Ciao amori! After a London Fashion Week in which the city’s independent designers shone through the shadows cast over the showcase by recent events, we’ve now touched down in Milano for a week that looks set to bring us knockout collections from familiar big hitters and exciting debuts. Highlights to look out for include Versace, Gucci, who will be presenting their second shows on the Milan Fashion Week schedule since the pandemic, and Prada, who’ve tapped Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn to design what will surely be a mindmeltingly cinematic show experience. Elsewhere, Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik will be showing their sophomore collection for Trussardi, while hotly-anticipated debuts will be taking place at Bally, courtesy of RHUDE creative director Rhuigi Villaseñor, and the recently-renamed Ferragamo, now in the hands of British-Trinidadian fashion wunderkind Maximilian Davis. On your marks…
Bottega Veneta
Walking into Bottega Veneta’s show last night, you couldn’t help but smile. Bright, colourful chairs — each one of a kind — lined the poured-resin floor of an otherwise nondescript warehouse. They were the work of 82-year-old Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce, who was invited by the fashion house’s creative director, Matthieu Blazy, to provide the backdrop to his sophomore show. But Geatano provided much more than just the chairs and floor. This was a landscape in which the collection could be understood, with an emphasis on mood-lifting, serotonin-boosting swirls of colours, textures and materials. “The world in a small room,” was how Matthiew put it after the show. His collection was therefore centred on an array of characters as unique as each of those chairs, a display of confidence as a designer from someone who has acquired years of experience working for some of the greatest. Read our full review here. OA
Trussardi
Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik’s debut collection for Trussardi, presented last season, was a tabula rasa moment for the Milanese house –- a sharp redirection of its trajectory onto a resolutely contemporary, more fashion-forward course. For their sophomore collection, however, the design duo decided to lean into the house’s century-long history, pivoting away from the combative, armoured elegance that marked what they presented six months ago. Presented in the mirrored, Baroque halls of the Palazzo Clerici – the city residence of a noble 17th-century family of silk merchants and bankers – there was a gentleness and fluidity to haltered skirts, draped ruched gowns and square-necked, collared minidresses in shimmering jersey. Elsewhere, a similar sense of evening-ready glamour informed crystal-strewn bralettes and waistband details, which echoed the gilded reliefs of the salons, as well as men’s tailoring — stone-hued linen suits, front-pleated satin trousers, and dinner jackets with blunt satin shawl collars. Anchoring it all were sturdy silhouettes in mock-croc and corsetted denim looks and, to close, two particularly desirable aged leather jackets – nods to pieces found in the archive during the house’s heyday in the 80s and 90s. Though Benjamin and Serhat may have drawn upon Trussardi’s past, the end result was far from overly referential – rather it was a confident affirmation that, just two seasons in, the history book they’ve been charged with is one that will be remembered for years to come. Here’s to many more chapters! MS
Bally
This season, the Milan Fashion Week schedule has played host to a festival of creative director debuts, with one of the most keenly anticipated being Rhuigi Villaseñor’s debut at Bally. It’s certainly an intriguing pairing – Rhuigi’s reputation is anchored in his work for RHUDE, the LA-based label he founded in 2015, known for its elevated riffs on all-American streetwear codes. Bally, on the other hand, is a Swiss leather goods house with a heritage that dates back over 170 years, known more for its timeless bags and shoes than for directional ready-to-wear. This season, therefore, marked the first step in Rhuigi’s masterplan to change that, presenting a collection that explored Bally’s haughty Swiss luxury through his unabashedly American perspective.
Titled ECDYSIS – “the process of shedding an external skeleton for the purpose of growth or change in shape,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica – Rhuigi referred to as “a reset and a celebration of radical luxury”. A reinvigoration of the house, which staged its last runway show over two decades ago. Nip-waisted tailoring and men’s trousers in tiger-striped silk velvet evoked the confluence of registers that defined the collection, richly luxurious without being too self-serious. Boxy double-breasted suiting and lashings of LA-made denim conveyed a hearty, borderline-preppy Americanness, while metallic lamé bikini sets and a C-3PO-toned leather jacket and pair of boots introduced a welcome dash of chintz. Elsewhere, Bally’s leather workshops were put to good use on braided overcoats, slick python jackets and trousers, buttery nappa twinsets and resplendent suede evening gowns with plunging necklines. All in all, it was a promising start of a new era for Bally, drawing it back into industry conversations it had seldom figured in till now. MS
Ferrari
High fashion may well be a key part of the Ferrari lifestyle, but the Italian automotive superbrand isn’t exactly well known for making much of it itself. Until now, that is. Since joining as the creative director of its fashion division just over a year ago, Riccardo has invigorated the brand with a ready-to-wear offering that perfectly pairs with the va-va-voom lifestyles of its sportscar clientele. For his third show on the Milan Fashion Week schedule, he took to Milan’s Teatro Lirico to present a collection that spoke to the human element behind the brand, and to “the dream of self-expression, passion and freedom” that it embodies. Inspired by Ferrari’s automotive codes, slick tailoring sat next to garage-ready workwear and racer suits, in mossy greens, sunny yellows and bright scarlet, with shimmers of paillettes decorating fluid jersey gowns and satin twin suits. All in all, it was an offering that affirmed that Ferrari’s well on its way to taking fashion’s pole position.
