The best of Milan Fashion Week A/W 2026: live from the Wallpaper* editors

At Jil Sander, Simone Bellotti channels the idea of ‘home’

Opening Milan Fashion Week this morning, Simone Bellotti returned to Jil Sander’s Milanese headquarters to show his sophomore collection for the brand (his debut last season saw the former Bally creative director return to the Gabellini Sheppard-designed space). For A/W 2026, the sparse white-walled space had been transformed by a rust-coloured carpet – a nod to the collection’s thematic starting point, the idea of ‘home’ (‘welcome home, where it all begins,’ started the accompanying notes).

Channelling the idea of ‘an emotional space where one lives, feels safe and belongs to’, and soundtracked by a Chiara Barzini poem on home read by Kim Gordon, it led to a highly desirable collection which moved away from the severe rigour and restraint of last season with clothing that was about ‘flow, flou [and] movement’. This was largely achieved through intriguing pattern-cutting, whereby curved seams disrupted and puckered tailoring and outerwear, while leather skirts were sliced down their front or folded at the waistline.

Elsewhere, flashes of colour and pattern (from electric blue to leopard print) met fabrics evocative of interiors, inspired by Bellotti’s father’s career as an upholsterer. The designer said he wanted the clothing to feel like it had an ‘agency of its own’: ‘the question this season is whether abandon can convey restraint’. Jack Moss

Moncler Grenoble presents The Beyond Performance Exhibit

While the style set was still at London Fashion Week, Milan was at the tail end of its spell hosting this year’s Olympic Winter Games – at Moncler Grenoble the two worlds collide in spectacular fashion. Weeks on from unveiling its A/W 2026 collection in Aspen, Colorado, Moncler Grenoble have once again taken the mountain to Milan – transforming a typical Milanese courtyard at the Portrait Milano Hotel into a tranquil alpine trail for its Beyond Performance Exhibit. Before becoming the last word in designer collaborations, the brand started life crafting technical performance-wear for life and work on the slopes, a legacy the Grenoble collection continues today. The display features a selection of ski suits and accessories, as well as numerous iterations of their signature, perennially useful, puffer jackets. India Jarvis

First look at Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut for Fendi

‘Less I, more us’ was the motto behind Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first collection for Fendi, presented at the house’s recently renovated Milanese headquarters on Via Solari this afternoon.

Showing menswear and womenswear together on the runway – ‘feminine and masculine cease to be categories of opposition’ – Chiuri said she sought a return to ‘emotion and desire’, collaborating with women artists like SAGG Napoli and the estate of Mirella Bentivoglio on the collection. Their work appeared as motifs across the A/W 2026 outing, which melded sinuous tailoring with more romantic flourishes, as well as patchworked shearling.

The collection marks something of a homecoming for Chiuri, who began her career at Fendi in 1989, working for a decade in the house’s accessories department. And, as Roman herself, the new role unites Chiuri – who was formerly at Dior – with her home city, where Fendi was founded in 1925. Jack Moss

50,000 pieces of Diesel history backdrop the brand’s A/W 2026 show

In case you missed it – Diesel’s A/W 2026 runway set (shown yesterday, 24 February 2026) consisted of around 50,000 pieces of memorabilia from the brand archive, a monumental time capsule dedicated to almost 50 years of partying.

Displayed under bleached lighting, the installation was awash with high-voltage colour, with objects ranging from a fringed parasol and inflatable beach donut, to a coffee machine, motorbike, and lava lamp. Creative director Glenn Martens described the season’s mood as ‘waking up in a place, with no idea what happened last night,’ (think crinkled denim and ripped hems), but with surroundings this riotous, you’d think you were still dreaming. India Jarvis

No. 21 stages a show in reverse

Alessandro Dell’Acqua played with the traditional runway format earlier this evening at No. 21 by staging his A/W 2026 show in reverse: starting with models emerging en masse for the ‘finale’ (complete with the usual Pat Benatar Love is a Battlefield soundtrack he has traditionally used to close out his shows), they then returned to the runway for their individual walks. While the move prompted some speculation as to whether this was a clue to Dell’Acqua’s future at the Italian brand (was this switched-up format his metaphor for a swansong?), the collection itself was proof that Dell’Acqua remains one of Milan’s best – and oftentimes overlooked – designers. This season, a continuing exploration of femininity led him to the artist Sophie Calle, and a 1981 book of photographs she took of women’s clothing and luggage while pretending to be a chambermaid in Venice; as such, the collection moved between a déshabillé glamour (negligées layered with transparent tulle; slung-on faux furs; cardigans that were pulled away to reveal underwear beneath) and something more quotidian, like the simple black sweaters and tailoring which opened (or closed?) the show. Jack Moss

