Known for its unusual presentations and star-studded catwalk shows, Milan Fashion Week may be the antidote to the Autumn/Winter 2019 doldrums. Still, some designers are questioning the tradition's relevancy.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
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Italian design at Milan Fashion Week
Outerwear maker Moncler opened Milan Fashion Week with a startling message about the relevancy of the catwalk tradition: namely, that in a see-now, buy-now world, fashion week is no longer necessary.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
Kicking off Milan Fashion Week
Milano Moda Donna kicked off a week of high fashion for the luxury goods market Tuesday. With a full agenda for the week, many are anticipating great things to come out of the AW2019 runway shows by local favorites Donatella Versace, Prada and Roberto Cavalli. Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana are likely to wow audiences Saturday with a highlight event for the week.
Image: picture-alliance/IPA/R. G. Sicki
Women's ready to wear
While the concept of fashion week struggles to maintain its relevancy in a world of fast fashion and Insta-accessibility, Milan looks to be outdoing itself, with a schedule including 64 catwalk shows and 160 new collections presented over six days.
Image: picture-alliance/IPA/R. G. Sicki
A runway show fit for a queen
The opening of Milan Fashion Week coincides with London's closing, an overlap that has the fashion elite struggling to make the rounds of the Big Four fashion shows. To keep up interest in London, the seasons showing highlight was set for Tuesday, February 20, when Queen Elizabeth made a rare appearance to present Richard Quinn with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com/Yui Mok
Italian fashion in Milan
Milan has long drawn fashion connoisseurs due to the number of luxury goods houses and quality designers that call Italy home. A new exhibition at the Palazzo Reale celebrates the world's love affair with Italian fashion by featuring styles from 1971-2001. It's timed to open on February 22 when the city is overrun with style junkies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
Bringing the Alps indoors at Moncler
Milan may not be known for its freezing temperatures but out on the nearby Alpine slopes, French outerwear maker Moncler is all the rage. Designers attempted to recreate the snowy conditions perfect for their signature parkas inside a Milanese warehouse in a colorful, much-talked-about show.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
A "genius" collection release at Moncler
After showing eight collections at once, including floor-length parkas cut in the style of ballgowns and modeled among a faux-glacial backdrop, Moncler CEO and creative director Remo Ruffini announced the brand's "genius" strategy of replacing Fashion Week with see-now buy-now. "The concept of the catwalk show doesn't exist any more for us, it's a new way of working from now on," he said.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
Gucci's glamorous grotesquery
One of the more anticipated shows of the season by Gucci had tongues wagging after a model was sent down the runway holding a model of her own body-less head. The grotesquery continued in a catwalk show set amid props set up to resemble a hospital's operating room. Pure theatrics that will remain in audiences' memories for some time.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/A. Calanni
Paul Surridge for Roberto Cavalli
Paul Surridge took over the reins at Roberto Cavalli last year -- a move that had him tasked with assembling a fashion show with just eight weeks' notice. The British-born designer known for colorful red carpet gowns has shifted the luxury house's focus to everyday womenswear, a task that came off well on the catwalk. "With a women's collection, there are infinite possibilities," he told the BBC.
Image: Getty Images/A. Solaro
Kaia Gerber comes into her own
Milan is the place to be to see big name models and this season was no exception. The highlight of the week seems to be model Kaia Gerber, who walked for Alberta Ferretti, among others. Cindy Crawford's daughter, whose Instagram expertise has made her one of the most engaged models online, appeared to be coming into her own out on the catwalk.
Image: Getty Images/V. Zunino Celotto
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In recent years, the world of haute couture has gone from embracing the nonstop global Fashion Week to wondering about the relevancy of the decades-old catwalk tradition in our go-go-go culture.
That question has grown increasingly louder on the heels of the New York and London Fashion Week presentations, which were overwhelmingly met with ho-hums.
It's not as if attendees viewing the collections were disappointed with the designers' works. Rather, the mood is contemplative, a consideration of the relevance of Fashion Week – a month-long shuffling between the Big Four cities of New York, London, Milan and Paris in order to view the clothing everyone will be wearing a year from now.
The Queen was invited to London Fashion Week to drum up some interestImage: Reuters/Y. Mok
Moncler's "Genius" strategy
At the show to kick-off Milan Fashion Week Tuesday, the outerwear brand Moncler seemed to have expressed what's been on everyone's minds. The traditional catwalk show is dead, according to Remo Ruffini, Chairman and Chief Executive of Moncler.
Already back in November, Moncler said it would break with the tradition of presenting two collections each year. Their new strategy would see new designs released to the public each month.
"We must release new energy each month. The world has changed, people travel, they don't buy in March and September only like they once did," Ruffini told Giulia Segreti of Reuters news agency.
Moncler's unusual presentation included eight distinct collections designed by eight well-known creative directorsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Calanni
Before adopting that strategy, which Moncler calls "Genius," the label got one last Fashion Week event in, presenting eight new collections by eight unique creative directors. Held inside a warehouse on the outskirts of Milan, the show featured models among backdrops akin to snow caves and glaciers that made the ball-gown-styled parkas look more at home than a traditional catwalk would have. Attendees used to unusual fanfare in Milan were wowed.
"It's a brave and daring project, stylistically challenging. Each designer tells a different story, perspective ... it's total creative freedom," one of the creative directors, Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino, told Reuters.
With Moncler as the opening show at Milan Fashion Week, it remains to be seen if other design houses will be following the label's lead in shifting strategy away from the catwalk tradition. But with 160 new collections and 64 catwalk shows on the agenda for Autumn/Winter 2019, it seems safe to say that Milan Fashion Week will be anything but boring.