Jil Sander
Jil Sander isn’t necessarily a name that you instinctively associate with glitz and strass. Rather, it’s a byword for exacting, understated elegance – the sort of luxury that needs to eb touched and worn to truly be appreciated. The collection they presented yesterday in a gravel-strewn garden was, in certain respects, no different. The sharp, generous tailoring that opened the show – roomy cashmere waistcoats and buttonless blazers in soft, spring hues of cream, mint, taupe, camel and peach – and columnal knitted dresses with hip cut-outs embodied the warm minimalism that Lucie and Luke Meier have made their hallmark during their tenure at the brand. Novelty shone through, however, in the collection’s pops of extroverted exuberance – crystal-encrusted braid details, tumbles of feathers and string vests and dresses knitted from sequin-encrusted yarns. The crescendo came with closing suite of tunics, column dresses and maxi skirts composed of tentacles of metallic sequins, which jangled down the runway as the models walked. Clothes that attested to the fact that exacting luxury and a camp-infused sense of shimmer and fun needn’t be mutually exclusive. MS
MSGM
Ok, we’re calling it. Nighties are officially the garment of the season. From lace-trimmed organza babydoll dresses at Prada to open-flanked pastel satin nightshirts at Christopher Kane, designers seem to have decided in unison to bring glammed-up sleepwear to the runway. Joining them this season was Massimo Giorgetti, the creative director of MSGM, whose latest collection comprised sequinned baby-pink camisole dresses, frilled tulle skirts and lace body suits. Granted these were hardly your average, every-night nighties – they were indeed imbued with a sense of occasion, with roomy, pouffe-sleeved organza shirt and a tiered silp dress with a fishtail hem suggesting marriage night garb. Elsewhere, this saucy tone was carried through with shirred satin knickers overlaid with scrims of tulle, and t-shirts printed with bikini sets and corset bustiers. MS
Ports 1961
Often, the clothes that you see on runways will never be seen beyond them. Spectacular as they are, they’re often pieces that far too impractical to be commercially produced, or even worn. What we saw yesterday at Ports 1961, however, was an assured counterpoint to this convention – a collection of garments that you know will dazzle as much on a hanger on a shop floor as they did on the runway. Taking sartorial archetypes – often lifted from a classic menswear wardrobe – as his point of departure, Karl Templer subtly deconstructed pieces so familiar that you’d ofted deem them mundane. Fringes of yarn cascaded from an oversized cream knit cardigan and from a navy tube dress with a floaty chiffon underlay. A cricket jumper and a tank dress with an A-line skirt were assembled from an intrecciato-esque weave of strips of organza and cable kniit, blazers came with doubled hems and lapels, and the nautical stripes on roomy satin shirts and slashed palazzo pants were in printed in proportional disarray. MS
Versace
By now, you will know that Paris Hilton closed the VersaceSS23 show in a glittering Barbie-pink chainmail dress. It was surprising for more reasons than the obvious, mainly because before the viral moment, Donatella Versace’s collection indicated that she was going goth for spring. The stained-glass set and church candles lining the runway paved the way for Gigi, Anok, Rianne, Bella et al to emerge from the darkness in looks that hinted at textbook rebellion: becoming a satan-worshipping goth to annoy your Catholic parents. Though Prince warmed up the venue before the show, it was Icky Blossoms’ Sex to the Devil with those words repeated over and over. “I have always loved a rebel,” Donatella shared in her show notes. “A woman who is confident, smart and a little bit of a diva. She wears leather, studs and frayed denim and she has enough attitude to mix them with chiffon, jersey, and a tiara!” Read more about the iconic moment here. MS
Gucci
At fashion weeks in Milan and Paris, there’s usually a lot of unintentional twinning. It usually comes courtesy of the street-style industrial complex, where fashion houses lavishly gift influencers the same clothes and bags that are simultaneously on sale in stores. This is why you’ll see the same bag everywhere, or wonder how on earth so many people decided to get dressed in exactly the same outfit that morning. Truth be told, it can sometimes make something truly desirable seem entirely generic or overexposed. Fashion is supposed to make us feel like individuals, after all, and there’s a fine line between clothes that are tribalistic talismans of community, bringing people together and identifying shared interests, and those that are so commonplace that we lose any sense of identity and self-expression by wearing them.
