And so concludes another Milan Fashion Week, a season marked by its debuts: across the week, Maria Grazia Chiuri presented her opening vision for Fendi as the house’s first sole creative director, young Belgian designer Meryll Rogge made an expressive debut at Marni, and Demna hosted his first runway show for Gucci – a virile mediation on sex and the body which had everybody in fashion talking. Meanwhile at Giorgio Armani, Silvana Armani – the niece of the late eponymous designer – made her ready-to-wear debut at the house. Though true to Mr Armani’s well-established codes, she said this was ‘a new perspective on the Armani style’ – light, fluid and purposely ‘imperfect’.

Alongside, there were standout shows from Prada – in a feat of quick changes and expert layering, 15 models wore 60 looks without pause – and Bottega Veneta, where Louise Trotter conjured Maria Callas and Pier Paolo Pasolini in a riot of colour and texture. While at Jil Sander, Simone Bellotti found new freedom in his sophomore runway show after the rigour and restraint of his debut.

Here, reported by Wallpaper* fashion & beauty features director Jack Moss and contributing writer India Jarvis, the 14 standout shows which defined the week.

Fendi

‘Less I, More Us,’ was the mantra Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri chose for her debut as sole creative director for Fendi, emblazoning it across the runway which stretched the length of the house’s Milanese HQ on Via Solari. Chiuri is fond of such mission statements: for her debut collection as the first female creative director of Dior in 2016, she printed the title of Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book-length essay ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ across a T-shirt. Over the nine years which followed, she would champion numerous women artists and collaborators.

Her mantra at Fendi is perhaps a feminist one too, despite the fact that Chiuri also showed menswear on the runway (and will be equally in charge of the house’s mens- and womenswear lines). It was, in part, a reference to the collective force of the formidable Fendi sisters: Alda, Carla, Paola, Franca and Anna Fendi, who took over from their parents, house founders Edoardo and Adele Fendi, in 1946. Speaking before the show, she said that people speak too often of Karl Lagerfeld’s influence – the designer was creative director of the house for 54 years – and not enough of the sisters, who employed him and would work alongside him until the company was sold to LVMH in 1999. ‘I would like people to remember all that they created at Fendi,’ she asserted.

Chiuri, who began her career at Fendi in 1989, working with the sisters until her own departure in 1999, said she credits her working ethic to them: ‘They were my mentors. They gave me my career. And I felt part of their teamwork.’ In the show, the idea of collaboration came through projects with women artists SAGG Napoli (colourful football-like scarves were created alongside the Naples-born artist) and the estate of Mirella Bentivoglio, whose slogan-like works appeared across garments. But the idea of a collective ‘us’ stretched to dissolving the divide between mens- and womenswear, too, the designer said: ‘Feminine and masculine cease to be categories of opposition and become adjectives used to describe shared qualities,’ envisioning not two separate collections but ‘one wardrobe’.

As such, the A/W 2026 outing – which eschewed theatrics in favour of a more pragmatic approach – moved between sleek, elongated tailoring and flourishes of romance, from layers of sheer tulle and lace (some evocative of her work at Dior). Meanwhile fur – the founding material of the house – came back to the fore, with Chiuri introducing the ‘Echo of Love’ project whereby clients can have their old furs transformed in an act of circularity. Across vivid two-tone chubby fur coats and patchworked fur handbags, all the materials had been sourced from leftovers in the house’s fur department – another act of practicality over spectacle. ‘Fashion is not entertainment. Fashion is a job. I am that kind of designer,’ she said. Jack Moss

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

Jil Sander

After a brilliant debut last season, Simone Bellotti continued to cleverly hone his vision for Jil Sander with a sophomore collection which he said was inspired by the idea of ‘home’. Presented in the house’s stark Milanese HQ – this season, warmth was added by the addition of a rust-coloured carpet which had been installed the length of the upper floor – the former Bally designer said he was thinking about home as an ‘an emotional space where one lives, feels safe and belongs to’, leading to a collection which diverted from restraint and rigour of last season towards something freer, more eclectic. Indeed, the designer said this was a collection about ‘flow, flou [and] movement’, with Bellotti imagining garments imbued with a life of their own through an intriguing use of pattern cutting – whether raised shoulder lines, curving seams, folded waistlines, or intentionally puckered tailoring (the slashes through garments also returned from his debut). Meanwhile evocative moments of colour and pattern added visual richness: flashes of electric blue and leopard print met fabrics evocative of interiors – a nod, Bellotti elucidated, to his father’s career as an upholsterer. ‘The question this season is whether abandon can convey restraint,’ he said of this newly liberated approach. Jack Moss

MM6 Maison Margiela

One of life’s great pleasures is watching other people, and what better place to sit and do it than a train terminal? It’s a pleasure that MM6 Maison Margiela tapped into for its A/W 2026 show – one designed around the comings and goings of passengers in an ‘archetypal train station’, in this case Milano Centrale. An archetype is a recurrent, even constant, principle, whereas a station is innately transient – how do the two meet? At MM6 it was with ‘a veritable spectrum of individuality’, and ‘sartorial actions rooted in the genuine appreciation for garments as they are, looking for ways to see them anew, which is where the fun lingers.’

What does that look like? It looks like pea coats with bunched and scrunched hems, loosely tacked to reveal quilted or flannel linings. Clashing stripes with check – something you might serendipitously pair when hurrying to get dressed. Backless khaki trench coats and skirts. And lots of tucking: hair tucked into jumpers, jumpers tucked into jeans, jeans tucked into high-gloss Wellington-style boots.

There was a strong equine theme too – afterall, 2026 is the year of the firehorse, a symbol of forward movement and independence that is characteristically MM6 – from horse motifs printed on oversized T-shirts and teddy fleeces, to full cotton flounced skirts with a decidedly American frontier feel. A train station welcomes all kinds of people going all kinds of places, after all. India Jarvis

Prada

This season, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons played a clever runway trick: instead of the usual 40-or-so models cast in a given season, the pair chose just 15 to walk the A/W 2026 show. In an impressive act of timing, they wore 60 looks in total, walking the runway four times each in quick succession, achieved through removing a layer of clothing during each quick change. When you realised the conceit (for me, I wondered if Bella Hadid had a doppelganger or secret twin after what seemed like an impossibly quick reappearance on the runway), it made for one of the most thrilling Prada shows of recent times – there was a near-breathless energy to the spectacle. (Indeed, chatting to one of the models backstage, she said she had never sweated so much, or walked so far, in a runway show during her career.)

But this was no gimmick: post-show, the co-creative directors said the collection was a reflection of the way that women wear clothing on a given day – the removal of a coat to reveal a cocktail dress, the addition of a scarf. ‘It’s about life, and how you dress each day with the clothes you have,’ said Simons. ‘About real, human people.’ The garments themselves were infused with Prada-isms: purposeful marks of wear (some appeared stained or creased; others saw layers of fabric torn away to reveal another beneath) met an insouciant, bourgeois-inflected glamour in embroidered stockings, feathered and beaded footwear and a use of satin and organza. A feeling of utility, meanwhile, came in uniform-style tailoring and riffs on classic outerwear styles, from the parka jacket to the raincoat. ‘As a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself,’ said Mrs Prada. ‘You make choices, you decide who you want to be.’ Jack Moss

Max Mara

Is a growing interest in the history and aesthetics of the Middle Ages a reaction to the hyper-digitised, blue-lit world of today? An idealised fantasy of a pre-capitalist society? Or perhaps a byproduct of the popularity of the romantasy genre? Whatever the answer, for Max Mara’s Ian Griffiths​, whose unlikely seasonal muse was the 11th-century diplomat and military commander Matilde di Canossa, ‘there is something so strikingly of the now about so-called Dark Age design’.

Griffiths’ interpretation of pre-enlightenment era clothing saw tunics in luxurious, butter-soft suede, ankle-skimming cashmere coats and hooded garments reminiscent of the coif shapes worn by Di Canossa and her contemporaries. Standout pieces included a caramel-coloured bias-cut silk gown with a mohair, funnel-necked yoke; a suede muff worn belted around the waist; and a taupe wool playsuit accessorised with the gathered suede, elbow-length opera gloves that were seen throughout the show. Griffiths has been with the house since graduating from London’s RCA in 1987, and over the four decades which have followed, there is nobody who knows the Max Mara woman better than he. The A/W 2026 collection offered new-yet-medieval twists on the tried and tested house codes, which keep this woman returning to the brand, season after season. India Jarvis

Emporio Armani

Following the death of its eponymous founder in the autumn of 2025, Emporio Armani took an understandable hiatus from showing at menswear week in January, but returned for A/W 2026 with a combined men’s and women’s runway outing. ‘Maestro’, as the collection was titled, was not only a narrative device, but an ode to Mr Armani himself – the eminent composer, conductor, and virtuoso of fashion symphonies for almost 50 years.

The imaginative backdrop for the season was, according to show notes, a music school, and the maestro – and maestra, for this is a co-ed conservatoire – who stepped out in Leo Dell’Orco and Silvana Armani’s first jointly developed collection wore loosely tailored overcoats and baggy denim, and student-y accessories including baker boy caps, backpacks, and ties just visible beneath oversized striped knits. Leg warmers styled over patent leather pumps evoked the chill of a rehearsal auditorium, whereas the show’s second act saw rather more performance-ready pieces in the form of draped velvet, wide-lapelled tuxedo jackets, and starched white collars (a recurring motif in Milan this season: most notably in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s riff on Claudine à l'école at Fendi).

For the finale – the crescendo, if you like – the models turned out in Lydia Tár-esque monochrome. Tight leggings or flowing slacks on the bottom, white dress shirts on top, each with a different button, brooch, pin, collar, or embroidered flourish. ‘A simple and rigorous statement – now more than ever rebellious – of modernity and self-awareness,’ that could only be Armani. India Jarvis

Marni

The Belgian designer Meryll Rogge chose to collaborate with Formafantasma on the runway set for her debut show as creative director of Marni. Transforming the house’s Milanese headquarters with wood-effect panelling and fabric-covered benches – recalling a banal office space, or entranceway to a Milanese apartment block – the space was punctuated with mirrored panels which had been painted with ‘fragments drawn from quotidian life’, from office chairs to cigarette lighters. ‘The structure of the set suggests a bourgeois interior wooden frame, hints of domestic architecture – but fragmented, slightly taken apart. It feels familiar yet unsettled, as if a room has been carefully disassembled and reassembled in another order,’ Formafantasma’s Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin told Wallpaper*.

It linked with Rogge’s vision for her tenure at the Italian house: to create something which felt both familiar and contemporary, evoking Marni’s founding principles with her own distinctive twists. ‘I have a very personal connection to Marni,’ she said. ‘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.’ It made for an astute opening outing: there was the irreverent spirit of founder Consuelo Castiglioni in its eclectic combinations, not only in its amalgam of nostalgic prints, swinging paillettes and boldly graphic jewellery, but also in the way a sweater might be worn with a cocktail dress, or a colourful sporty parka over a suit and tie. Rogge’s own twist on the Marni protagonist was a newfound toughness, figured in some great leather trousers and skirts, some with Western-inspired detailing. In their slung-on sensuality – imbued with a certain 1980s nostalgia – they might well fill a gap for those who are already missing Dario Vitale’s Versace. Jack Moss

READ: Formafantasma created the ‘familiar yet unsettled’ show set for Meryll Rogge’s Marni debut

Sportmax

If there are a few thematic ideas that inevitably crop up and play out in different ways by different brands in any one season, then for A/W 2026 one such example could be travel. At Loro Piana and MM6 Maison Margiela the vehicle of choice was a train; at Sportmax, the journey seemed to be taken by air. ‘Dynamism’ was the word they used, but ‘aerodynamism’ may be just as apt – as the brand itself puts it: ‘There is no clutter weighing the Sportmax woman down.’

Dresses were close-fitting and body-skimming but with movement in the draping, worn with long wraps which fell backwards over the shoulder like wings. Some of the weightier outerwear nodded to aviator-style jackets with their gargantuan lapels and collars, and contrasting textures and fabrics. Clutches were spheroid, almost discus-shaped; one could imagine them flying through the air with ease. Flashes of skin were visible beneath a kind of jumbo mesh effect leather, used for tops which were worn as a base layer beneath more autumn-winter suitable coats and gilets. Speed and movement were the defining characteristics of the collection – even the show itself was a particularly fast-paced affair – as the show notes said, the Sportmax woman has ‘places to go’. India Jarvis

Gucci

Prior to his debut runway show for Gucci, the mononymous Georgian designer Demna said he had been searching for the ‘Gucciness of Gucci’, a trip which took him to the Tuscan city of Florence, where the house was founded as a leather goods company in 1921. There, he visited factories and the archive, though it was stood in front of Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus at the Uffizi Gallery – just a few hundred metres from the Palazzo Gucci on Piazza della Signoria – that Demna had his lightbulb moment. ‘Standing in front of it, I felt overwhelmed,’ he wrote in a letter distributed before the show. ‘The beauty in it was unconditional; it was absolute. It made me realise how deeply the Italian Renaissance shaped everything I understand about art, about proportion, about desire, and about beauty. When I left the museum and stepped into Piazza della Signoria, the first thing I saw was Palazzo Gucci. In that moment, I understood the place Gucci holds within Italian culture.’

