Everything you need to know about Milan Fashion Week

This afternoon (22 September 2026), Prada will open the latest edition of Milan Fashion Week as the fashion world decamps to the Italian fashion capital from London, after Burberry provided its final act yesterday evening (you can read our picks of the best shows of London Fashion Week here). It will mark the first time that Prada is showing on day one – as to whether this will affect what Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons show on the runway, or indeed the OMA-designed show set, remains to be seen (an otherwise sparse first day leaves the evening open for the latest edition of Vogue World, which will unfold at the historic shopping arcade Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II).

Elsewhere, it is a season of consolidation as relatively new creative directors hold their sophomore runway shows at some of Italian fashion’s major houses: among them Demna at Gucci, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Fendi, and Meryll Rogge at Marni. And, while we await the first collection from Dario Vitale at Emporio Armani – the former Versace designer was named creative director last week – the brand will host a presentation in lieu of a show, with the collection designed by Silvana Armani and Leo Dell’Orco, head of womenswear and menswear, respectively, at the Armani Group. Outside of fashion – though no doubt attracting a stylish crowd – Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi will launch their collection for Zara Home.

Read below for all of Wallpaper’s moments to look out for at Milan Fashion Week S/S 2027.

Prada is now the week’s opening act – and is opening Prada Galleria

Prada, which typically shows on the Thursday afternoon of Milan Fashion Week, will be this season’s opening act at 2pm on Tuesday. There is little word as to why the house has chosen to make the move, though it allies with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ knack for setting the fashion agenda. The week will also see the opening of Prada Galleria, an ambitious extension of its presence in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where Mario Prada and his brother Martino Prada (Miuccia Prada’s grandfather and great-uncle) opened their first store in 1913. The ‘multi-floor immersion’, as Prada describes, will feature eight floors of retail, hospitality and cultural displays, stretching across the two sides of the 19th-century shopping arcade through a subterranean passage. Joining the Prada Donna and Uomo boutiques, Marchesi 1824, and the Osservatorio Fondazione Prada through new private and invitation-only floors, the Galleria will also feature a permanent exhibition, Pradasphere, on its piano nobile, which traces the house’s history from 1913 to the present day.

Emporio Armani will show via presentation as it awaits new creative director Dario Vitale

Last week, the Armani Group announced the appointment of Dario Vitale – best known for a short but impactful stint at Versace, having spent much of his career behind-the-scenes at Miu Miu – as the Emporio Armani creative director; he will also head up Giorgio Armani accessories. Silvana Armani, Mr Armani’s niece and head of womenswear design, and Leo Dell’Orco, head of menswear design of the Armani Group, said that they chose him as they felt he could interpret Emporio Armani’s spirit of ‘freedom, experimentation and energy’ with ‘respect and authority’. This season, though, Silvana Armani and Dell’Orco will remain at the helm, showing a men’s and women’s Emporio Armani collection via presentation on the evening of 24 September 2026.

It is the season of the sophomore runway show

If last season in Milan saw debuts from Meryll Rogge at Marni, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Fendi and Demna at Gucci (the last had shown via short film the season prior, but A/W 2026 marked his first runway outing), this September will be the season of the sophomore act – a somewhat trickier proposition as designers seek to hone their vision and build on their opening collection’s hype. Expect a no-doubt blockbuster outing from Demna at Gucci (last season, he constructed a monolithic marble ‘museum’, evocative of the Uffizi Gallery), while Rogge and Chiuri both held more understated opening acts: the former created a series of ‘dioramas of everyday life’ alongside Formafantasma for her first show, while Chiuri stripped back the vast exhibition space in Fendi’s Milan HQ for a show of pragmatic glamour, which ran with the tagline ‘less I, more us’ (it was also printed across the floor).

Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi will launch their collection for Zara Home

Earlier this month, lauded director Luca Guadagnino and longtime production designer and architect Stefano Baisi revealed a blockbuster 200-piece collection for Zara Home. Referred to by the brand as an ‘atlas of design’, it brings the pair’s distinctive vision – Guadagnino’s eye for desirable interiors has been a hallmark of his career – to furniture, scents, lighting and furniture, as well as a handful of garments. Guadagnino’s close links with the fashion world (Dior designer Jonathan Anderson has collaborated with him numerous times on the costumes for his films) make Fashion Week in Milan – a city he is also synonymous with – the perfect occasion to launch the collection with a no-doubt star-studded party. 'I think we really wanted to do something that we felt could speak the language we wanted to speak, which was a language of form and colour,’ says Guadagnino of the collection, which becomes available on 26 September 2026.

READ: Luca Guadagnino and Stefano Baisi unveil a blockbuster lifestyle collection for Zara Home

Italian biggest names are back

Rounding out the schedule is the usual line-up of names that have long defined Italian style, among them Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Tod’s, Max Mara, Bottega Veneta, Jil Sander and Ferragamo, as well as presentations from the likes of Brunello Cucinelli, Brioni, Herno and Valextra. This season, according to Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana – the week’s organising body – there will be 54 physical shows and 88 presentations in total, spread across the schedule.