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“Cara, Italia.” Those were the final words of the legendary American musician Patti Smith, closing out a live performance in a new theatre space created by Bottega Veneta in the heart of Milan. And they felt pertinent — this has been a strong Milan Fashion Week, full of consolidating trends, and its final 48 hours seemed focused on the diverse interpretation of an Italian fashion identity in a clutch of the nation’s best-known brands.
As Bottega Veneta’s new creative director, British designer Louise Trotter, only started on the job at the end of January, the label chose not to stage a catwalk show this season. Instead, the brand asked Smith to stage a performance dedicated to the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini and to the polymath architect Carlo Mollino. It served to connect the brand both to credible international celebrity and to deep Italian culture, and to keep its name on the fashion week schedule ahead of Trotter’s debut.
High culture was also a touchpoint for another Brit in Italy, in Maximilian Davis’ latest Ferragamo collection — the first presented since the departure of chief executive Marco Gobbetti was announced last month. Davis alighted on ballet last season as inspiration, which is clever for a footwear-focused company — Ferragamo derives almost 87 per cent of its business from shoes and handbags. This season, rather than a volte-face, he cannily carried on dancing around that theme, taking fresh inspiration from the early 20th-century German expressionist dance movement Tanztheater, and the 1980s work of revolutionary choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch. Yet those ideas were more abstract nods, winked at through a strong colour palette of white, black and a shade of blood red that the designer has been positioning as a Ferragamo signature since his appointment in 2022.
This was the best collection Davis has staged for Ferragamo, one that managed to be both a focused exercise in brand-building and broad enough to show a diverse wardrobe for modern women and men. That meant you saw, in quick succession, a sleek calf-length day coat in compact black cashmere, a slender evening slip in ballet-slipper peach, and a frothed feather cocktail dress in that Ferragamo red — something for every taste. Davis’ handbag, the Hug — so-called for two little arms of leather that wrap around the front — has become the brand’s number one seller. Its appeal was reinforced in this show, designed into a double-belt bag with an equestrian feel, its metal hardware used on hefty cargo pockets on leather coats and bomber jackets that were among this show’s many highlights.
Bally may not be Italian — it’s Swiss, owned since August by US-based investment firm Regent, which also controls Club Monaco, Escada and La Senza. But its designer Simone Bellotti is, and the label has quietly become a Milanese hot ticket during the two years he has headed the brand. Its signature boat shoes are being worn by editors again, and Bellotti in turn is tipped for various vacant top jobs, most notably Jil Sander, so Bally’s latest show drew extra attention. The show’s attention, in turn, was on the hip, which Bellotti has decided, during the past couple of seasons, to pump out in a structured peplum in a nod to a cowbell and Bally’s Alpine background. It’s a clever idea that combines design conceptualism with a branding exercise in a way that rarely happens.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana celebrate 40 years of their joint label this year, but rather than harking back they looked forward to the next generation, and not just in terms of Gen Z consumers. For the past few years they have been supporting young designers each season by giving them help with everything from fabric sourcing to show venues and a slot on the notoriously competitive Milanese schedule — perhaps a throwback to four decades ago when the pair were the fledglings trying to make it big. It’s a genuinely altruistic measure that deserves more praise than it gets. This season, that showcase was afforded to the London-based Chinese designer Susan Fang, whose signature is fluff ball dresses intricately crafted from scraps of tulle and organza in sugarplum fairy shades.
That youthful enthusiasm seemed infectious. For their own label, Dolce & Gabbana decided to try a bit of egalitarianism — after parading past a few hundred invited guests, rather than turning on their heels before catwalk photographers, the models strode on to a raised platform pitched on the cordoned-off Milanese road outside its show space for a thronging public audience largely comprised of teenagers — and a few very confused nonnas. The models’ clothes seemed like they’d been remixed themselves, a giddy combo of lacy lingerie, shearling-lined parkas and sparkling evening dresses inspired, Dolce & Gabbana said, by the attire of off-duty models, mixing and matching clothes with effortless ease. Last winter’s star model Naomi Campbell was perched on the sidelines, watching iterations of styles she used to sport in the early 1990s from the front row.
Giorgio Armani called his Sunday morning show Roots. At first read post-show, I actually thought it was called Boots, given he bottomed almost every look — evening included — with a pair of easy, flat ankle-boots with an almond-shaped toe. There were no heels in sight.
This show closed Milan Fashion Week with no less than 21 dazzling, bead-encrusted examples of Academy Awards Armani dressing. They were, however, somewhat contrarily presented barely 12 before the Oscars red carpet kick-off, as if to say to awards hopefuls: “Here’s what you could’ve won.” Then again, given the size of the privately held Armani operation — net revenues were €2.4bn for 2023 — duplicates could easily have been hanging in LA closets before showtime.
Armani never strays too far from a tried-and-tested formula of dress. That dictates slouchy, rounded tailoring in a muted sandstorm of beiges and pragmatic touches such as the aforementioned flat footwear. Yet that apparently paradoxical blinged-out parade wasn’t a stray from the rooted theme. Indeed, Armani has been dressing stars for awards ceremonies since the late 1980s, generally credited as the first to truly formalise the process. So they fitted into a collection that was all about reaffirming and returning to a signature Armani style. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Alexander Fury is the FT’s men’s fashion critic
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