Fast and slow, Milan designers experimented with pacing for next fall and winter, many falling on deliberate and sombre collections with a focus on a tailored silhouette.
Some scenes from Saturday's shows on the second day of Milan Fashion Week of mostly menswear previews for Fall-Winter 2024-25:
DOLCE&GABBANA SETS A ROMANTIC PACE
Dolce&Gabbana slowed to a romantic pace in a new collection featuring richly elegant looks fit for a period drama. Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana revamped the showroom since last season, opening up a double stairway in the middle of the runway allowing models a dramatic entrance from below.
The predominant deep night black colour palette for the next fall and winter heightened the textures and emphasized the silhouettes: soft furry coats, silken shirts with high necks or deep plunging V's, poet blousons tied with a bow, shimmering sequin-covered suits.
Trousers tucked into leather boots projected the air of a country manor surveyor. Suits coats were double-breasted, with a silken underlayer providing contrast. Formal trousers were set off by cummerbund. With the focus on tailoring, accents were few: tassels on a scarf, gleaming floral broaches, spare use of lace and sequins. Trailing bows added flourish.
The mostly black collection was broken up by grey, interludes of white and more casual moments of denim and camel. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez, were among the front-row guests. Sanchez’s son, Nikko Gonzalez, walked in the show.
MSGM CELEBRATES SPEED
The Milan fashion morning commute started in a metro station where MSGM creative director Massimo Giorgetti considered how the world has speeded up in a collection that celebrates Milan’s oldest subway line but also the passage into adulthood. “It is an ironic reflection on the importance of finding some time because we are asked to go so fast,’’ Giorgetti said before the show.
The collection’s key motif was a curved red handrail designed for Milan's 60-year-old red line by the late architect Franco Albini. Symbolizing how the subway speeded life in the city, it traces a graceful track down the front of coats and was worn as a broach, carried as a bag.
Silken shirts and shorts featured digital prints made from Google AI technology, which is speeding creative impulses. The collection also marked the sometimes impatient passage to adulthood, from streetwear to formal wear via knitwear briefs and matching hoodies woven with silver tinsel, striped tops gleaming with clear sequins under suits and a casual suit jacket over a graphic shirt and jeans.
To close the show, models mimicked video game characters, striding bunched together through the underground tunnel to the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack.
EMPORIO ARMANI PAYS HOMAGE TO THE ATLANTIC
Giorgio Armani pays homage to the sailors who have plied the fierce Atlantic in a mariner-inspired collection projecting hardiness for his Emporio Armani line. A soundtrack of crashing waves, a lighthouse backdrop and runway carpet mimicking the sea set the scene.
The strong silhouette was anchored by structured pea coats and striped sailor collars, generous trousers that tuck into boots and big workman’s gloves just right for fishing nets. Long fisherman’s knitwear suggested the leisure of port.
The collection closed with formalwear with clusters of beading, as if barnacles and coral-inspired embroidery gave a naturalistic touch. Armani, 89, waved to the crowd from beneath the lighthouse, illuminated by a spotlight.
FEDERICO CINA CLARIFIES
Models waited for the start of the Federico Cina show in the middle of the runway, behind white curtains emblematic of the fog of creation that the designer wanted to project. “This season I asked myself how to present the passage and changes of life. I imagined as if traversing the fog. You catch a glimpse from outside,’’ said Cina, who created his brand based in Emilia-Romagna five years ago.
Cina presented a clean silhouette, removing anything extraneous. The co-ed looks progressed from deconstructed and unfinished suits and dresses to sophisticated tailored dresses and jumpsuits that hugged the form. Head-to-toe knitwear in warm peach and sea foam projected luxury.
Midway, an acrobat stood balanced on the shoulders of another who walked the entire length of the runway and back. At the end of the show, the curtains fell: Clarity.