Imagine what it must be like, then, being an identical twin. Gucci’s Alessandro Michele was raised by a pair of them: his mother Eralda, and his aunt Guiliana. Apparently, they were inseparable, even living next door to each other and raising each others’ kids, dressed in the same way, with the same hair — often confused for each other, even by their own children. “They were magically mirrored,” Alessandro wrote in a letter to accompany the show. “One multiplied the other. That was my world, perfectly double and doubled.” It’s clearly been on his mind, because only earlier this year, he and Jared Leto dressed up as as a pair of uncannily prim twins for the Met Gala. So how did that inform the house’s most recent show? Learn more here! OA
BOSS
Another brand to continue the Milan micro-trend for mega-scale shows was BOSS, who invited its 1000-strong audience out to a velodrome for its return to the city’s schedule. Featuring globe-of-death-riding stunt bikers and a blockbuster cast that included iconic supermodels like Naomi Campbell and their modern-day descendants like Adut Akech and Mona Tougaard, the German brand certainly delivered the capital-S spectacle that a show of such size warrants. The collection that took to the runway, though, felt rather more relatable in tone. Mining the rich intersection of high sartoriality and extreme sports, boxy suiting in camel corduroy and black wool with satin lapels sat next to battered shearling jackets, leather trousers with ribbed knee panels and fabric-covered helmets – surefire proof that Motomamí’s cultural chokehold remains strong! Elsewhere, svelte knit twinsets, panelled gauze bodices and cut-out bralettes brought va-va-voom to an offering otherwise dominated the formality of oversized suiting – a welcome feminine sexiness to get your motor going. MS
Blumarine
Ok, so there is actually one designer that was actually inspired by Ariel this season: Blumarine’s Nicola Brognano. While he’s just as excited as the rest of us for the Halle Bailey-starring remake – and cites the original animated film as a childhood fave – the darker timbre that the collection he presented yesterday felt more Hans Christian Andersen than Disney. The Y2K-revivalist girlies among you shouldn’t panic, though – Blumarine hasn’t quite gone full goth. Rather, the girlish tulles and crystal embellishments have been subbed out for roughed-up denims and tarnished studs – dusty, body-swaddling jerseys and tendrils of cloth.
While there may be less sparkle on show, the one thing that certainly wasn’t dulled was the Blumarine girl’s inherent sexiness. Ever the siren, here, she appeared in diaphanous black lace twinsets, bedraggled string vests worn with low-rider flares, and bias-cut gowns with lettuce hems that fluttered like swathes of kelp in a current. Elsewhere, cropped suiting entangled and embellished cross tops and jewellery brought a measure of Evanescence-y melodrama into the fray. One of the notable things about this season, though, had little to do with the Blumarine girl, but rather with her newly introduced counterpart — the Blumarine boy! Decked out in butterfly-embellished, poet-sleeved mesh tops and flared jeans with chiffon overlays, what we saw here felt less like a distinct ‘menswear’ offering, and more of a subtly masculine interpretation of the collection for anyone who finds themselves drawn in by the Blumarine siren’s song. MS
Moschino
It is of course no secret that Moschino’s Jeremy Scott is fashion’s king of camp. Whether staging salon-style puppet shows, attended by miniature versions of the industry’s foremost editors, or last season’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink collection that saw, well, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink applied to stately tailoring and rapturous gowns as embellishment (a special shout-out for the ‘dinner suit’ with real cutlery fastenings), the American designer has won with fashion world over time and again with his razor-sharp sartorial puns. Gleeful an approach as it may be, it is, however, one that could be interpreted as rather detached from current affairs. After all, at its best, fashion offers a powerful and frank reflection of the world as it is, warts and all.