It was part of the reason why he staged the A/W 2026 collection amid an imagined museum constructed in Milan’s Palazzo delle Scintille, clad in marble and populated with plaster recreations of ancient sculptures (the vast statues had been 3D-scanned and crafted by Tuscan artisans to appear as if hewn from marble). This was a veneration of Gucci as an expression of Italian style and insouciance: after the show, he said this opening act was simply about capturing a feeling, rather than anything more intellectually overwrought. ‘I hope I made you feel Gucci today,’ he said, expressing a desire for Gucci to become an ‘adjective’. ‘That was my main purpose with this show.’

The essence of ‘Gucci-ness’ that Demna landed on was one of unbridled sensuality, a morning-after-the-night before glamour which borrowed from Tom Ford’s transformative tenure at the house in the 1990s (all the way down to a recreation of his 1997 double-G G-string, which here appeared as an in-built thong in a gown worn by Kate Moss to close the show). Other garments had been constructed without seams or with curved hemlines in order to emphasise the relationship between body and garment, while muscled male models burst out of skin-tight T-shirts and jeans. Slung on jackets, lean tailoring, and a final flurry of shimmering evening gowns completed the look. ‘[I think] it’s because of my relationship with myself, to my own body, to the way I want to see myself,’ he said. ‘I want to feel like that. I want to feel sexy.’ Jack Moss

Tod’s

It takes deft craftsmanship to imbue leather with real lightness – after all, leather is better known as a material of protection and toughness. But Tod’s’ A/W 2026 ready-to-wear was characterised by a levity of touch that could only be the handiwork of a house that makes an art out of leather (and a designer who’s got pedigree when it comes to this particular material).

In Matteo Tamburini’s latest, leather may have been the protagonist, but the plot itself was all about artisanal excellence – a fact reinforced by the real craftspeople stitching, folding, or carving objects in the entryway to the venue at Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea – cherry-picked by the brand for their impressive skill. Amongst these were brothers Vincenzo and Manuel Aucella, coral artisans and cameo carvers who represent the fourth generation of a family tradition that began in 1892 (that’s around 30 years before Filippo Della Valle started the shoe-making business that would later become Tod’s).

As for the clothes themselves, feather-light asymmetrical leather dresses fluttered with all the delicacy of a silk handkerchief, blanket-style outerwear enveloped luxuriously about the shoulders, and saddlery techniques and hand-finishing synthesised tradition and modernity. Overall, the effect was a masterclass in Italian craft and sprezzatura. India Jarvis

Ferragamo

The 1920s were a formative decade for Salvatore Ferragamo: in 1927, he founded his eponymous footwear company in Florence after returning from Los Angeles, where he worked as a shoemaker for the burgeoning film industry in Hollywood. The British designer Maximilian Davis has found fertile creative ground in the decade, with recent collections channelling what he sees as the ‘liberated elegance’ of the era – one in which conventions of dress were interrupted and marginalised groups found new freedoms (last season, Davis evoked the Harlem Renaissance, the proliferation of Black art, culture and intellectual output from the New York neighbourhood in the 1920s).

This season, in one of the curving Giovanni Muzio-designed upper galleries of the Triennale di Milano museum – dimly lit and sheathed with floor-to-ceiling curtains – he evoked the 1920s speakeasy, ‘a locus of liberation; a space where conventions of class and identity are disrupted’. As such, a louche, after-dark mood infused the collection – negligées, molten-gold dresses and vampish stilettos all featured – while riffs on maritime attire were a nod to those who frequented such drinking spots. Though the evocation of the sailor also nodded to the notion of travel which informs the Ferragamo story – the transformative experience of moving away from your home in search of something new.

‘That’s something that both Salvatore and my own family experienced – he left his home in Italy for America before returning home, and my family moved from Trinidad and Jamaica to Manchester,’ said Davis. ‘They all crossed the water to discover new beginnings.’ Jack Moss

Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana’s A/W 2026 collection was an assertion of brand identity, said designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, all the way down to a front-row cameo from Madonna – perhaps the most well-known house muse and the current face of The One fragrance. The musical powerhouse watched on from the front row as the pair performed their own greatest hits: an outing near-entirely in their signature vampish black, replete with house hallmarks – lingerie-inspired silhouettes, hourglass LBDs, and, of course, plenty of lace. Though perhaps most desirable this season was the tailoring: if best known for their body-contouring dresses, the pair have always possessed a strong sartorial prowess, here encapsulated in some brilliant tuxedos which nipped at the waist and flared across the shoulder, inspired by archival silhouettes from the 1990s (they would make a great Oscars look for those wishing to eschew the traditional princess gown). Post show, Domenico and Stefano were keen to make clear that drilling into the archive was not about ‘nostalgia’ but ‘presence’, ‘a language built on roots that are still alive – Sicily as emotion, black as strength, lace as intimacy, tailoring as authority,’ they said. Jack Moss

Bottega Veneta

The particular joy of good fashion is that it’s a work of art you can actually touch – and with Louise Trotter’s sophomore collection for Bottega Veneta, touch is exactly what you want to do. The shaggy, curvaceous shapes she creates out of fibreglass need to be felt to be believed. Great piles of shearling cry out to be fondled. Even less immediately showy pieces, like a tailored grey coat with exaggeratedly round shoulders and cinched waist which was made from a thick, almost foamy looking fabric, was just begging to be squished between the fingers.

It’s the mark of a talented designer that to describe their work as ‘wearable’ doesn’t just mean ‘commercial’, or, worse ‘boring’. The Sunderland-born designer, whose previous creative director roles were at Lacoste, Joseph, and Carven, makes clothes that are infinitely wearable, but here the word might mean things that feel really wonderful to actually wear. On the practical side: pieces have pockets, shoes are flat, and bags are roomy. The more flamboyant garments are countered by easy tank tops and shirts. But more than that, there is a sensuality and tactility that sets Trotter’s work apart. Is this the byproduct of being one of the few women making womenswear at the head of a luxury house? Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that she is one of the most credible designers working today.

The A/W 2026 collection carried what Trotter described as a ‘suggestion’ of Maria Callas and Pier Paolo Pasolini – two of 20th-century Italy’s most erudite and subversive exports, and unlikely friends. Both figures have been brought back to the forefront of the cultural conversation in recent years – operatic prima donna Callas was played by Angelina Jolie in a 2024 biopic, and before that her life and lonely, premature death was dramatised on stage in an opera project conceived by Marina Abramović and co-starring Willem Dafoe. Dafoe, in turn, has played Pasolini, the poet and filmmaker whose brutal murder, presumably at the hands of far-right thugs, was commemorated on its 50th anniversary in the autumn of 2025 through a series of cultural programming and new publications. If these sound like unlikely characters to influence a ready-to-wear collection, consider that Callas and Pasolini had more in common than just tragic ends: formidable artistic talent, potent sexuality, and confident personal style amongst them. For Trotter’s debut last year she described her use of intrecciato as a conceptual device as well as a literal braiding technique – by citing these two artists she is articulating a continuation of that weaving principle, but also making a bold declaration of what Bottega Veneta, under her stewardship, is going to be. India Jarvis

Giorgio Armani

The Armani Privé show in Paris marked the debut collection from Silvana Armani, the late Giorgio Armani’s niece, who worked closely with the designer in his lifetime and was a fitting successor to uphold his legacy. On Sunday in Milan, she made her ready-to-wear debut at Armani, selecting the house’s headquarters on Brera’s Via Borgonuovo to show the A/W 2026 collection (the address was also the site of Mr Armani’s personal Milan home). At the time of the Privé show, we wrote that she had presented a collection ‘not of divergence but of continuance’, and the same could be said of this collection – it felt recognisably Armani in its louche, unstructured tailoring and interplay between Eastern and Western tropes of dress – though there was a greater feeling of softness and ease. Indeed, Silvana Armani said she was looking for lightness in both construction and spirit: jackets were assembled without padding, wrapped silhouettes appeared thrown on, and the slouchier, pleated trousers – held in place with wide belts – felt contemporary in proportion. She called it ‘a new perspective on the Armani style,’ one which she said was informed by being a woman, designing for women. ‘It is fluid, enveloping, perfectly imperfect.’ Jack Moss

Nothing is quite what it seems with the S/S 2025 collections, seeing designers riff on wardrobe staples with illusory tricks – from trompe l’œil to twisted silhouettes and unexpected fabrications. Whether the turned-up hemline of a leather Loewe overcoat – as though perpetually caught in a gust of wind – or a surreal Hodakova shoe, which squashes together a beach flip-flop and high-heeled pump, these are pieces that appear as one thing, but are actually another (a response, no doubt, to our increasingly disorientating digital age). The effect is something like a surreal collage; garments that implore a second look.

S/S 2025’s twisted wardrobe staples

As such, in the March 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper* (on international newsstands now), photographer Nicole Maria Winkler and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes capture these looks in a surreal interior of their own: a liminal apartment whereby Winkler’s archival photographs become trompe l’oeil wall coverings, or adorn folding screens and chests of drawers. Inhabited by Swiss artist and model Veronika Kunz, the space – which was imagined by set designer Kim Harding – is completed with modernist furnishings, from a Ron Arad bed to an Afra and Tobia Scarpa Cassina sofa.

‘Nicole and I have been friends for many years and have played with trompe-l’œil before, and this story was a further exploration of that theme,’ Harding told Wallpaper*. ‘Delving into Nicole’s archive of still lifes, we created some interesting stand-alone pieces to sit among the set itself.’

Model: Veronika Kunz at Kunz Management. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Set design: Kim Harding Studio. Hair: Sophie Jane Anderson. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Makeup by Mario. Manicure: Sasha Goddard at Saint Luke using Dior. Digi tech: Anna-Sophia John. Photography assistant: Tom Porter. Set design assistants: Matilda Greenwood, Heather Allen. Fashion assistants: Nathan Fox, Rebecca Evans-White. Production assistant: Archie Thomson.

A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on international newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

As Salone del Mobile wrapped up in Milan, eyes turned eastwards to the floating city of Venice, where this past weekend the 60th Venice Biennale was inaugurated with a typically packed roster of events and openings to cater to the thronging crowds from the art world and beyond. At its centre was the 60th International Art Exhibition, titled ’Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere’ – the Adriano Pedrosa-curated group exhibition paying ode to ’foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled, [and] refugees’ – which was supported by Parisian fashion house Dior, a continuing nod to house founder Christian Dior’s roots as a gallerist in the 1920s and 30s.

Dior was not the only fashion house present, though. As ever, fashion brands and designers seized the opportunity to forge their cultural links to the arts – with Venice providing a typically seductive backdrop. These included Burberry’s sponsorship of the British Pavillion (to celebrate, a party at the city’s legendary watering hole Harry’s Bar), Golden Goose opening the doors to ’Haus’, a new multidisciplinary cultural space (their celebration comprised a vast candlelit dinner in the hangar-like main hall), and Tod’s celebration of Italian craftsmanship which coincided with their own sponsorship of the Italian Pavillion. Here, as the 60th Venice Biennale opens to the public, the best moments where fashion met art.

The best fashion moments at the 60th Venice Biennale

Setchu collaborate with Savile Row tailors Davies & Son at Palazzo Venier

Sometimes it is illuminating to take the familiar out of context; such was the ambition behind Japanese label Setchu’s latest project, a collaboration with storied Savile Row tailor Davies & Son. Choosing to present the collaboration on neutral ground, the Palazzo Venier in Venice on the opening days of the Biennale, the presentation captured the uniqueness of the project, which traverses time and space. Central to the collaboration, which is led by Setchu designer Satoshi Kuwata – who originally trained on Savile Row – is an attempt to conceive a collection of truly contemporary tailoring, which melds Davies & Son’s time-honed techniques (it is the street’s oldest operating tailor shop) with Setchu’s unique take on the medium, which combines Western and Japanese approaches (Kuwata now lives and works in Milan). The result is three black-and-white outfits, for men or women, comprising sleek single-breasted overcoats and trousers, complete with Setchu’s signature sliced seams and darts which are edged with buttons. Completing the lineup is a pair of laceless shoes by cobbler George Cleverley, made from a single piece of leather. At the chic Venice installation – featuring Japanese objects, from paper lanterns died with sumi ink to ceramic stools and cerami mats – guests could set up appointments to be measured for the bespoke pieces. Further fittings will follow in Milan with Kuwata, in London at Davies & Son, or in New York City when the Davies & Son team travels stateside.

Burberry sponsors the British Pavillion, John Akomfrah’s ‘Listening All Night to The Rain’

Since the beginning of his tenure, Yorkshire-born Burberry creative director Daniel Lee has been keen to celebrate Britain’s diverse cultural output. ‘[I want] to show a positive side of Britain to the world,’ he said after his debut in February 2023. ‘There is great music here, great theatre, great art. That’s something I missed in recent years and that’s what I’m trying to celebrate.’ Just over a year on – and two collections later – Lee is true to his word as Burberry becomes the headline sponsor of the British Pavilion for the second consecutive year. This year’s Pavilion comprises a commission by artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah titled ‘Listening All Night to The Rain’, a multi-layered, multi-media piece which looks towards the sea to explore issues from environmental decline to migration. I’d got to a point where I thought a lot of what I want to say involves trying to pull people into positions of listening,’ he told Wallpaper’s Hannah Silver. ’[The work] is both looking ahead to the things that we are definitely interested in the present, but a lot of it is also to do with the immediate past and the things we haven’t really paid attention to, [and] sometimes they are related. There’s much to hear.’ Read more.

The British Pavillion runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024.

Golden Goose continues its Haus of Dreamers project

Coinciding with the Biennale, Golden Goose opened the doors to ’Haus’, a multidisciplinary space in Marghera, an industrial suburb of Venice where the brand was founded in 2000. Comprising an academy, where over the Biennale’s opening weekend locals could attend a number of workshops and talks, an extensive archive of rare Golden Goose sneakers and clothing, an auditorium, and a vast hangar-like room where guests enjoyed a candlelit dinner on Friday evening, it will continue to evolve as the months go on. Earlier in the night, guests were taken on an immersive tour of the space, which included an opportunity to customise a pair of the brand’s new Marathon sneakers, inspired by 1970s and 1980s running shoes, alongside installations and performances by Argentinian visual artist Andrés Reisinger, Italian sculptor Fabio Viale, French-Italian painter Maïa Régis, and Puerto Rican singer Mia Lailani. Viale’s was perhaps the most striking of the evening: a vast burning pyre erected in the rectangular pool in the Haus’ forecourt. It follows last year’s Haus of Dreamers event, which introduced the project with a series of events across the floating city – including a spoken-word performance by Quannah Chasinghorse on the Rialto Bridge.

Tod’s celebrate the art of Venetian craftsmanship

Tod’s’ involvement with the Venice Biennale this year was twofold. First, they were the sponsor of this year’s Italian Pavillion, which was titled ’Due qui / To Hear’ and created by artist Massimo Bartolini alongside curator Luca Cerizza at the Biennale’s Arsenale venue (the installation comprised a vast scaffolding maze, alongside a sound installation featuring music by Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone, and British composer Gavin Bryars). Secondly, the Italian brand used the event to celebrate its own deep-rooted history of creation and craft by uniting with Venetian artisans to reinterpret the Tod‘s famed Gommino driving shoe. Cue a dramatic array of original works inspired by the perennial style, created by craftspeople working across mediums, from glassblower Roberto Beltrami and goldbeater Marino Menegazzo to traditional Venetian mask maker Sergio Boldrin. Meanwhile, a limited-edition collection of pieces, inspired by Venice, will be available for purchase.

The Italian Pavillion runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024.

Dior supports happenings across the city, including the Beinnale’s International Art Exhibition

Christian Dior began his career not as a couturier, but as a gallerist, co-founding Paris’ Galerie Jacques Bonjean in 1928, before going on to be linked with Galerie Pierre Colle, which hosted works from artists including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. As such, art has long permeated the Dior universe, something celebrated this year in a wide-ranging sponsorship from the Parisian house which stretched across locations and events. First, Dior supported the Biennale’s main group exhibition (the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia), which this year was curated by the artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art, Adriano Pedrosa. Titled ’Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere’, Pedrosa said the exhibition paid ode to ’foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled, [and] refugees—particularly those who have moved between the Global South and the Global North. Migration and decolonisation are key themes here.’

Elsewhere, the ’Cosmic Garden’ exhibition – which includes works by Madhvi Parekh and Manu Parekh created alongside the Chanakya School of Craft, with whom Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri has collaborated extensively – is supported by Dior at Salone Verde – Art & Social Club. Meanwhile, at Museo Fortuny, guests can discover Eva Jospin’s Selva exhibition, a Parisian artist whose layered cardboard grottos provided the backdrop to Dior’s S/S 2023 womenswear show. Finally, Dior also collaborated with the Venetian Heritage Foundation to partner on the extravagant Naumachia Ball on April 20, 2024 at the Arsenale Vecchio of Venice, with funds largely supporting the renovation of the Arsenale’s Porta Magna and the ’House of Gold’ Ca’d’Oro museum.

’Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere’ ,the International Art Exhibition of the 60th Venice Biennale runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024.

Balenciaga spotlights the Rodeo bag with theatrical installation

For the Biennale, Balenciaga transformed its Venice store into a red-curtained installation to celebrate the arrival of the brand‘s summer collection (the S/S 2024 show itself had featured a similarly theatrical set). In particular, the Rodeo bag, a roomy, vintage-inspired handbag which can be customised with a multitude of playful charms in creative director Demna’s typically idiosyncratic style. 14 unique iterations were available to Venice shoppers, while the installation was celebrated with a cocktail on April 18.

Louis Vuitton brings French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest to Venice

Fondation Louis Vuitton, the LVMH Group’s vast cultural outpost in Paris, brought French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest to Venice for this year’s Biennale, staging an exhibition of his work at the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia (the foundation’s Venice oupost, close to the famed Piazza San Marco). Titled ’Je Est Un Autre’, the exhibition – conceived by Pignon-Ernest for the space – continues his exploration of ’the foreigner’, a perennial theme which has run throughout his oeuvre since he began his career in the 1960s. An early proponent of street art – with works appearing in places across the world, including Naples, Rome, Soweto, Haiti, Paris and Algiers – his pieces often feature portraits of figures who operated on the margins, from Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who travelled across the country to escape persecution from the Soviet regime, to Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. The new exhibition is curated by Suzanne Pagé and Hans Ulrich Obrist, in dialogue with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.

Ernest Pignon-Ernest ’Je Est Un Autre’ runs at Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024.

British photographer Tim Walker is known for his fantastical fashion images in which subjects are transported into dreamlike tableaux. They might be dwarfed by enormous Borrowers-like props, from storeys-high china dolls to enormous pencils, flowers, and story books, lounge next to roaring lions or galloping white horses, or climb out from the pane of a mirror, like Alice stepping through the looking glass.

Launching this evening (19 April 2023) at Milan’s Le Cavallerizze Museo Nazionale Della Scienza E Della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci as part of the city’s design week, a new exhibition of original works sees Walker celebrate Italian shoemaker and fashion house Tod’s and its rich history of artisanal craft. Titled ‘The Art of Craftsmanship – A Project by Tim Walker’, it traces the creation of some of the house’s most memorable products – like the classic leather ‘Di Bag’ and ‘Gommino‘ driving shoes – in the photographer’s typically surreal manner. Models grin from within giant spools of thread or balance on blown-up wooden shoe lasts, while a series of striking portraits see figures cocooned in enormous sheets of leather. 

Tod’s: ‘The Art of Craftsmanship – A Project by Tim Walker’

‘I spent a fascinating day at the Tod’s factory where I was able to witness the craftsmanship and skills that go into the products for myself, along with my set designer, Gary Card, and we both drew inspiration from this,’ Walker says of how the project began.

‘We wanted to let the specialist tools and methods play a starring role in the photographs. The artisan tools are so specific to the creation of Tod’s iconic products, we wanted to find a way to celebrate them in a slightly surreal way in the photographs, playing with perspective, and hopefully some with some wit.’

As such, alongside the thread and lasts, the images feature an array of tools that Tod’s has been using to create its shoes, handbags and leather goods for decades – from measuring tapes, scissors and wooden brushes, to more specialist instruments used to cut, stamp or perforate the leather. In one playful image, a series of these tools are stitched onto a leather glove and worn by a model, Edward Scissorhands-style. Though some images featured tools used in the Tod’s factory, many of them were huge 2D cut-outs created specially by Card – able to be sliced apart or pieced together like enormous collages.

‘We were largely experimenting with scale and perspective and with playful scenarios, using 2D cut-out props of the tools and models to create the images,’ Walker explains. ‘The disposable and temporary nature of the props we created for the shoot contrasts greatly with the creation of Tod’s products, which have a feeling of great quality and longevity, along with the highly specialised skills, acquired over many decades that we witnessed at the factory.’

These processes were at the heart of the project, which Walker said he wanted to celebrate in a riposte to the ‘increasingly digital world, where so much is being created on an industrial scale by machines’.

‘The value of craftmanship is increasingly precious. Detecting the hand of a skilled craftsperson in a product gives it a unique quality and very particular beauty,’ he continues. ‘The people I met at this company and their experience were the real source of inspiration.’

The exhibition takes place as part of Milan Design Week 2023, and is open to the public from April 19-22 2023, before travelling the world later in the year. Diego Della Valle, president and CEO of Tod’s Group, says the project with Walker is a chance to convey the house’s values to a new younger generation, ‘speaking their language’.

‘The Art of Craftsmanship - A Project by Tim Walker’ runs from April 19-22 2023 at Le Cavallerizze Museo Nazionale Della Scienza E Della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci, Milan.

tods.com

Join us as we take a flick through the fashion books currently taking pride of place on the Wallpaper* style desk – from visually enticing monographs and photographic tomes to limited-edition titles, they will act as elegant accompaniments to the coffee table or bookshelf of any style savant.

Here, selected by the Wallpaper* style team, a comprehensive guide to the best fashion books – including a lush new tome on the work of Irish designer Simone Rocha, an exploration of how directors dress from indie film producers A24 and a rare monograph from seminal designer Jil Sander.

The best fashion books for style savants

‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’ (Prestel, 2024)

Seminal German designer Jil Sander’s new monograph, ‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’, sees her consider an influential career with a kaleidoscopic visual journey through her collections. Hoping to evoke the energy of a runway show, the colourful images are curated alongside designer Irma Boom. ‘The mood of the book is true to the frenzy which overtook us every time we prepared a show,’ she told Wallpaper* in a rare conversation. ‘I knew that I didn’t want to achieve a classic coffee table book, so it was trial and error until we got there. The book packages all the shows into one.’ Read more.

‘Jil Sander by Jil Sander’, published by Prestel, is available from waterstones.com and barnesandnoble.com.

‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’ (Assouline, 2024)

Celebrating 100 years in business, Loro Piana’s luxurious new tome, ‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’, is a ‘story of excellence, savoir-faire, and passion for the extraordinary, passed down for six generations,’ according to author Nick Foulkes. Recounting the history of the Italian house, which is best known for its work in the so-called ‘noble fibres’ of cashmere, alpaca and vicuña, it takes readers on a journey through the family’s early years as wool traders, all the way to its status as the luxury mega-brand it is today. Part of Assouline’s ‘ultimate’ collection, it is housed in a case covered in Loro Piana Tela Sergio fabric and is entirely hand-bound.

‘Loro Piana: Master of Fibres’, published by Prestel, is available from assouline.com.

‘Simone Rocha’ (Rizzoli, 2024)

A new Rizzoli-published book explores the work of Irish designer Simone Rocha, who since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2010 has become one of London fashion’s most celebrated designers for her romantic, folklore-infused collections which straddle the sweet and the subversive. The lush tome – which draws on Rocha’s publishing expertise, having released numerous zines over the last decade – features an expansive catalogue of imagery, alongside contributions from figures including artist Cindy Sherman, photographer Petra Collins and the critic Tim Blanks. It also pays ode to two eternal influences to Rocha: the artist Louise Bourgeois, and Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo.

‘Simone Rocha’, published by Rizzoli, is available from waterstones.com and barnesandnoble.com.

‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ (Dover Street Market)

Róisín Pierce calls her art book ‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ a ‘love note to femininity, creativity, craft, and motherhood in its myriad forms’ – much like the Irish designer’s collections, which weave ancient Irish craft with a romantic vision of womanhood. Comprising a series of images photographed for the project by Jody Rogac of figures like Serena Motola, Frances von Hofmannsthal, Sinead O’Brien and the designer’s mother, Angie Pierce, the all-white ‘pocket book’ (‘a keepsake, a token’) also features interviews and poetry. ‘Imparting their wisdom throughout, their thoughts and views are allowed to flourish, unfiltered,’ says Pierce of the subjects. ‘Among the pages, they invoke the romantic nostalgia of the Gardenia, the sweetness of living in harmony with an uninvited mouse, the joy of being a voice in a choir, and the hope in resistance and revolt. There is no formula to femininity, and this book welcomes its abundance.’

‘O lovely one, girl that fell from a star’ is available exclusively at Dover Street Market Paris (doverstreetmarketparis.com).

‘How Directors Dress’ (A24, 2024)

Indie film production agency A24 adds to its burgeoning imprint with ‘How Directors Dress’, an exploration of the working uniforms of film’s best-known auteurs, from Sofia Coppola to Spike Lee. Comprising a series of essays – contributors include Hagop Kourounian (aka @directorfits), Rachel Tashjian, Lynn Yaeger and more – alongside archival imagery, A24 promise to use clothing ‘to tell exciting new stories about directors, their lives, their movies, and the times in which they were made’. The 256-page book also features a foreword from director Joanna Hogg, and an afterword from legendary Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.

‘How Director’s Dress’, published by A24, is available from shop.a24films.com.

‘Norbert Schoerner Prada Archive: 1998-2002’ (IDEA Books, 2024)

A new book published by IDEA, ‘Prada Archive 1998-2002’, documents the campaigns photographed for the Italian fashion house by German image-maker Norbert Schoerner. ‘I hear all the time, from art director friends, that [these are] the campaigns they see most frequently on moodboards,’ Schoerner told Wallpaper*, speaking on the legacy of his work with Prada. ‘It's a great compliment, to have had that sort of impact on photography, but by no means could we have anticipated that 20 years later [the campaigns] would have such a ubiquitous presence in visual culture.’ Art directed by Jonny Lu, Schoerner’s clean, hyper-real imagery is collated in the book, featuring era-defining models Angela Lindvall, Freddy Drabble, Mateo Renoir and David Annand. Read more.

Norbert Schoerner: Prada 1998–2002’s first run of 750 copies have sold out, though the book will be distributed to global retailers in the coming weeks. You can sign up at the IDEA Books website to be notified when new copies are available.

ideanow.online

Born in Oasi Zegna: The Book (Rizzoli, 2024)

‘Born in Oasi Zegna’ celebrates the history of the Italian house, tracing its roots back to the Biella Alps in Piedmont, northern Italy where Ermenegildo Zegna opened his first wool mill in 1910. Now designated a natural territory, the locale marks not only the birthplace of Zegna, but also a symbol of its ongoing dedication to the natural world: since the mill’s opening, Ermenegildo would begin planting conifer trees to foster the area’s ecosystem, which now number over 500,000. Combining archival imagery and contemporary illustrations, the book combines dramatic images of the Oasi Zegna landscapes with archival imagery from the house, alongside illustrations by Paolo Bacilieri, Cecilia Carlstedt and Giuseppe Ragazzini. Accompanying texts, meanwhile, are contributed by Italian journalist Chidozie Obasi. Read more.

’Born in Oasi Zegna: The Book’, with texts by Chidozie Obasi, is available now from zegna.com.

Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories (Thames & Hudson, 2024)

’Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories’ grants a closer look at one of the French house’s defining accessories, the silk scarf. A fascination of Christian Dior which has been adopted by the various designers who have helmed the house in the decades since – most recently, current womenswear creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri – the Maria Luisa Frisa-edited tome provides an ’atlas’ of memorable Dior scarves, organised thematically. These include ‘Paris’, ’Optical Effects’ and ’Cosmogonies’, among others, with accompanying photographs by Brigitte Niedermair. The result, says Dior, is ’an enchanting portfolio... a pluralistic odyssey’.

’Dior Scarves: Fashion Stories’, edited by Maria Luisa Frisa, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm (MoMA, 2024)

Last November (2023), British fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner was the latest participant in MoMA’s ‘Artist’s Choice’ series, which drafts an eclectic raft of creatives to curate an exhibition of their choice at the New York museum. Wales Bonner’s was titled ’Spirit Movers’, and comprised works which centre on sound, movement, performance and style ’in the African diaspora and beyond’. An accompanying book, published by MoMA, is titled ’Dream in the Rhythm’ and is deemed by Wales Bonner ’an archive of soulful expression’.

‘In this exhibition, ”Spirit Movers”, I was thinking a lot about what becomes embedded into artworks and materials,’ Wales Bonner told Wallpaper* when the exhibition opened. ‘I was thinking a lot about materials that have some kind of past life or the passing of time being evident in artworks. One of the things that has always been fascinating to me is how sound can be captured through different forms.’

‘Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm’, published by MoMA, is available from Waterstones and MoMA Design Store.

Fila: Timelapse (Rizzoli, 2024)

Fila: Timelapse, published by Rizzoli, provides an unorthodox, genre- and era-traversing history of the Italian sportswear brand and its enduring influence. Dreamt up by Italian journalist and fashion critic Angelo Flaccavento, the aim of the intriguing tome is to ’tunnel both past and present into a single, forward-looking vision’ including archival imagery of figures like Björn Borg – the tennis player would put Fila on the map – alongside essays, fiction and poetry from contributors including Charlie Fox, Silvia Calderoni, Jeph Burton, Rahim Attarzadeh and artists Karl Holmqvist and HB Hoyo. A foreword, meanwhile, comes courtesy of Fendi menswear and accessories creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi. Read more.

’Fila: Timelapse’, conceived by Angelo Flaccavento, is available to pre-order from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble (out 30 April, 2024).

Issey Miyake: 1960 to 2022 (Taschen, 2024)

Conceived by Midori Kitamura, one of Issey Miyake’s longtime associates, a new Taschen-published book provides a comprehensive guide to the Japanese designer’s innovative and imaginative collections. Visually rich, the book collates the most important moments from across the late designer’s expansive career. including the development of his signature polyester micro-pleats (which would later become Pleats Please Issey Miyake) alongside collaborations with photographers from Yuriko Takagi to Irving Penn. ‘Miyake liked to convey his ideas visually, so we used that framework as our starting point,’ Kitamura told Wallpaper*. ‘Miyake left us with a clear roadmap to follow, going forward. We have and will always carry this map in our pockets as we move forward, always carrying his dreams and his vision into the future.’ Read more.

‘Issey Miyake: 1960 to 2022’, initiated and conceived by Midori Kitamura, is available now Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses (Thames & Hudson, 2024)

A new book, Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses (Thames & Hudson), offers an unprecedented glimpse into the dramatic residences of the iconoclastic German fashion designer, best known for his tenures are Chloé, Fendi, and, of course, Chanel. The glossy coffee-table tome features a photographic portfolio of the various homes, from a gleaming Memphis-filled apartment in Monaco to 51 rue de l’Université in Paris, an opulent 18th-century hôtel particular he called home for several decades. Among it all, an extraordinary array of objets and art, a reflection of the eclectic inspirations behind his prolific career in fashion. Read more.

‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses’, with text by Patrick Mauriès and Marie Kalt, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Gabrielle Chanel (V&A Publishing, 2024)

Gabrielle ’Coco’ Chanel is the subject of an expansive new book published by the V&A to coincide with its blockbuster exhibition on the influential French couturier, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, which opened last September (until 26 February 2024). Titled, simply, ’Gabrielle Chanel’, the book spans her six-decade long career and pays particular focus to the garments themselves, which would mark a liberated new era for women’s fashion.

‘It’s about chic, simple clothing, looking at movement and the body,’ Oriole Cullen, who co-edited the book alongside curating the exhibition, told Wallpaper*. ’These elements she creates – the jersey, the little black dress, the suit – these are the things she comes back to time and again and refines them.’

‘Gabrielle Chanel’, edited by Oriole Cullen and Connie Karol Burks, is available now from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Givenchy Catwalk: The Complete Collections (Thames & Hudson, 2023)

Thames & Hudson’s ‘Catwalk’ series was made for the style enthusiast: each edition turns its lens on a fashion house or designer and documents their entire runway oeuvre, from Prada to Versace. The latest addition is Givenchy, which explores not only house founder Hubert de Givenchy’s tenure – defined by a demure Parisian elegance encapsulated by his seminal gowns for Audrey Hepburn – but those who followed at the house, including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Riccardo Tisci and Clare Waight Keller, alongside Matthew M Williams, who exited Givenchy in 2023. ‘In all its purity, I think Hubert created one of the most complex legacies in fashion, because it reaches far beyond dressmaking,’ explained Anders Christian Madsen, who co-authored the book, to Wallpaper*. ‘It’s synonymous with sophistication and good taste, and those ideas are hard to mess with.’ Read more.

Givenchy Catwalk: The Complete Collections, featuring texts by Alexandre Samson and Anders Christian Madsen, is available at Waterstonesand Barnes & Noble.

Yves Saint Laurent: Gold (Abrams, 2023)

The couturier Yves Saint Laurent was well-known for his bold, expressive use of colour, which included gold, a hue he called ’magical’. ’When reflecting a woman, it’s the colour of the sun,’ he once said. This magpie-like fascination is explored in Yves Saint Laurent: Gold, which provides the accompaniment to the exhibition ‘Gold, les ors d’Yves Saint Laurent’, which took place at Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris in late 2022. It holds up as a standalone book, though, featuring suitably glamourous imagery starring a phalanx of Saint Laurent muses, from Catherine Deneuve to Zizi Jeanmaire.

Yves Saint Laurent: Gold, featuring texts by Yvane Jacob and Elsa Janssen, is available at Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Shoes A-Z, the Manolo Blahnik Edition (Taschen, 2023)

Shoes A-Z, which explores the enormous archive of footwear at The Museum at FIT in New York City, has long been one of been of fashion’s most comprehensive tomes on the history of the accessory. A new edition of the landmark book – which features designs from Ferragamo, Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood and many more – comes complete with three prints by perhaps fashion’s best-known shoemaker, Manolo Blahnik. The limited-edition version – no doubt a collector’s item in the years to come – is completed with a ribbon-fastened portfolio to store the Fabriano prints, providing the perfect gift for any shoe aficionado.

Shoes A-Z. The Collection of The Museum at FIT. Manolo Blahník Edition, an edition of 1000, is available from Taschen.

Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy (Gallimard, 2023)

‘Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy,’ is a Gallimard-published book – created in association with Dior – which charts the couturier and painter’s lives in a unique joint biography. First meeting in the 1920s, the ‘designer of dreams’ Christian Dior and ‘painter of despair’ Christian Bérard became close friends and collaborators despite their contrasting personalities and approaches, with Bérard going on to decorate Dior’s first boutique, Colifichets, on Avenue Montaigne (the design included toile de Jouy motifs, now a house emblem). Alongside images by Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Lee Miller, and Irving Penn, as well as pictures of archival documents and objects, the book is a richly crafted narrative about the pair’s unique relationship. ‘All of Dior is in Bérard, all of Bérard is in Dior,’ says author Laurence Benaïm. ‘This book is not a two-headed biography – it is a meandering in the heart of a history haunted by dreams, affinities, and secrets sewn in the lining of vanishing time.’

Christian Dior, Christian Bérard. Joyful Melancholy, by Laurence Bénaïm, is available now from Waterstone’sand Barnes and Noble.

Thom Browne (Phaidon, 2023)

Thom Browne’s first monograph is released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the American designer’s eponymous label, featuring both original imagery of archival looks as well as explorations of Browne’s theatrical runway shows. Photographer Johnny Dufort has collaborated on the project, while Andrew Bolton – head curator of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – curates the various looks and provides the book’s introduction. The book is a design object in itself: enclosed in a clamshell box, the Irma Boom-designed tome features Browne’s grosgrain striped ribbon as a bookmark. ‘This is a must-have for any Thom Browne fan,’ says Phaidon. Read more.

Thom Browne: The 20th Anniversary Book, by Andrew Bolton and Thom Browne, is available from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

Chopova Lowena: Conversations with Angels (2023) 

Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena – the designers behind London-based fashion label Chopova Lowena – release their third book this July, titled ‘Conversations with Angels’ and starring actress Chloë Sevigny. In it, Sevigny stars as a version of the Snow Queen from the Danish fairytale (here reimagined by poet Precious Okoyomo), one of Lowena’s favourite stories as a child, while the pair’s A/W 2023 collection, inspired by 70s skiwear, appears throughout the Charlotte Wales-shot book. ‘We love creating books because it gives us a chance to completely express our vision in such a meaningful way,’ say Chopova and Lowena. ‘This one was such a special one, working with our long-time collaborator Charlotte Wales and the incredible Chloë Sevigny. It was so exciting to work with Chloë on Conversations with Angels, we are huge fans of her work and it was a dream to work with her.’

Limited edition.

Dior by Raf Simons (Assouline, 2023)

Published by Assouline, a new tome celebrates Raf Simons’ acclaimed tenure at Dior, where he was creative director from 2012 to 2015. Part of a six-part series exploring the Parisian house’s various artistic directors, the book documents Simons’ ‘infinitely contemporary purity’ which married the house’s heritage with a subversive modernity which has defined the Belgian designer’s work since the founding of his eponymous label in 1995. It also explores the passions that Simons shares with Christian Dior – architecture, art and gardens among them – and features ‘dress portraits’ by Laziz Hamani and texts from fashion journalist Tim Blanks.

Dior by Raf Simons, by Tim Blanks, is available from dior.com

Burberry (Assouline, 2023)

Burberry entered a new chapter last month when Yorkshire-born designer Daniel Lee began his tenure at the brand with a debut collection that drew inspiration from eclectic British dress codes (‘you walk down the street and you’re surrounded by people from so many walks of life, all living together,’ he said after the show at London Fashion Week). He also looked towards the British institution’s roots in functionality – Burberry was founded in 1856 to create clothing which would protect its wearer from the country’s unpredictable weather – a heritage which is celebrated with the publication of new book ‘Burberry’ (Assouline). Across five chapters, fashion critic Alexander Fury charts Burberry’s 165-year history for an exploration of ‘innovation, adventure and Britishness’ alongside 200 illustrations. Says Carly Eck, Burberry brand curator, archive: ‘This book, the only one to be endorsed by the brand in recent times, presents a panorama of the company’s extraordinary heritage, which deserves to be widely celebrated. It’s the stuff of legends.’

Burberry, by Alexander Fury, is available from burberry.com.

Macro (Jil Sander, 2023)

The latest in a series of books created by Lucie and Luke Meier in collaboration with international artists and photographers, ‘Macro’ sees the designers unite with Chris Rhodes who captures the brand’s A/W 2022 collection in a number of still-life images. A long-time collaborator, Rhodes reveals the unseen details of the Meiers’ collections – the aluminium heel of a black pump, lapis lazuli stones in a silver necklace, a heart-shaped ornament on a handbag – in the intimate images. ‘Macro is the testimony of a journey, of an idea that adds a different dimension to the purpose of Lucie and Luke Meier’s work,’ say the brand, ‘a suggestion on how design can be unconventionally perceived and displayed’.

Limited edition.

Chloé Catwalk (Thames and Hudson, 2022)

Coinciding with the house’s 70th anniversary, a new Thames & Hudson-published book provides a comprehensive history of Chloé and those who have shaped it – from founder Gaby Aghion to a young Karl Lagerfeld, and the slew of influential female designers who have helmed the house in the years since, among them Martine Sitbon, Phoebe Philo, Stella McCartney and current creative director Gabriela Hearst. Collating over 130 collections and 1,100 looks, ‘Chloé Catwalk’ provides a vivid portrait of the pioneering house that has sought ‘modernity, ease, vibrancy, optimism, freedom’ from its beginnings. ‘All I ever wanted was for Chloé to have a happy spirit and to make people happy,’ Aghion is quoted as saying in the book. It is the latest addition to Thames & Hudson‘s blockbuster ‘Catwalk’ series, this time authored by Lou Stoppard and featuring a preface by fashion critic Suzy Menkes.

Come Stai? (Bottega Veneta, 2022)

Earlier this year, Italian designer Gaetano Pesce created the set – including 400 entirely unique chairs – for Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore outing at Bottega Veneta. A new limited-edition book from the house, launched as part of Design Miami, documents the process. Alongside images of the set’s creation by Stephen Shore and Sander Muylaert, Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews Pesce about the project’s ‘ideation, approach and process’ as well as contributions from Blazy and Wallpaper* Milan editor Maria Cristina Didero. Like the chairs, each cover of the book is entirely one-of-a-kind.

Acne Paper Issue 17 (Acne Studios, 2022)

After a seven-year hiatus, Acne Paper – Stockholm-based fashion label Acne Studios’ cult print magazine – was relaunched last November as a ‘hybrid between a book and a magazine’ across 500 pages. This year, for its 17th issue, the brand says it is taking this idea of a hybrid ‘one step further’ – ‘[it is] part biography, part novel, part cultural art journal, part fashion magazine,’ describe the brand of the latest issue, which centres around a character named Atticus, ‘a fictional personality in the art world who [is celebrating] his 100-year birthday’. Across five chapters, his ‘memoir’ narrates a ‘cultured life’ which sees him journey from a dancer under choreographer Merce Cunningham to a luminary of the contemporary art scene. The biography also centres on Atticus’ relationship with partner Desmond, ‘[reminding] of a time when men who loved men, and women who loved women, were considered delinquents… [and recalling] the dramatic Aids epidemic and the many loved and talented people who perished with it.’ As such, a portfolio in the issue pays tribute to the work of real-life artists Darrel Ellis, Arch Connelly, Jimmy Wright, and Larry Stanton – the latter who will be celebrated in a special capsule collection by the brand – while contributions from contemporary photographers Luis Alberto Rodriguez, Paul Kooiker and an intimate self-portrait series by Ibrahim Kamara are intersected throughout.

Hand in Hand (Fendi, 2022)

Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Fendi Baguette, a new book from the Italian house sees the iconic handbag style reinterpreted by 30 artisans across Italy in a celebration of centuries-old craft – from brocade, embroidery and crochet to works in wood and marble. In the book – titled ‘Hand in Hand’ after the 2020 initiative of the same name which originally tasked the artisans with reinterpreting the accessory – these works are captured by Italian photographer Lorenzo Vitturi and accompanied by texts by art critic and curator Eugenio Viola, artist Aldo Bakker and ‘upcyclist’ Orsola de Castro. ‘It pleases me to work on certain techniques that, to me, seem unchanged – and then to observe how, when working by hand, an error can become a virtue. Indeed, an error can become the idea for innovation,’ says the bag’s original designer Silvia Venturini Fendi in an interview about the project in the book. ‘[It] is a couture initiative, because it presents Baguette bags that will not be replicated.’

Akris: A Century in Fashion Selbstverständlich (Rizzoli, 2022)

To coincide with Akris’ 100th-anniversary celebrations – the house was founded a century ago in St Gallen, Switzerland – a new book, ‘A Century in Fashion Selbstverständlich’, presents a history of the house through the lens of current creative director Albert Kriemler (grandson of Akris founder Alice Kriemler-Schoch). The large-format photobook features a portfolio of vintage Akris styles photographed by Iwan Baan at the 1960s brutalist extension of the university of St Gallen, alongside an essay by Swiss author Daniel Binswanger, comments by Kriemler himself, and archival imagery. ‘Selbstverständlich is the one single German expression [that] best encapsulates the Akris spirit for me,’ says Kriemler of the book’s title, which loosely translates to English as ‘natural’ or ‘self-evident’. ‘It perfectly conveys our aesthetic ideal of clothing, embodying an effortless modernity.’

Dior by Sarah Moon (Delpire & Co, 2022)

A new book from Dior celebrates the Parisian house’s relationship with French photographer Sarah Moon – ‘a delicate ode to multifaceted femininity, sublime in its complexity,’ as the accompanying blurb describes. Across three consecutive volumes, Moon captures pieces from the Dior archives – mostly at Fondation Le Corbusier or inside the archival spaces themselves – creating evocative images which ‘communicate the strength which emanates from the architectural silhouettes designed by Christian Dior and his successors’. Current creative director of the women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, who has continually commissioned women artists during her tenure for collaborations or show-set design, is a particular focus of the tome, with a 38-image portfolio of Chiuri’s work making up the book’s final volume.

The Colors of Sies Marjan (Rizzoli, 2022)

‘The Colors of Sies Marjan’ explores the brief but colourful history of Sander Lak’s cult New York label Sies Marjan, which shuttered in June 2020 after four years in business. The ‘highly personal’ book, as Lak describes, features archival imagery of Sies Marjan with a particular focus placed on the designer’s vivid and unexpected use of colour which was the bedrock of his work (‘Cookie Monster blue’, ‘Baskin Robbins pink’, ‘Lakers purple’ and ‘Post-it yellow’ are all described in the book). ‘The intention of a lot of books about fashion houses is usually within a marketing or PR-filled context, like an anniversary or store opening, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but this was something very different,’ Lak says of the book, which features contributions from artist Elizabeth Peyton, author Donna Tartt, and architect Rem Koolhaas, among others. ‘It was a chance for myself to give this chapter some closure.’

Annie Leibovitz (Taschen, 2022)

Originally published as part of Taschen's Sumo series – in which seminal cultural figures, including Helmut Newton, David Hockney and the Rolling Stones, are celebrated with limited-edition supersized monographs – Annie Leibovitz is rereleased in a new unlimited version. The comprehensive tome draws on 40 years of the American photographer’s work, from photojournalism for publications like Rolling Stone to her best-known celebrity portraiture in Vanity Fair and Vogue, as well as a number of photographs never before seen. ‘This is not a retrospective. It is a kind of potpourri. A roller coaster,’ Leibovitz says. ‘As you go through it, you forget what you saw in the beginning. You’re in another place toward the end.’

The Fendi Set: From Bloomsbury to Borghese (Rizzoli, 2022)

British designer Kim Jones became head of Fendi couture and womenswear in September 2020; his first collection for the house, the following January, melded Fendi’s famed Italian craftsmanship with his own British roots, looking towards the Bloomsbury Set for inspiration (particularly – Virginia Woolf, and her novel Orlando). The link, he said, was the way they were drawn to Rome – to its ancient monuments and Renaissance treasures – a journey he explores in a new Rizzoli-published book The Fendi Set (first released in January in the UK, it will arrive in the US at the beginning of April). Exploring Jones’ relationship with the culture-shaping group of artists, intellectuals and writers, it sees collaborator Nikolai von Bismarck photograph their famed gathering spots – Charleston House, Knole House, and Sissinghurst Castle – before heading to the set of the haute couture show in Paris, and then to Rome’s Villa Medici and Villa Borghese, where the histories of Fendi and the Bloomsbury Set meet. The photographs capture Jones’ own contemporary ‘set’ – Christy Turlington, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell among them – alongside original letters, diary entries and excerpts from Bloomsbury members.

GANNI: Gimme More (Rizzoli, 2021)

Ganni girls embody a celebratory, spontaneous, community and eco-aware spirit – one that has been captured within the pages of the Copenhagen-based brand's debut monograph GANNI: Gimme More. The vivid volume, published by Rizzoli, dives into the world of the sustainability-focused, pattern- and print-celebrating label. Look out for a photo essay documenting Ganni's home city, shot by longtime collaborator Ana Kraš; an insightful conversation with the label's creative director Ditte Reffstrup and a vivid visual collage piecing together the brand's raising-the-roof house parties. Laura Hawkins

Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections (2021)

In recent years, Versace catwalk shows have well and truly broken the internet. For the label’s Milan Fashion Week S/S 2022 offering in September, its campaign star Dua Lipa opened and closed a scintillating runway show, which featured a profusion of its signature motifs: tropical foulard silks, oodles of neon, safety-pin embellishments and a steamy hit of bare skin.

With the release of Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections, fashion fans can ogle their favourite catwalk collections from the brand – be it the animal-print and power-shouldered silhouettes of the S/S 1983 offering, or the cyber glamour of the S/S 2012 couture show. The volume, authored by esteemed fashion critic Tim Blanks, is paged chronologically and brings together more than 40 years of fashion shows, kicking off with Gianni Versace’s 1978 debut, in a carefully curated edit of some 1,200 images. LH

OBJECT-FORM.FORM!, by Samuel Ross (2021)

Samuel Ross' interdisciplinary mindset – that sees him bridge not only his fashion label A-Cold-Wall* but also his art and design practice SR_A – culminates in Object – Form. Form!, Ross' first major book celebrating the range and extent of his projects and collaborators. Leaf through this visual history of Ross' projects to date, which also features a gallery of short texts by friends, mentors and peers, including Virgil Abloh, Takashi Murakami, Daniel Arsham, Hans Ulrich Obrist and David Adjaye. LH

Vivienne Westwood Catwalk (2021)

Vivienne Westwood vanguards, unite! A veritable treasure trove of images and inspiration, Thames & Hudson-published Vivienne Westwood Catwalk celebrates 40 years of the legendary British designer’s runway collections. Take a coveted seat at the catwalk of over 70 collections and delight in 1,300 looks, that celebrate the historicism-rooted, renegade, punk and environmentalist aesthetic of Westwood. The volume, released in celebration of Westwood's 80th birthday, features an introduction and collection texts by fashion critic Alexander Fury, with contributions by Westwood herself and her partner in life and work Andreas Kronthaler. The book is bound with the brand's iconic tartan, first produced in 1993 and officially recognised by the Scottish register of Tartans. LH

Familiarity (Jil Sander, 2021)

Creative director and husband-and wife-duo Lucie and Luke Meier have collaborated with a cohort of legendary image makers, teaming up with Joel Meyerowitz on Sander's recent A/W 2021 campaign. Now the label has released Familiarity, a limited photographic volume, which sees five image makers, Anders Edström, Olivier Kervern, Chris Rhodes, Lina Scheynius and Mario Sorrenti, personally interpret the the Meiers’ designs. These images offer five distinct visual takes on the Sander aesthetic, which are united by Sander's clothing. The images have been captured inside photographers’ homes and gardens, bringing a sense of intimacy to the photographic series, and a notion of familiarity to elevated fashion. LH

Peter Lindbergh. Azzedine Alaïa (Taschen, 2021)

‘We met in 1979, I believe. Ever since, Azzedine and I are hand in glove. I photographed his collections and I have countless portraits of him,' said renowned German photographer Peter Lindbergh of his longtime friendship with Azzedine Alaïa, before he passed away in 2019. Alaïa and Lindbergh were united on many creative passions: a love for black and the celebration of the female form.

Now, a grayscale Taschen volume – launched in conjunction with the exhibition Azzedine Alaïa, Peter Lindbergh at the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa in Paris – celebrates the creative output of the two artist's, spanning atmospheric settings including the lamp lit streets of Paris and the windswept beach of Le Touquet, and featuring models and musicians including Naomi Campbell, Kristen McMenamy, Madonna and Tina Turner. The book – a must for Alaïa or Lindbergh-obsessed bibliophiles, also features contributions from Fabrice Hergott, director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la, photographer Paolo Roversi and Olivier Saillard, fashion historian and director of the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa. LH

Silicon Valley. No_Code_Life (Rizzoli, 2021)

When Italian label Tod's launched its No_Code trainer project – a line of silhouettes that adheres to technological and fabric innovation, and invites design visionaries to apply cutting-edge ideas to its designs – it demonstrated a synergy with the forward-thinking mindset of Silicon Valley, and its ascendancy of unicorn companies. Now, in celebration of the famed San Francisco location, and the site of spectacular start-ups, the label has launched a Rizzoli-published book which lenses Silicon Valley, in an alternative light, breaks through the venerated veneer of its streets.

For Silicon Valley. No_Code_Life, Tod's enlisted Iranian-American photographer Ramek Fazel to document the daily goings on in Silicon Valley. For 10 days he roamed its roads, armed with a Rolleiflex, shooting diverse portraits and panoramic views, from aerial shots of lengthy highways to employees armed with colourful Google-branded tote bags. The result is a colourful and multifarious presentation of Silicon Valley existence, rooted in reality, instead of millennial-infused myth. LH

Craig Green x Jack Davison (Limited edition at Dover Street Market, 2021)

In March 2021, London menswear designer Craig Green teamed up with photographer Jack Davison, on a poetic S/S 2021 visual set of images that captured Green’s sculptural, utilitarian and headpiece-accented designs. Now, in celebration of the project, Green and Davison have launched a print media extension of the collaboration, encompassed as a limited set of four riso-printed and saddle-stitched self-cover books, accompanied by Tyvek sheet posters, printed in a spectrum of colour variations. From midday tomorrow, 13 May 2021, a mere 30 sets of the books will be available, for free, for the public to collect from Craig Green’s space at Dover Street London. LH

Pucci (Taschen, 2021)

One designer who had the ability to imbue escapism into every garment was Emilio Pucci. The Italian designer was a doyen of dramatic, pattern-splashed clothing, which also had a boundary-pushing comfortable appeal, and was sported on the ski slopes and in the chicest summer resorts. Now, a Taschen released tome celebrates the history of the print-swathed Pucci dynasty, in a volume brimming with archival images, sketches and eye-catching ephemera. Pucci, features accompanying text by fashion critic Vanessa Friedman and is wrapped in a tactile fabric cover, with a selection of archive prints abounding in abstract swirls and tropical blooms. LH

Her Dior: Maria Grazia’s New Voice (Rizzoli, 2021)

During her creative tenure at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri has made feminism an integral part of her aesthetic expression, collaborating with revolutionary female artists including Judy Chicago and Tomasina Binga and creating silhouettes that explore the multi dimensional facets of womanhood. Now, a new publication by Rizzoli New York, brings together a host of female photographers, including Wallpaper* contributor Brigitte Niedermair, Nan Goldin, Sarah Moon and Laura Coulson, in a visual exchange exploring female identity.

‘Seeking a dialogue from the outset with these women artists, writers and activists, they themselves at times distant from me and from fashion, was party and parcel of my focus on the reasons and the situations that I believed we urgent, and that I wanted to put at the heart of my creative process,’ Chiuri explains in the volume’s Introduction. LH

Stazione Termini, Lookbook 2009-2021 (Drago, 2021)

Niccolò Berretta has been drawn to the anthropological bravura of August Sander and Diane Arbus since he first started taking pictures. ‘I see their work as a sort of catalogue of human beings yet with the search for the mysterious,’ he says. In 2009 he began taking photographs of some of the one hundred and fifty million passengers that pass each year through Rome’s Stazione Termini. Now 490 of them have been brought together in a chunky book published by Drago.

The first edition includes a glossy wraparound featuring models striding the streets of Esquilino in the 15th rione wearing REDValentino’s Spring/Summer 21 collection. Between the covers, we see couples dressed in matching shiny puffa jackets, a cigar smoking man in a finely tailored navy suit, stickered suitcases, knitted leg warmers, and sunglasses pushed up onto people’s heads. ‘I do not go beyond the mirror they see themselves in every day,’ Berretta says in the introduction. This is more than just a record of quotidian style, it is an archive of a city and its people in flux. ‘An integral part of this visual process is the environment: the advertisements, the construction sites, the cars, the street signs, the scenography that speak to their time. The subtitle Lookbook 2009-2021 is an ironic reference to the world of fashion in which everything is fleeting, fast and almost does not exist.’ Dal Chodha

MSGM 10! The (in)complete Brand Anthology (Rizzoli, 2020)

The vibrancy, pattern and eclectic flavour of Massimo Giorgetti’s MSGM is synonymous with modern Milanese design, and in celebration of the label’s tenth birthday, the brand has released a Rizzoli-published monogram, majestic in colour and warmth. The volume, which is visually inspired by a fanzine and was art directed by Giorgetti himself, features a mix of fashion-focused and personal memories, from his dogs Pane and Coda to effusive editorial images. With contributing texts from friends and collaborators including Maurizio Cattelan, super stylist Katie Grand and journalist Charlie Porter, this is a must read for any MSGM enthusiast. LH

Images (Jacquemus, 2020)

Simone Porte Jacquemus understands the transportive power of Instagram. The designer has long used the medium to convey the sun-drenched seduction his brand reflects, associated with the sand-lined shored of Southern France. During lockdown the designer even shot S/S 2020 digital campaign images with Bella Hadid, Barbie Ferreira and Steve Lacy, showcasing the uplifting results on the social media channel. Now, in his second publication to date, Jacquemus has released ‘Images’, a book of his favourite 321 Instagram images, edited down from the 85,041 pictures he has stored on his phone. The publication is a soothing snapshot of summer, boasting beachside shots, architectural and food close-ups and Jacquemus-clad portraits. They capture the energetic, warm and downtime-focused essence of the brand, whether you’re browsing the book from a sun bed in its founder’s beloved hometown Marseille, or city-bound on the sofa. LH

Sicily (Jil Sander, 2020)

We’re all in need of a touch of escapism right now, and lucky for us, Jil Sander’s Lucie and Luke Meier have just released a sun-kissed pictorial road trip around Sicily, lensed by photographer Olivier Kervern. The analogue amalgamation was first presented back in February at Milan Fashion Week at the brand’s Via Sant’Andrea exhibition space, and the sleek volume also serves up a series of portraits depicting the brand’s A/W 2020 offering. While road-tripping may feel out of reach, Sicily will feel out of the way enough when this book is held in the palm of your hands. LH

Sportmax (Assouline, 2020)

This Assouline-published volume by Luke Leitch and Olivier Saillard offers a pleasingly pictorial stroll through the five-decade history of the sports and casual wear-focused label Sportmax, founded in 1969 by Achille Maramotti. Sketches and advertising campaign images abound, highlighting the boldy saturated shades that define Sportmax’s aesthetic and capture the style signatures of the creatives who anonymously worked on the brand’s collections, including Nanni Strada, Jean- Charles de Castelbajac, Odile Lançon and Guy Paulin. LH

Prada Catwalk (Thames & Hudson, 2019)

When it comes to a Prada catwalk show, fans of the Milanese label delight in decoding the various archive Prada-isms which appear in each collection, be it S/S 1996’s icky ‘Formica’ prints, S/S 2000’s tessellated lipstick pattern, a heavy brown shoe or a pleated knee length skirt. Now, a new tome houses all of the brand’s catwalk collections in one place, from Miuccia Prada’s debut A/W 1988 runway offering, with its schoolgirl simplicity and utilitarian tailoring, to her S/S 2019 collection, boasting bourgeois takes on its signature nylon fabric, chubby Alice bands and swathes of grunge green satin. The Thames & Hudson published volume, written by fashion critic Susannah Frankel offers commentary on each collection featured, and boasts over 1,300 illustrations, making it the perfect printed tool for Prada fans everywhere, vying to decode the designer’s famed aesthetic, her obsessions and eccentricities and the brand’s boundary-breaking sensibility. LH

Chanel: The Impossible Collection (Assouline, 2019)

It’s fitting that this clamshell-cased tome, measuring nearly fifty centimetres in length, is purchased with a complimentary pair of white gloves. For ‘Chanel: The Impossible Collection' is a bookshelf treasure equal to the house’s signature bouclé tweed suit or its 2.55 handbag. This enormous edition is a tribute to the famed Parisian maison; its glossy pages are packed with fashion show shots, magazine editorials, newspaper cuttings, illustrations and portraits. As part of the volume, author and fashion critic Alexander Fury has also selected 100 iconic looks that represent the house, from the Little Black Dress to the day suit. ‘Let them copy, my ideas belong to everyone, I refuse no one,’ Gabrielle Chanel told The New York Times in January 1971. It’s hard to refuse this book too. LH

Fashion Central Saint Martins (Thames & Hudson, 2019)

Alexander McQueen, Phoebe Philo, Wallpaper* October issue guest editor Hussein Chalayan: some of the most lauded, experimental and innovative designers in the world began their fashion lives in the hallowed halls of Central Saint Martins in London. Fashion Central Saint Martins – published by Thames & Hudson and edited by the school’s programme director of fashion, Hywel Davies, and Cally Blackman, lecturer in fashion history and theory – takes a bold, collaged and archival amble through the art school’s fashion history, which began in 1938, when six years after its fashion school was founded by Muriel Pemberton, it began teaching fashion design and drawing.

Its colourful, cut-and-paste pages are divided into decades, allowing the reader to party alongside the school’s Blitz Kids Eighties alumni, like journalist Hamish Bowles and John Galliano before touring into the 2010s, the era of Craig Green, Charles Jeffrey and Molly Goddard. Expect pages packed with unseen student work, essays from guest writers including Sarah Mower and Judith Watt, and intimate insight into the student lives of some of fashion’s most important figures today. LH

Legaspi: Larry Legaspi, the 70s, and the Future of Fashion (Rizzoli, 2019)

‘It’s me fetishizing him through a fanboy filter’ says Rick Owens of the subject of his latest Rizzoli New York release, dedicated to the work and aesthetic of 70s unsung design hero Larry Legaspi, who created pioneering looks for musical behemoths including KISS, LaBelle and George Clinton. Owens’ men’s and women’s Glam Rock-ready A/W 2019 collection was also dedicated to the designer and featured sinched streamlined tailoring, platform boots and plenty of stage-ready make-up.

For the first ever book documenting LeGaspi’s work, Owens had unprecedented access to his partner’s archives – Legaspi died of Aids in 2001 – and the book is an amalgam of archive backstage imagery, tour posters and sketches, interspersed with newly Owens-lensed images of LeGaspi’s designs, alongside commentary from Patti LaBelle, André Leon Talley and Pat Cleveland. ‘Larry introduced a camp ferocity to the mainstream and helped set a lot of kids like me free,’ Owens adds. We urge you to get introduced too. LH

‘I have always had this strong link to the world of art, even before fashion,’ says Tod’s creative director Walter Chiapponi, who initially studied the discipline before shifting to design (and is a stalwart of Milanese fashion, with roles at Gucci, Miu Miu and Bottega Veneta before joining Tod’s in 2019). An avid collector – particularly of contemporary photography – he owns works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin, and Larry Clark, while Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat were the impetus behind a recent street art-inspired collection of accessories. 

Tod’s S/S 2023 at Milan’s Pirelli Hangar Bicocca

It was an altogether more monumental artwork that provided the backdrop for the designer’s S/S 2023 collection, shown in Milan this past weekend (it was his second runway show since prior to the pandemic, and his fourth full collection for the house). Taking place in the vast main hall of the Pirelli Hangar Bicocca – a former manufacturing plant for the Italian tiremakers, now a contemporary art institution – Anselm Kiefer’s permanent installation, The Seven Heavenly Palaces (2004), loomed over the runway. Comprising seven towers in concrete and lead, appearing as if made from sliced apart and stacked up shipping containers, it explores the themes that have run throughout the German artist’s output – spirituality, memory, civilisation.

‘Ruins are a beginning. They are not some sort of level zero,’ said Kiefer of the work at the time. ‘The towers in Pirelli Hangar Bicocca seem to have collapsed in on themselves, but their precarious situation, their nullity as well as our nullity makes us believe in our individuality.’

Chiapponi says he chose the space for its feeling of ‘poetic and philosophical reflection’, imagining the show as a ‘symbolic path, among these very high towers, where the rough material of the unbalancing, not perfectly aligned concrete blocks is in contrast with the clean, straight, precise, and very light lines of the garments’. (Kiefer initially found inspiration for the work in ancient Hebrew texts charting a spiritual journey towards God.) 

‘I like the space’s immensity, its prominence, and the fact that there are no barriers, but only a large open – but still closed – space. I especially love that there are no points of light, which makes everything more mysterious and melancholic.’

Opened by Carla Bruni and closed by Naomi Campbell, the collection saw archetypal womenswear – ‘essential pieces and iconic garments’ – filtered through the designer’s sensual, 1990s-inflected lens, with a particular focus on leather (lightweight and soft to the touch, the designer said he ‘treated it like a fabric’). ‘[It is] ethereal and grandiose,’ he says, a reflection of the space’s own majestic proportions. ‘Everything is dramatic, but in perfect balance.’

INFORMATION

tods.com

Seventeen months after it was originally slated to take place – in April 2020, when it was postponed because of the pandemic – Salone del Mobile once again graced the streets of Milano. While many of the usual suspects – Prada, Fendi, Marni, Louis Vuitton – opted to sit this Supersalone out, there was no less innovation to be found. Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele made a cartoleria pop-up complete with a mouse hole; Dior gathered 17 of the most esteemed artists in the world to interpret its iconic ‘Medallion’ chair; Giorgio Armani gave us spaghetti measurers and rolling pins; while Hermès crafted a world of fine fabric canopies. Here is the Wallpaper* edit of the best fashion brands at Salone del Mobile 2021.

Fashion brands at Salone del Mobile 2021

Dior

Dior took over the newly refurbished Palazzo Citterio to unveil its ‘Medallion’ chair project. As guests mingled in the Dior-ified gardens, in the concrete depths of the basement, 17 artists – including India Mahdavi, Joy de Rohan Chabot, Sam Baron and Khaled El Mays – presented their interpretation of the Louis XVI-style seat that Monsieur Dior chose as one of the interior emblems of his fashion house on Avenue Montaigne in Paris back in the mid-1940s. The collective result was a reminder of the contemporaneous spirit of the fashion house and its enduring codes. Speaking about the project as well as her own approach, Mahdavi told Wallpaper*: ‘Beauty comes from the strength of the lot; they’re separate but connected and it’s that togetherness that I like.'

Hermès

Staged at La Pelota, Hermès enlisted Hervé Sauvage on set design to create five hand-painted structures in which to house the Paris-based brand’s collection. Designed to celebrate the tension between different textures, guests were invited to crunch around the softly lit space with sand underfoot, a detail which emphasised the raw nature of each room’s curated contents. Inside the imposing constructions sat pieces ‘designed to be touched': its ‘Sillage’ armchair made from recycled paper fibres; its elm and calfskin jewellery boxes; the enamelled copper ceramics from its ‘Sialk’ collection; and cashmere blankets hoisted on wooden poles. With Manuel Rocha Iturbide, Antonio Fernandez Ros and Rogelio Sosa behind the sound design, it became a sensory homage to the physicality of craftsmanship.

Tod’s

Tod’s enlisted New Jersey-based artist Willie Cole for its installation at its Montenapoleone flagship. The contemporary artist, who has carved out a reputation for using discarded domestic items such as hairdryers and irons during his five-decade career, was given free rein in the Tod’s factory to make three sculptures using leftover materials from the production line. The result was a chair, a sofa and a sculpture using the uppers of the brand’s signature driving shoes. ‘The thing that interests me is recycling beyond sanitation,' Cole told Wallpaper*. ‘My work is all about “play”.’ To complement his creations, the brand launched its limited-edition ‘Mosaic’ collection, which uses a traditional patchwork technique, and the offcuts from its mainline collections.

Valextra

Valextra teamed with its neighbour Tom Dixon on a project that saw the brand stage Dixon’s ten-piece ‘Black Light’ exhibition in its Via Manzoni flagship. For his installation of ten huge light sculptures, Dixon took his cues from Milanese masters including Gio Ponti, Achilles Castiglioni and Ettore Sottsass. For its part, Valextra looked to the traditional Italian art technique of chiaroscuro – meaning to contrast light and shade – to create a collection of the same name that juxtaposed its multidimensional leathers in four of its iconic handbags: the ‘Iside’, the ‘Tric Trac’, the ‘Bucket’ and the ‘Brera’. The result saw two disciplines come together, said Valextra CEO Xavier Rougeaux, to ‘pay homage to Milan, its masters and celebrate the symbiosis between design and urban craft’.

Gucci

Alessandro Michele created every stationery aficionado’s nirvana with his Gucci Cartoleria pop-up on Via Manzoni, which celebrated the lauch of the Florentine brand's Lifestyle collection. A bona fide treasure trove of pencils, pens, notebooks, pencil cases, paperweights and board games (catnip for early-bird Christmas shoppers when they launch online this week), the space was an ode to the small Italian shops of Michele’s childhood. ‘I imagined a small cabinet of curiosities, a Wunderkammer, like the cave of Ali Baba, that could accommodate these everyday objects and return them to a fairy-tale dimension,' he explained. In his signature whimsical style, Michele incorporated an overhead upside-down train track, a sensor-activated chess set, and a mouse hole complete with a miniature living room at foot level. It was conceived, he said, to restore a sense of wonder to everyday life – and it did.

Armani Casa

Things you now need that you didn’t know you needed ten seconds ago: an Armani rolling pin, spaghetti measurer and chopping board. For his Armani/Casa 2021 collection, Giorgio Armani wanted to ‘express all the dimensions of the concept of “living at home”’, hence the handy additions to a collection that caters to spending lots of time in it. The brand’s first desk chair and a huge new eight-seater square table are joined by an internally lit room divider and a new limited-edition cylindrical bar cabinet, all making the home user-friendly in the most luxurious – aka the most Armani – of ways. He’s considered the garden, too. The ‘Robespierre’ barbeque set, the ‘Rovo’ gardening bag (complete with wooden-handled tools) and the ‘Regni’ cashmere and wool rug that doubles as a chess board with supersized leather pawns take outside living to another level.

Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake staged ‘In The Making’ in its Tokujin Yoshioka-designed Via Bagutta store. Presenting the construction process behind two of the brands under its umbrella, Im Men and A-Poc Able Issey Miyake, it affirmed its longstanding textile-innovation credentials. First up, the ‘Flat’ (whose construction is inspired by 132 5 Issey Miyake) and the ‘Convertible’, which condense into briefcase and crossbody bags and are crafted from the husk of sugar cane. Next up, its ‘Type-I’ project, which involves a process that uses Triporous, a material made from rice husks (100 million tonnes of which are discarded globally every year, the brand pointed out), and achieves a unique shade of black that cannot be done through conventional dyeing techniques. These projects were joined by a presentation of collaborations with Tadanori Yokoo and Fabio Bellotti, both of whom have been working with the brand since the 1970s.

Rick Owens

Rick Owens and Michele Lamy collaborated with Galerie Philia founder Ygaël Attali to engage ten emerging Italian designers to create pieces inspired by Owens’ furniture. ‘My furniture is my couture,’ declared the designer about his one-of-a-kind projects, which here sat alongside the pieces designed in his honour. A marble chair by Pietro Franceschini and a floating glass and brass vase by Agustina Bottini stood opposite a bronze bollard lamp by Owens. Atop Owens’ alabaster and moose-antler ‘Stag T’ side table sat a sculpted brass candleholder by Samuel Costantini, both illuminated by a brass and silicone ‘Howl’ light installation by Morghen. ‘Rick’s work is brutalist, dark and rough and some things here are very soft,’ said Attali. ‘To mix them creates a discussion [between materials] and a dialogue between Rick and the Italian designers.’

Stone Island

Salone’s delay has rendered the fifth installation of Stone Island’s Prototype Research Series, its experimental numbered-garment project, all the more beautiful. The brand experimented by applying a nanometric copper layer through a vapour deposition technique onto a fabric bonded with its signature raso cotton, and made 100 trench coats. The plan was to investigate the natural oxidation characteristics of copper in a fashion context using industrial processes (the first time a fashion brand has used this particular type of technology); the result was a fabric that has a stunning iridescent camouflage-like surface texture but became completely unbonded in the time since the coats were made, the bonding ‘eaten by the same oxidisation', explained creative director Carlo Rivetti; it means the pieces can’t – like previous collections – be sold. ‘This is the unfiltered story of an unfinished research process,’ he added. ‘Each step has taught us important things which will be important for the future, regardless of the goal achieved.’

Kassl Editions x Zara Home

High-street juggernaut Zara Home and indie Amsterdam label Kassl Editions presented their limited-edition homewares collection at the former’s flagship on Corso Venezia. With the first floor devoted entirely to an exhibition to present the tie-up, it made for a bold statement of design democratisation and one for which Kassl Edition’s ‘Pillow’ sofa (originally conceived for Wallpaper’s Re-Made initiative in collaboration with Muller Van Severen) was reinvented. Joined by art prints, flat-weave rugs, reversible mirrors and lacquered wood furniture that can triple as tables, shelves or plinths, the modular collection caters to design enthusiasts on a budget.

La DoubleJ

Supersalone saw La DoubleJ founder JJ Martin ‘activate a hunch and bring back the bat’. Stemming from the themes of spirituality for which the womenswear brand is becoming increasingly known, Martin commissioned the artist JoAnn Tan to help turn the basement of the brand’s new Via San Andrea store into a bat cave-cum-craft installation to celebrate the spirit animal. Martin’s vision came to life through Tan’s suspended bat lamps, made from turned walnut, Italian silk, and Hermès leather on the wings, and which each took one week to complete. The event provided a first opportunity for many to see inside the space, which opened this April, as well as see the brand’s new Miniscalchi homewares collection. Highlights include a set of porcelain plates featuring patterns that first appeared on tableware made for Napoleon Bonaparte’s visit to Verona, here rendered in bubblegum pink (‘because this is La DoubleJ!' laughed Martin), and an extension of the brand’s collaboration with Venetian glassmaker Salviati on smoky sets of liquor glasses.

Versace

Donatella Versace called on Milanese architects Roberto Palomba and Ludovica Serafini to translate Versace’s fashion-house codes for Versace Home in a bid to have a more ‘3D vision of [the] Versace environment’, explained Palomba. Staged in Versace’s Via Durini space, which opened in April, everything hinged on the Greca pattern, which debuted in the A/W 2021 ready-to-wear collection. It manifested here in cushions, bed linen and wallpaper in green, blue, pink and brown. Deliberately less extravagant than Versace Home of old, this collection marks a move towards a clean-lined aesthetic and a focus on details over drama. Symbols synonymous with the house – including the gold safety-pin and Medusa head – arrived as subtle details such as zips and buttons on the new leather ‘Venus’ armchair and buttons on the made-to-share ‘Signature’ sofa. ‘Donatella is the icon for a new generation of women, and we made a house for her to represent her: she wants to hunt, rather than be hunted,’ said Palomba. 

Off-White

Salone may see few brands designing with dorm rooms in mind, but then most brands aren’t Off-White. Creative director Virgil Abloh collaborated with the ceramicist Ginori 1735 on its new homewares collection, which comprises a tea set, serving platters and dinner plates in the Florentine company’s classic white porcelain, all graffitied with Off-White’s tag. ‘This is a collection for the modern dining room – whether formal in a home, a millennial apartment, or simply a dorm room,’ said Abloh of the first instalment of the collaboration (the next will land in 2022). ‘The imposition of the modernity of a logo and graffiti art with the respected house of Ginori 1735 is proof that good design can live on forever.' Studying just got a whole lot more civilised.

Loro Piana

Famed for its deliciously luxurious textiles, Loro Piana looked to the past, the present and the future to create three stories that celebrate fabric for its Salone presentation at its Montenapoleone store. First up it commissioned Gabetti & Isola to create an exclusive version of its iconic ‘Bul-bo’ lamp (originally created in the late 1960s); as the new ‘Bul-bo Soft’, its base is covered in cashmere and contrasting Altai wool fabric. Next up, an interpretation of the classic director’s chair by Exteta and Paola Navone-Studio Otto, which has resulted in the ‘Delight’ chairs, covered in an outdoor fabric conceived by Loro Piana that is light, salt-, chlorine- and fungus-resistant. And finally, there’s the ‘Palm Duet’ chaise longue, a creation by Raphael Navot made exclusively for Loro Piana and upholstered in Cashfur, a novel fabric made from combining cashmere and silk on circular knitting looms.

Etro

After the best part of 18 months spent at home, it’s little surprise that bar cabinets have made a celebrated return. Etro’s new offering, the ‘Rajan’, is equipped with bronze glass and lined in a champagne paisley print (naturally). It forms one of the elements of the brand’s ‘Intimate Dining' collection on display at its Via Pontaccio store, where it is joined by its new ‘Klee’ round dining table, complete with a dinner-party friendly lazy Susan; the suitably sumptuous ‘Kush’ armchair, which is studded in gold; and the ‘McKenzie’ glass lamps, which drop like jewels from the ceiling.

Missoni

Missoni had a three-fold presence across the city. Its Via Sant’Andrea boutique hosted its Virgila Soft loungers and circular Art Glass tables. On display at its Brera HQ was its new collection of Miss Wood chairs - rounded wooden sculptures which have been polished and painted in degrade pastel hues so to appear almost plastic in their structure - and its new Grandma armchair suite featuring curved Walnut arms and upholstered in five variants of its famed zigzag textile. But it was at the Universita Statale di Milano where the world of Missoni Home came to life: modular outdoor sofas and square poufs covered in its water-repellent Andalusia stripe stood in the shadow of a huge Missoni vase covered in an intricate mosaic by the famed Venetian furnace Orsoni Venezia 1888. Creative Director Rosita Missoni, who turns 90 in November, told Wallpaper* that it was a joy to be designing items that allow people to enjoy being outdoors, something she has personally relished since the start of the pandemic.

Sunnei

Milan-based Sunnei partnered with its fellow Milanese brand and long-term collaborators NM3 on an installation outside its Via Vela flagship to celebrate the Super Salone. The cuboid metallic seating structure features a maple tree in the centre and was designed to bring the inside out, creating a tranquil oasis in the heart of Milan’s urban centre – in signature low-key-chic Sunnei style. The design duo behind the brand, Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, used the occasion as an opportunity to spruce up their collection space too, where they presented their autumn/winter 2021 collection, AKA the uniform of Milan’s design-centric cool crowd.

Roberto Cavalli

Taking its leave from its new designer Fausto Puglisi’s first menswear collection for the house in June, the Roberto Cavalli Home collection on display at its Via Montenapoleone flagship was all about optimum glam (before arriving at the house, Puglisi was famed for dressing Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, so no surprise there). The result was two threads: the new Wild Dining and the Wild Suite. Brushed bronze tables, brass chandeliers and a bookshelf panelled in Wild Tiger fabric were met with animal-print bed linen, silk pillow cases and black leather bed frames, while the home office gets a suitably decadent update with a jewel-handled gold desk. 

Berluti

Berluti enlisted the talents of Spanish furniture designer Jorge Penadés to repurpose leather offcuts from its ready-to-wear collections to create three pieces of furniture that were unveiled in its new Montenapoleone flagship. After gathering a mound of multicoloured pieces, Penadés created what he has coined “Structural Skin”; it’s a wood-like structure that saw him compress the leather with natural glue in a bespoke mould and leave them to dry for weeks before cutting and sanding them down. Taking on a rock-like appearance similar to that of agate, his creation has formed the legs for a glass and steel table, the base of a table lamp, and keyring cords. Plans are to produce them in a numbered and limited-edition series, with only five of each available.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on our physical lives, this month's A/W 2021 menswear shows are taking place largely online. But a lack of a physical audience doesn't make for a lack of creativity, and designers continue to evolve using alternative digital mediums. Here, we round-up the brands that are catching our attention, and determining the fashion trends of 2021, from Pitti to Paris.

Prada

The show’s AMO-designed set - a series of rooms swathed in shaggy faux fur, marble and resin - reflected the starting point of the collection: ‘The need to feel, the pleasure of tactility.’ Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada’s sophomore creative outing centred around a star piece - the intarsia knit long john - which as a second skin, was layered under pinstripe suits, paired atop of shirts and roll necks, or popped beneath brightly-hued oversized coats. The effect nodded to the odd style rituals we’ve picked up in the post pandemic world, like the Zoom meetings attended in smarts and slacks or evening wear paired with indoors shoes. Silhouettes were simultaneously concealing and revealing, swathed or stood away from the frame, like XL MA-1 bomber jackets (a Simons favourite) imagined in fuschia leather and all-in-ones swathed in retro patterns. ‘Juxtaposition of colour, juxtaposition of softness and hardness, to express the reality of the world,' Simons explained of the collection, as part of a Q+A after the show's live stream, featuring questions from students around the world.

Fendi

Creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi turned techno queen for A/W 2021, not only designing the brand’s menswear offering, but creating the vocals for its soundtrack too. ‘Hello, it’s Silvia. I just wanted to tell you about normality. What is normal today?’ she said at the opening to Fendi’s runway film-come-music-video, which featured models striding through a mirrored tunnel, illuminated with neon tubing, designed by Bureau Betak. The chromatic collection was a nod to the new silhouettes that suit our at-home, comfort-focused lives, from robe coats to quilted silk  boxing shorts, cable knit salopettes to suits with piped pyjama hemlines. An unexpected artistic collaboration came courtesy of Noel Fielding, who created scribbled dreamscapes, which were emblazoned across outerwear and knitwear.

Martine Rose

Peering from our windows across urban streets, where its inhabitants are largely confined indoors, we’ve gained new insights into our neighbours lives, like their home workout rituals, their morning routines or what time they walk their dog. This intimate sense of voyeruism was reflected in Martine Rose's A/W 2021 offering ‘What We Do All Day’, which was presented as part of an interactive digital presentation, allowing viewers to access a simulated housing block from their screens, before sneaking Through the Keyhole-style into its different apartments. Viewers were treated to a series of domesticated films, watching Martine Rose-clad home-goers across the globe, from Nairobi to Toronto, enact their every day routines. The virtual tour was created in collaboration with experience studio International Magic – who recently worked on an AR project with Judy Chicago. The most famous guest in the housing block? Drake, tuning in from a recording studio in Toronto, clad in Martine Rose football shirt.

MSGM

Struggling to adapt to the shifts in today’s new normal has been dizzying, a feeling that the Italian label’s founder Massimo Giorgetti has so identified with, he titled his autumn offering ‘Vertigine’. Giorgetti was searching for something steadying as inspiration, settling on the peace and reassurance he takes from snow-topped landscapes. His collection of Nineties-inspired alpine wear features jacquard fleece gilets, lug-soled boots, cornflower blue puffer jackets and check cargo shorts, styled alongside bowling shirts and jackets with retro ski resort-centric prints, inspired by 1930s postcards from Chamonix, St Moritz and Courmayeur. Giorgetti also mined his archive for inspiration, reinterpreting a motif into a ‘trees on acid' print, inspired by the feeling of lying on the ground and staring into a tree-filled sky.

Ermenegildo Zegna

‘We all are experiencing a new reality concerned with new needs, which lead us to previously unseen lifestyles and attitudes. It is precisely at a time like this, when everything is under discussion, that we, at Zegna, have decided to (Re)set,’ said the Italian label’s artistic director Alessandro Sartori. In a film directed by Mattia Benetti, models strode through different rooms of a luxurious, caramel-toned home – passing others playing chess, eating pasta, or reading the newspaper - clad in Sartori’s organically-hued take on indoors dressing. Cashmere suits were slouchy with robe-inspired jackets, shirts were swapped for shawl collared sweaters and slippers were crafted from hand-cut jersey. Zegna's ‘wfh' look is infinitely comfortable and luxurious, two essential tenets for the contemporary man's wardrobe. 

Tod's

For A/W 2021, creative director Walter Chiapponi took viewers to the Villa Ronchi in Vigevano, designed by Giuseppe De Finetti in 1936, for a film starring young actor Lorenzo Zurzolo, who we meet spending seven days alone learning lines for a script. Familiar themes for today, Zurzolo muses on the notion of time and the experience of isolation during his stay, musing on the ‘parallel reality' he finds himself in. As part of the film, viewers witness Zurzolo assessing different outfits in a three-part mirror, which reflect Chiapponi's take on today's relaxed yet sophisticated mood. Cue quilted jackets and overcoats, college sweatshirts and cardigans, all imagined in a subtly retro colour palette of greys and greens. The hero accessory of the collection? An XL ‘T’ logo shoulder bag for stowing all your shopping.

Woolrich

‘Functionality, comfort, versatility’ - three words that represent not only the brand DNA of the American outerwear label, but also the essentials of our clothing. Woolrich's A/W 2021 collection ticked all of our dressing boxes, with the brand presenting the three elements of its collection, ‘charming versatility’, ‘authentic comfort’ and ‘iconic performance’ in a cinematic film, which saw technicolour models juxtaposed against grayscale urban and rural landscapes. To encourage optimism, we'll be opting for pieces in purple, olive and burnt orange, which are rain-resistant, windproof and modular in their design. 

Sunnei

Brands from Balenciaga to Gucci have got their game faces on it recent weeks, celebrating collection launches through their own interactive gaming landscape or through platforms including Pokémon Go. For A/W 2021, Sunnei got in on the arcade-inspired action, inviting fans to feast their eyes on its latest offering through a gaming format. Here, players were able to select their chosen avatar and runway look before entering a combat situation, which required throwing rubber dipped hoop earrings at their opponent. The gaming platform taps into the interactive element behind Sunnei’s offering: ‘Sunnei Canvas' allows buyers worldwide to adjust their orders through a digital platform, such as altering the shape, material and colour of the brand's Dreamy Shoes.

Hed Mayner

The designer - who spends his time between Paris and Tel Aviv - celebrated the performance of getting dressed, something many of us have lost touch with over the last twelve months. So, silhouettes were exaggerated and oversized, like Judo seam trousers that ruch at the ankle, double breasted jackets with large lapels and rounded shoulders and suits with dropped shoulders. For spring, Mayner's ‘supple architecture’  imagined in butter, rust, ivory and copper and places focus on the tactility of fabrics, including tweed, cashmere and English cloth. Standout pieces include tabards deconstructed into open front ponchos and slouchy leather boots that beckon to be tucked into with a trouser.

JW Anderson

The London-based brand tapped Juergen Teller to shoot the images for its A/W 2021 menswear and Pre-Fall 2021 womenswear collection. Shooting in Teller’s studio last month, the photographer has transformed models, including actress and singer Sophie Okonedo into living sculptures, sporting exuberant and oversized silhouettes, including architectural trousers with XL side panels, long mohair tunics which tie at the waist and dresses with leg of mutton sleeves. Inspired by Dutch still life paintings, vegetables including carrots and butternut squashes are printed onto hoodies and shearling bodices are dyed bold hues by hair stylist Anthony Turner. Like the uplifting and immediately collectors' item printed matter Jonathan Anderson created last season to accompany his spring collections, the designer created a poster book of Teller’s images, produced in collaboration with OK-RM, annotated by Teller himself with confusing conceptual effect, and posted it to global guests in cardboard triangular mailing tubes .

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake attracts loyal fashion fans, who once they’ve felt the soft folds of its signature silhouettes, opt to wear nothing else. For Homme Plissé Issey Miyake's A/W 2021 collection, the Japanese label celebrated its signature fabrics and shapes, whilst positing on how to launch them into the future. In a film directed by Kyotaro Hayashim, models moved to the rhythm of the brand’s mythic pleating machines, sporting slouchy pieces in newly developed fabrics. This included trousers pleated using a fabric woven with yarn-dyed polyester which resembles the texture of tweed, printed cagoules inspired by the shapes of hand woven baskets, relaxed jewel tone pleated suits in raspberry and cerulean and shapes formed from the brand's signature pleated polyester, but in 100% recycled form.

Rick Owens

Owens chose a poignant reference to reflect the purgatorial state the world finds itself in - the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night before the crucifixion. The designer always errs on the apocalyptic, peppering his collections with Biblical and pagan overtones, and his A/W 2021 silhouettes were shaped to protect its wearers from the end of days, featuring skinny ribbed knitwear with oddly shaped holes, cropped puffer jackets and religious robes reimagined as recycled cashmere sweaters and leather leggings. The collection was severe and seductive, revealing and rebellious. The most devilish of details? Models strode in tighty wighty briefs with 5 point pentagram-detail flys, paired with thigh high cow hide over-the-knee boots. He described the combination as reflecting ‘unhinged male energy.' Sound familiar?

Louis Vuitton

Pioneer of democratization and diversity, Virgil Abloh has worked to change the stereotypical image of the fashion designer - white, bourgeois and working from an ivory tower. For Vuitton’s A/W 2021 collection, Abloh was fascinated by archetypal characters, like the ‘drifter’ and the ‘architect’, and how we shape meaning and impression from the dress codes associated with them. In a runway film-come-music video, directed by Josh Johnson, models strode in an indistinguishable setting, resembling an airport lounge or art gallery, clad in thickly grained green marble, sporting styles that satirized definition, like hoodies and denim overlaid with tartan drapes formed from Ghanian Kente cloth, and trompe l’oeil jackets that resembled architectural models of Paris and New York.  

The collection asked viewers to free themselves from definition and restriction, and Abloh drew on James Baldwin’s 1953 essay Stranger in the Village, which focuses on the parallels between Baldwin’s experiences as an African-American man in a Swiss village and his life in America. Saul Williams and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) both provided spoken word overtures as part of the performance. ‘Take down the walls. Deconstruct the narrative,' Williams commanded.

Dior

Kaws, Raymond Pettibon, Hajime Sorayama, Daniel Arsham, Amoako Boafo: a whole host of artists have worked with Kim Jones to bring his street-smart yet haute couture technique-celebrating vision to Dior. For A/W 2021, Jones teamed up with famed Scotland-born figurative painter Peter Doig, whose artworks were transposed onto the maison’s collection, and pieces balanced the pomp of ceremonial attire with a contemporary mood. Militaristic frock coats were reworked with star motif buttons and paired with side stripe detail trousers and wellingtons, painterly jacquard camo cagoules and cargo pants were teamed with snow boots and bowler hats, and thick ribbed jumpers were pinned with twinkling brooches resembling military medals of honour. The look was luxurious yet laid back, flamboyant but with Jones' signature sporty flair, with painterly pieces imagined in Doig-esque tones, like vibrant orange and lemon yellow and moodier purples and greens.

Paul Smith

Unable to visit museums or exhibitions, Smith thought back to the subcultures that have passed him by over the last half decade of his career. His A/W 2021 collection moves through mod, skin head and punk and nods to Northern Soul, featuring an array of relaxed and refined silhouettes, from sharp four button suits in tartan flannel to ankle skimming trousers, painterly floral print overcoats to striped knitwear. Smith thought back to Northern Soul obsessives, who after a night dancing came to his Nottingham store the next morning, testing out the movability of floral Hawaiian print shirts by doing backflips. ‘I used to import boxes of Hawaiian shirts from America,' he says. ‘Usually 20 were good and 30 went straight in the bin.' The other references he drew on? Sharp double-breasted blazers or a ‘posh person's jacket,' paisley print denim jeans and jackets inspired by 'uniform dressing for a night out'  and the louche lockdown wardrobe of someone popping from home to the shops - silk pyjamas with a merlot pea coat popped on top.

Lemaire

There’s always been a luxe practicality behind the Parisian label’s aesthetic, which focuses on expertly crafted designs for everyday living. These tenets resonate today more than ever, and its founders Sarah-Linh Tran and Christophe Lemaire, described the brand's A/W 2021 offering as ‘concise' and ‘essential'. In a film which saw models including composer Jaakko Eino Kalevi and electronic DJ and producer Elena Hauff stroll round a darkened space, models walked in pared-back city essentials in organic hues, that touched on oversized Eighties suiting and utilitarian silhouettes, which could be layered and paired together in versatile ways. There were degradé trench coats, soft puffer jackets and loose tailoring, soft cardigans and multi-pocket waistcoats. Pops of colour emerged in pillar box red suits, and accessories slouched and curved around the body, like oversized cross body shoulder bags and backpacks.

Hermès

One of the benefits of brand’s presenting their shows digitally, is that away from physical runways, luxury houses have approached presentation with a more relaxed ease. At Paul Smith, models smiled to the camera and at Martine Rose, we saw them carrying out everyday domestic activities. At Hermès, menswear designer Véronique Nichanian teamed up with fellow Parisian Cyril Teste of Collective MXM on a live digital performance featuring seven split screens, allowing its audience to focus on different perspectives, as models talked and mingled on the stairs of the Mobilier National. For autumn, the mood was luxurious and laid back, and silhouettes were imagined in a spectrum of rich hues from mustard to petrol blue, lime green to raspberry. Models strode in ribbed knitwear and tactile jogging bottoms, untucked shirts and workman's jackets, all imagined in the brand's signature sumptuous fabrications, from cashmere canvas to calfskin.

Jil Sander

Unsurprisingly the home has featured as a domestic setting for many of A/W 2021’s presentations and films. For Sander’s autumn offering Lucie and Luke Meier, transported its audience to the dilapidated interior of Château de Franconville in France, with peeling walls and crumbling ceilings, in a film shot by Stephen Kidd. The tactility of the setting reflected the textural layers in the collection,  alongside funnel neck pea coats, zip-detail suiting and tartan mohair jackets, featured chunky knit sweaters and silver jewellery. The latter formed a protective layer, with circular beaded necklaces stacked over roll necks and outerwear. Even more reinforcing were the laced wellington boots in sorbet shades, layered on top of trousers.

Ernest W. Baker

In a film inspired by dream sequences, and drawing on the surrealist tropes of Wim Wenders and David Lynch, Inês Amorim & Reid Baker presented their A/W 2021 offering through using distorted filmic landscapes. The label, which has a foundation in tailoring, looked to break free from its own signature silhouettes, responding to today’s need for more relaxed shapes. There was a retro riff on pieces including Western jackets and tartan flares, robe-inspired coats and crochet scarves. Amorim and Baker both live in Portugal, in close proximity to where their collections are produced, but studied in Milan together: velour cheetah print pyjamas and coats nodded to the sartorial choices of old Milanese women they spotted out on the street. For autumn, the brand has also launched a series of organic cotton t-shirts, printed with its signature rose motifs, and evolved its cowboy boot range, in shades of silver and with bourgeoise quilted detailing.

Phipps

‘We started looking at ice, and then the explorer Ernest Shackleton, whose boat got stuck the ice in the Antarctic for like two years,’ says designer Spencer Phipps of the starting point for his A/W 2021 collection. ