasion, retro-marine (??? Synonym) combined with romantic floral pieces, and a more “ad lib” (??) Californian line.
What does this sentence mean?
Which person acquired knowledge hands-on?
1. Good choices. Check spelling ~~> maintained
2. for "knits" use any of these: tops, sweaters, shirts, shells
for "daywear" use clothing
3. for "hot" use in high demand
There is no synonym for "capsule collection" since it's a specialized term within the designer/clothing world:
"A capsule collection is a set of apparel items -- say six to twelve articles -- by the same designer, that, when used together in different combinations, can produce about twenty different looks (outfits)... Each piece of the capsule must be interchangeable and mix and match well together."
4. OK
5. No synonyms for "retro-marine" for the same reason as in #3.
"ad lib" = improvised