Bearing this in mind, this season, Jeremy turned to the grim news cycles we’ve all been subject to of late. “I’ve been thinking about all the things in the news, and obviously everyone globally has been talking about inflation,” he shared backstage, “and so I made a collection that was completely inflatable!” Starting out subtly with inflatable scarlet hearts appliquéd to the breast of a long-sleeved black wool minidress and a cropped squared jacket, the theme then ballooned to include prim skirt suits with rubber-ring pannier hips, ruched cocktail dresses with blown-up scarlet piping, a marigold shift dress with rubber dinghy handles and a puffed-up peplum, and tuxedo jackets with nozzle-bearing peak-lapels. A raft of nautical looks saw wide-brimmed hats subbed out for blow-up donuts, while a finale of dresses printed with lurid cartoon creatures were accessorised with the sort of dolphin armbands and turtle floaties you’ll find for sale on the shorefront of any chintzy British beach town.
Silly as it may all sound, it was a conscious ploy on Jeremy’s part to draw attention to the gravity of the world’s current state – a means of using humour to highlight pressing matters. “We’re witnessing an assault on women’s rights globally, with what’s going on in American politics, and also with what’s going on in Iran. And there’s the ongoing war in Ukraine,” he said. “There are so many things that we’re all dealing with — different things that touch some people more personally than others — but I feel like we all need a life preserver to get through this deluge.” Some help to keep our heads above water, and stay afloat. MS
MM6 Maison Margiela
Sure, main events are exciting, but there’s a particular kind of magic to be found in rehearsals – in bearing witness to the processes that bring the final performance to life. For its SS23 show, MM6 Maison Margiela invited guests into the Auditorium di Milano Fondazione Cariplo to be immersed in a rehearsal of Igor Stravinsky’s perenially avant-garde ballet, The Rite of Spring. Set to live score played by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, conducted by Wladimir Schall, the people to emerge from the wings of the stage – on which the audience were sat, looking down onto the orchestral ensemble in the stalls – weren’t ballet dancers, but rather models sporting the Parisian house’s playful-yet-practical, subtly subverted clothes.
As you can probably guess from the context, many of this season’s pieces lifted from the sartorial vernacular of classical dance-wear. Off-shoulder jersey bodies in blush, cream and teal offered a body-cladding base layer, over which ribbed knit boleros and jumpers with scooped necks – intentionally constructed to allow arms to be thrown up into the fifth position with ease – were layered. As ever with MM6, though seemingly innocuous pieces were reframed and cast askew. Stringy-strapped vests were shrunken and worn as cummerbunds over dirt-washed satin overcoats, cinching the silhouette, and a rose mohair camisole dress was folded and tugged down to yield a clingy high-waisted dress. Fraying holes, peppered across bleached denim maxi skirts and knits, appeared in the place of embellishments, and square-toed ballet pointes were reimagined as satin mules, leather ankle boots and even a thigh-high boot created with Salomon, mounted onto the French outdoor sports’ brand’s signature sole tooling. If ever you’re in the market for new dance class gear, look no further! MS
Prada
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ SS23 show was titled A Touch Of Crude. Not crude as in crass, but crude in the sense of raw, unprocessed and intentionally rudimentary. The mood for SS23 was austere — fitting for the ever-worsening economic climate, it should be noted — and clothes were crafted from humble, raw paper-like fabrics that Miuccia described backstage as “nylonettes”. They were almost a bit synthetic, with something eerie about the ghostly translucencies of the papery organzas billowing in the dark set, a black paper panopticon designed in collaboration with film director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive and Only God Forgives). Through apertures punched through the walls, fragments of Nicolas’ voyeuristic short films lit the bowels of the Fondazione Prada with a slightly seedy glare. As they emerged, it felt like the girls were wandering down dark corridors, expecting danger at the next turn. Come to think of it, that could just as well apply to their morning routine of reading the news. Click here for the full lowdown on the collection! OA
Onitsuka Tiger
Though Onitsuka Tiger may have established itself as a presence on the Milan schedule over recent seasons, its heart lies firmly in its country of origin: Japan. Looking to the canon of minimalist Japanese design, this season saw the sport-fashion hybrid brand “express the pinnacle of beauty through a subtractive aesthetic that strips away what is not necessary,” a press release reads, and pursuing a radically purified form. Where last season leant into the bedraggled melodrama of the generation of Japanese designers that came to Pairs to present in the early 80s, here we saw a more rudimentary approach that drew upon more traditional Japanese garment traditions, reimagined through a dynamic, sporty lens. Boxy georgette t-shirts and A-line skirts were fitted with drawstrings, which, when pulled, creating pleats reminiscent of wide-legged hakama trousers; kimono were nodded to in the wide, hanging sleeves of light blouses. In keeping with the collection’s pared-back philosophy, a monochrome palette predominated, interrupted by burst of mustard yellow and shiso green – the colour of Japanese basil leaves. MS
Del Core
Though there’s still eight months still to till its release, the Halle Bailey -starring live-action remake of The Little Mermaid nonetheless continues to exert its chokehold on wider culture, its influence even making itself felt on Milan’s runways. Ok, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but looking at the collection presented by Del Core yesterday, there was an energy that seemed to speak to the fantasy of a life lived fathoms beneath the sea. Forgoing the rich embellishments that characterised his AW22 collection, this season saw Daniel Del Core, the label’s eponymous founder, draw inspiration from “liquidity” – from water and “its constantly changing state”, the show notes read – imbuing his impossibly elegant evening gowns with a sensuous fluidity. A flutter of coral crepe hung down the front of a wool bodice, undulating with the model’s step, an a svelte white camisole dress was trailed by a frill of gossamer black chiffon peeking from beneath the hem. The icy blue satin of a bias cut column gown gently folded about the body, and A-line tea-dresses with flounced hems puffed about ike sea anemones is a gentle current. For all the fluidity and movement that the collection abounded with, tailoring in gently flared slick snakeskin, pearl-embroidered capes and a body-cladding cut-out gown. It all went to show just why Del Core is increasingly becoming a need-to-know name on the Milan circuit. MS
Fendi
Kim Jones has been thinking a lot about Y2K of late. Sure, nostalgia for the era has lingered in the air for a few seasons now, but something about the period between the late-90s to early-00s remains at the forefront of many designers’ minds — and not just because they’ve been spending time on TikTok. Perhaps it’s because it was the time when fashion really got fun, experimenting with unexpected high-low pairings; the time when is first started dipping its toe into typically lowbrow popular culture, and riffing on the nascent optimism of the early days of the Internet, which allowed us to log on and disappear into a fantasy universe of chatrooms and video games. For Kim, however, the period was when he first got his start in fashion. Back then, he was a young menswear designer in London, experimenting with hybridising streetwear and luxury staples, and decoding the tribal subcultures of London’s halcyon days. How did that all trickle down into his latest collection for Fendi? Click here to find out!
Diesel
Conversations around the ostensible ‘democratisation’ of fashion shows always fall somewhat flat. Sure, a collection livestream may allow anyone who’d like one a ‘front row seat’, but to think that it erodes the hierarchies that dictate who gets flown in to sit front row is pretty wishful thinking. Today, in Milan, though, Glenn Martens took an impressive step towards showing what a truly open-access fashion show could look like. Sat above the editors, buyers and VIPs sat on the main floor of Milan’s Allianz Cloud arena – which, it should note, played host to the world’s largest inflatable sculpture, a depiction of gigantic, lithe bodies entangled in a game of Twister – were 3,000 members of the public, 1,600 of which were students. “I wanted to open Diesel up to the public, for people who may never have been to a fashion show,” Glenn said via a press release. “It’s what I believe about the fashion and the state of mind – everybody can be part of Diesel.”
As bold a move as it may seem at first glance, it’s one that makes perfect sense for Diesel. Rather than a brand that trades in haughty, exclusionary notions of luxury, the Italian lifestyle giant has long purveyed a relatively inclusive vision of fashion. And despite the high fashion kudos (and audience) that the Y/Project creative director has brought to the brand in his year there, it has remained as democratic as brands presenting on the Milan schedule come.
Another thing, though, is that the foundational fabric on which Diesel is damn well built is perhaps the most democratic material there is: denim. Indeed, denim is pretty humble – one more commonly associated with hardwearing, everyday jackets and jeans than with the height of luxury. With this collection, though, Glenn continued his mission to elevate commonly held perceptions of the cloth, demonstrating his alchemistic capacities to use it as the raw materials for fantastical fashion confections. Hulking hooded greatcoat, oversized bombers, hoodies and wide-leg jeans with drawstring waistbands were dip-bleached – classic stonewashed blue on top, cream on the bottom – and a panelled slip dress and a Canadian tuxedo was constructed using strips of violently frayed fabric. The edges of drop-shouldered wrap coat drooped with tufted fringe, while dresses and jeans came in intricate denim-gradient dévoré velvets. Though you probably didn’t need any more reasons to get on the Glenn wagon, here were plenty of them. MS
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