‘Less I, more us’: Maria Grazia Chiuri lays out her vision for Fendi in Milan

It might have been Maria Grazia Chiuri’s moment – this was, after all, her debut collection for Fendi, one of fashion’s major houses – but the Italian designer was adamant that this opening act was ‘less I, more us’.

So adamant, the message was stamped in alternating Italian and English along the runway, which stretched the length of Fendi’s vast Milanese headquarters on Via Solari yesterday (the address, which also played host to runway shows by Chiuri’s forebears Silvia Venturini Fendi, Kim Jones and Karl Lagerfeld, has been recently renovated to expand its footprint).

An echo of her statement-marking debut as creative director at Dior in 2016, in which T-shirts were printed with ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ (the title of the 2014 book-length essay by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), the fresh mantra proved her knack for honing a succinct mission statement.

Continue reading our review of the show here.

Max Mara channels ‘neo-medievalism’ for A/W 2026

‘Neo-medievalism’ was the term coined by Ian Griffiths to describe his A/W 2026 collection, shown in Milan’s Palazzo del Ghiaccio this morning. One inspiration point was Matilde di Canossa – known as Matilda of Tuscany – a medieval aristocrat who in the 11th century would become one of the most important governing figures of the age (‘a shrewd diplomat, accomplished military commander and patron of the arts,’ described Griffiths). As such, she added to the canon of notable – if often overlooked – women that have inspired Griffiths’ collections over his four decades at the house, here inspiring contemporary riffs on medieval attire, from tabard-cut dresses and hoods to flat suede Robin Hood boots. Indeed, suede was a throughline of the tactile collection – alongside fluffy mohair, cashmere and double-faces – which was rendered in earthy shades of brand and camel. The result, says Griffiths, was a collection of ‘fortitude, resilience and timeless style’. Jack Moss

Prada’s A/W 2026 collection was an exercise in extreme layering

15 models, 60 looks: Prada’s A/W 2026 show this afternoon was an exercise in extreme layering, as each model peeled off garments to reveal alternative looks beneath.

‘As a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself,’ said Miuccia Prada, co-creative director with Raf Simons. ‘You make choices, you decide who you want to be.’

‘Instead of showing 60 looks on 60 women, this season we wanted to show 15 looks on 15 women,’ added Simons. ‘Each look appears four times, yet proposed in a different way. We liked the idea of a small group of women, the notion of seeing each woman four times within a single show, because you engage more, both with her as a person, and with the look. And like real life, her outfit transforms at different moments in her day.’ JM

Emporio Armani’s A/W 2026 protagonist was a musical ‘maestro’

After skipping Milan Fashion Week Men’s, Emporio Armani made its return with a co-ed outing for A/W 2026. Led by Leo Dell’Orco and Silvana Armani – the pair, who worked closely with Giorgio Armani in his lifetime, took over in the wake of his death last September – imagined the protagonist for the season at a traditional music school (as such, the collection was titled ‘Maestro’, an echo of Mr Armani’s nickname during his lifetime). In the clothing, this emerged in a clash between what the pair called a ‘British formality’ – namely tailcoat and shirts, as well as a baker boy cap which became a recurring motif – and an ‘Italian sensibility’ which figured in typically louche silhouettes evocative of the ‘Armani classics’ (generously cut tailoring, roomy trench coats and the like). The closing looks captured this juxtaposition: a series of formal white shirts for men and women, undone as if travelling home from an evening out. JM

At Tod’s, a lightness of touch

There is a satisfying lightness of touch to Matteo Tamburini’s Tod’s, despite him working primarily in leather. This season’s foulard dresses and skirts were one such example: constructed from patchworked leather, they hung lightly on models’ bodies, aping the drape of cotton or silk. Indeed, Tamburini said that the A/W 2026 collection has begun with ‘meticulous’ fabric research, not only leather (which the designer said was the protagonist, and a signature material of the house), but also cashmere, shearling and wool, the latter making up outerwear which cocooned the body like a thrown-on blanket. Craft was also centre stage in the mise-en-scène: at the show’s entranceway, a line-up of artisans selected by the house worked away on various projects – from the intricate folding of a fan to the carving of coral. JM

