I was clanging my way through the Tadao Ando-designed Armani Teatro in southern Milan, the metal trimmings of my Chopova Lowena leather jacket creating a little sonata of tinny noise. The building is a gigantic concrete monument to tastefulness and serenity—on a level of sheer beauty that could make you understand why The Brutalist had to be three hours long.
The Armani show—the Giorgio Armani show—wowwweeeeeee. I just couldn’t stop beaming, Giorgio Ar-fucking-mani! You think you understand clothes, and then a 90-year old legend just pulls the rug out from under you.
I was rethinking everything: Should I only wear shimmering taupes and stony blues? Are harem pants covered in tiny silver beads the most essential item to be worn under sheer slit skirts? Is a flat velvet boot that knots behind the ankle the greatest shoe ever designed? Why aren’t all my purses covered in beads? What do we even call this kind of jaunty, saucy little hat?
After the show, a luncheon was held, where I ate a stunning cube of cured salmon from a black wooden spoon and extolled my wonderment at the mastery of Giorgio Armani to some peers.
My onetime colleague—friend? You decide—snipped of my outfit, “It’s time to graduate.” What he meant—an older, straight, white guy, of course—was that I should stop dressing like a bubbly little freak and start embodying the spirit of Armani. The jaws of the two women around us dropped.
White men in power have a way of thinking they can say whatever they want without consequence. You saw Trump mock Zelensky for not wearing a suit. This happened, almost three years to the day since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began—almost three years to the day since were once again at Milan Fashion Week when the news of the invasion broke, and all the fashion girls in their beaded midi skirts panicked over whether they could post about the Prada show.
Fashion isn’t vapid or meaningless. Zelensky wears his long-sleeved shirts in solidarity with the soldiers in Ukraine, pulled into an unjust war. How you present yourself to the world matters—and we need more presentation with meaning, with heart.
At Milan Fashion Week, you’ve gotta dig deep to find meaning beneath the cashmere surfaces. The most challenging and interesting show belonged to Prada, where Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons issued a diktat on deconstructing femininity—less about sex,more aboutemotion. Opinions were divided—a longtime Prada fan told me he hated it; another told me it was the brand’s best show. But the hefty floral dresses, clunky layering, and studiously composed coats pushed the boundaries of tastefulness and beauty—exactly the kind of ideas fashion should be grappling with now. As the aesthetics of world leaders slide into cartoonish, cookie-cutter perfectionism, fashion must react. Here, Prada was disheveled—a woman valued for her mind, not just her body.
The fun shows of Milan do serve a lot of body-ody-ody—some more inclusive and fun than others. Dsquared2’s 30th anniversary was hot, hot, hot in a celebratory way that felt right for Canada’s kinkiest brand. Seeing Doechii, fresh off her Grammys victory, and JT performing together was a win for the cool girls. Ditto that Vaquera collab.
David Koma’s Blumarine debut runway show featured sheer blouses and corsetry that got Azalea Banks and other front-row divas smiling. (Ice Spice liked it so much, she wore it out later that same night.) Roberto Cavalli added a bit of history to its vixen dresses, nodding to the ruins of Pompeii with lava prints. Dolce & Gabbana channeled “cool girls”—their words—but I couldn’t help but feel the brand missed the mark slightly on what cool girls of 2025 are like, both inside and out.
Cool girls actually dress like Marni, like Bally, like Diesel, like MM6—and they aspire to the kind of serene, bizarre luxury of Fendi. They obsess over the powerful words of Patti Smith at a performance with Bottega Veneta. To me, the Marni show was the triumph of the week. A brilliant collaboration between creative director Francesco Risso and artists Soldier and Slawn, the collection was glamorous in a 1930s boudoir kind of way—an eclectic melange of fabrics, silhouettes, and colors. Maybe I’m on a Post-Impressionist streak, but I couldn’t help but feel a Kirchner vibe here, as at Prada—the acid tones and fluffy collars built up on slender silhouettes.
That rich but eccentric spirit continued at Bally, where Simone Bellotti presented his final collection for the brand. It’s a shame the pictures don’t capture the backs of the garments—an explosion of colored faux furs.
Glenn Martens’ Diesel collection also had a rich-lady-goes-Downtown feeling, with send-ups of Chanel suiting and low-rise bumster garments crumpled or slouched lower on the hips to give a kind of “Oh, this? I don’t even care if it drags on the floor—this old thing!” bourgeois spiciness. Ditto at MM6 where, despite heels too high , models looked coolly nonplussed in inside-out suiting and shoulder-padded tees. The coolest and most sentimental show was AVAVAV, which my colleague Alex covered brilliantly here.
Silvia Venturini Fendi’s 100th anniversary show at Fendi made a pretty good case against quiet luxury. To be truly luxurious, you must have diverse tastes—and you must show them off! On the catwalk, she corralled the best models to wear sinuous suiting and glitzy little slip dresses that, while they had a certain 1930s/40s vibe, didn’t feel nostalgic. The Italo-Pop soundtrack at the afterparty soon gave way to a full Sean Paul performance, proving Venturini Fendi knows how to have fun.
Gucci, too, let the air out—or in—breaking away from the strict collections it released under previous creative director Sabato de Sarno and embracing a minimal but magpie sensibility with a studio-designed show. The colorful tights, interesting bags, and vinyl suiting will have legs amongst the cool-girl community this fall for sure.
All to say: the best things in Milan aren’t actually about graduating to adulthood and greige. The shows with meaning embrace youthful curiosity and boldness— boldness to say it, mean it, and show it in how you dress. Not to cower behind outdated uniforms or delusions of tasteful grandeur. The city could use more of that chutzpah to stand out. Blending in is never cool.