MILAN FASHION WEEK: THE REPORTS

Milan closes a week that laid bare the system more than the claims. The shows spoke of identity, compatibility, and longevity. The debuts had an impact, but not all in the same direction. The general feeling is one of reorganization: those who worked for consistency are starting a cycle, those who sought special effects have created noise.

Gucci is the most controversial case. The directorial effort is powerful, but the hand doesn’t connect with the fashion house’s DNA. The film distracts, not convinces: the Gucci code appears overwhelmed by a foreign aesthetic. It’s not a question of courage, it’s a question of compatibility. The impression is of a transplant that excites on paper but fails to take root in practice.

Versace offered the most controversial debut in its entirety. Critics approved, social media panned. The collection draws heavily from Gianni’s archive, reorganizing graphic elements, silhouettes, and seduction with a more disciplined editing. It’s not “new” as a banner; it’s a realignment of codes. Friction with the digital public is almost inevitable when you touch the totems, but the logic behind the intervention is clear: restore the backbone of the language before relaunching it.

Bottega Veneta ushers in the Trotter era with a clarity worthy of a hundred slogans. Weaving becomes a constructive principle, not a relic. Femininity is lean, functional, precise. A recognizable identity, a new hand shifting the weight where needed. It’s a credible evolution, without a blank slate: construction instead of spectacle. Here, the real innovation is intelligent continuity.

Jil Sander, with Bellotti, chooses the difficult path of living minimalism: stripping away to reveal more. Disciplined lines, proportions designed for use, no slogans. It’s a return to rigor that smacks of nostalgia. It’s a proposal, not a premise.

The closing show with Giorgio Armani set the tone for the week. Not a holy card, but a style ritual. Slowed down time, direction at the service of the garments, emotion born from control, not effect. If it was truly the Maestro’s final act, the lesson remains etched in stone: sobriety, when it has substance, amplifies. The catwalk doesn’t demand the stage, it governs it.

Now the crucial point: let’s focus on building the offering, not just the image. Fashion weeks thrive on infrastructure, schedules, and spin-offs. Paris punctuates the year with six official events for women’s, men’s, and Haute Couture, generating six peaks in attention and orders. A recent season saw over seventy shows for women’s ready-to-wear alone. It doesn’t just sell clothes, it sells centrality: trade fairs, showrooms, buyers, and order books that transform the catwalk into tangible business.

Milan responds with a robust program: two weeks for women and two for men, and in the September edition, the event count exceeded 170 events, including fashion shows, presentations, and events. The Chamber of Fashion estimates that the resulting revenue, in a single week, is close to €240 million, and for the entire year, exceeding €400 million for February and September combined.

This translates into airports and train stations that can handle the flow of visitors, hotel accommodations under pressure but active, and urban logistics that must accompany the calendar, not chase it. While debuts recalibrate the brand’s identity, the duration of the show depends on infrastructure: a consistent number of shows with the seasons, a curation of themes that avoids unnecessary overlap, and a network of spaces that can accommodate international demand without wasting energy. Building a trade fair program means connecting the dots between the catwalk, showrooms, production, and the city.

The balance, without romanticism or superficial cynicism, is this. Gucci opens a critical front on the compatibility between creative direction and brand DNA: strength is not enough if it doesn’t speak the same language as the brand. Versace stitches together the archive with a more mature present, and social friction illustrates this shift. Bottega Veneta replaces spectacle with construction and restarts from its natural terrain. Jil Sander reaffirms that minimalism is a field of research, not a religion of the lesser. Armani reminds us that direction is part of the product and that time, on the runway, is a design material.

If Milan wants to consolidate its role, it must continue on two parallel tracks: creative editing and ecosystem maintenance. Where there’s construction, a sign remains. Where the scene is sought before the meaning, only noise remains. Next season will reveal who was truly planning and who was merely testing the spotlight.