Demna’s first runway set for Gucci is an imagined museum

The experience of entering a museum was the inspiration behind the runway set for the A/W 2026 runway show, held at Milan's Palazzo delle Scintille today (27 February), a hall designed for sporting events by Paolo Vietti-Violi in 1923 (it would later host performances from La Scala when the theatre was damaged in the Second World War). Upon entering the show space and ascending a staircase, guests were greeted with a vast hall clad in travertine Stoneleaf. Made from ultra-fine sheets of Italian marble bonded onto sheets of fibreglass and transparent resin, the innovative material – which replaces the need for heavy blocks of stone – came to market when Stoneleaf was founded in 2013.

Populating this imagined museum were a series of sculptures replicating those found in the Uffizi museum and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (subjects included Aphrodite and Artemis, and spanned Roman and Hellenistic eras). Each one was 3D-scanned before being recreated by Tuscan artisans in plaster, which was then treated to look like marble.

Continue reading our exclusive tour of Demna’s first runway set for Gucci here.

Demna’s debut Gucci show was all about the body

Titled ‘Gucci Primavera’, Demna presented his first runway show for the Italian powerhouse at Milan Fashion Week this afternoon amid a marble-clad set evocative of a museum. ‘Presenting it in a monumental, museum-like space expresses how I view this incredible house,’ he said.

With cameos from Kate Moss, Gabriette and Vittoria Ceretti – and watched on by the likes of Donatella Versace and Alessandro Michele – what followed was a no-holds-barred collection which riffed on archetypes of Italian glamour in the Georgian designer’s slyly subversive style. The idea of ‘silhouette’ ran throughout: garments were designed to trace the line of the body through seamless cuts and engineered hemlines.

Moss’ closing look – a shimmering backless gown which scooped downwards to reveal an in-built double-G thong – was a nod to Tom Ford’s seminal S/S 1997 G-string, part of the American designer’s transformative tenure at the house. Demna seemed to channel plenty of Ford’s sexually liberated spirit here.

But despite the glamour, Demna argued this was a collection of pragmatism. ‘[These are] products that can be enjoyed by a variety of people, that enrich their lives and make them feel great, that can stand on their own, without the need for pseudo-intellectual justifications,’ he said. JM

The story behind Formafantasma’s ‘familiar yet unsettled’ show set for Meryll Rogge’s Marni debut

Belgian designer Meryll Rogge’s anticipated debut show as creative director of Marni, which took place during Milan Fashion Week A/W 2026 yesterday (26 February), was first teased across social media with a series of short videos directed by Davide Rapp, captioned ‘echoes of the familiar’ and showing just that: a key sliding into a lock, coffee being poured into a glazed mug, a bakelite telephone. Even the show invitation mimicked, luxuriously, that most ubiquitous of office stationery – the post-it note. ‘I have a very personal connection to Marni,’ Rogge tells Wallpaper*. ‘It’s a brand that shaped my design sensibility during my formative years, and through the show I wanted to acknowledge that sense of familiarity.’

This familiarity – with a few surprises, of course – was a throughline for both collection and scenography, the latter of which was a close collaboration between Rogge and research-based design agency Formafantasma (Wallpaper* Designers of the Year in 2021, and the brains behind our 2026 Design Awards trophy). In the space, founders Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin transformed Marni’s headquarters with wood-effect panelling and fabric-covered benches, while a play on perception came in mirrored panels which were partially painted with ‘fragments drawn from quotidian life’, from car headlights to office chairs. The effect was a space which felt familiar – banal office space; the entranceway to an apartment block – though hard to place.

Continue reading the story behind Meryll Rogge’s debut Marni set here.

A ‘Nomadic Reverie’ at Loro Piana

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Through a static presentation, Loro Piana conjured the spirit of a transcontinental journey through colour which merged and mutated ‘like landscapes blurring through a train window’. Decadent jacquards and paisley, the latter featuring on the wallpaper as well as on garments, (and which first appeared in the maison’s historical textile archives in the 1960s and 1970s) recalled the fabrics and objects an aesthete of the old school might collect on a traditional Grand Tour, and, inevitably Agatha Christie’s most famous work was called to mind through silhouettes which fused East and West. IBJ

Sailor uniforms and speakeasies at Ferragamo

Maximilian Davis chose the Triennale di Milano – the city’s temple to design – to present his A/W 2026 collection for Ferragamo, transforming one of the curving Giovanni Muzio-designed upper galleries with cocooning curtains and carpets.

The after-dark mood related to the collection’s inspirations: the 1920s speakeasy, ‘a locus of liberation; a space where conventions of class and identity are disrupted’. It is a decade which has been central to Davis’ vision for the Italian house so far – in the early 1920s, house founder Salvatore Ferragamo was working as a shoemaker in Hollywood for the burgeoning film industry, which would inspire the formation of the house back in Italy in 1927.

‘It’s a translation of trying to imagine something from the past,’ the British designer said, noting that a muted palette appeared ‘tinted from time’. ‘In the original moment, it would have been vibrant – but now we are seeing it through the haze of history.’

Riffs on sailor uniform came to the fore – a nod to those who frequented such underground drinking spots – while negligées, molten gold dresses and vampish stilettos captured what Davis called the ‘liberated elegance of the era’. JM

Dolce & Gabbana asserts its identity for A/W 2026

Dolce & Gabbana’s A/W 2026 collection was a greatest hits of sorts: lace, lingerie and body-contouring silhouettes were all on the menu, rendered in a palette of signature black and worn with typically towering ballet-pump or bow-adorned heels (along with the occasional flat brogue). There was also great tailoring, in pinstripe or wide across the shoulder and nipped at the waist, recalling the house’s late-1990s oeuvre – though, as designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana commented, this was a collection not of ‘nostalgia’ but an assertion of identity. ‘This is not nostalgia. It is presence. A language built on roots that are still alive – Sicily as emotion, black as strength, lace as intimacy, tailoring as authority,’ they said via the collection notes. Another of their greatest hits sat front row: Madonna, face of Dolce & Gabbana’s The One fragrance, and a supporter of the house since her early days in the industry. At the show’s end, Domenico and Stefano embraced the megastar, who got a rousing applause of her own. JM

Bottega Veneta’s A/W 2026 show was all about texture

After showing in Milan’s industrial Porta Romana neighbourhood last season, Louise Trotter chose to shift to the city’s centre for her sophomore show for the house. The location was Palazzo San Fedele in the city’s centre, the location of Bottega Veneta’s headquarters. It was a fitting move: the collection, she said, was inspired by the spirit of Milan, where beneath its ‘Brutalist’ exterior, she identified a hidden ‘sensuality‘. Here, this was figured not in the exposure of skin, but a series of vivid textures designed to please the hand and eye. So there was shaggy two-tone shearling; a fabric of pulled silk threads which gave the illusion of fur or feathers; and the return of that bouncing fibreglass from her debut, here in bright pink and gleaming black. ‘I work with the most incredible artisans, and the pursuit of craft is central to everything that we do,’ she said, though at heart this was about a pursuit of pleasure particular to her adopted home city. ‘It’s fun to dress up,’ she said. JM

Silvana Armani makes her ready-to-wear debut at Giorgio Armani

Silvana Armani, the niece of the late Giorgio Armani, made her design debut earlier this year at Armani Privé in Paris with a S/S 2026 collection which was a respectful continuation of her uncle’s design legacy. ‘This was a Privé collection not of divergence but of continuance,’ we said at the time, which could also be applied to her ready-to-wear debut for the house, held this morning on Via Borgonuovo in Brera, the house’s longtime headquarters (and, in his lifetime, the site of Mr Armani’s personal Milan home).

As such, it was recognisably Armani: louche, broad-shoulder tailoring; shades of grey and blue; and references to Eastern dress all featured (here, velvet jackets with a kimono cut and obi-belt-style detailing; Mr Armani often said his collections were a dialogue between East and West). Though there was also a refreshing lightness to the collection: jackets were constructed without padding, while wrapped silhouettes had a thrown-on ease – Silvana Armani called it ‘a new perspective on the Armani style’. ‘It is fluid, enveloping, perfectly imperfect,’ said the designer via the collection notes. JM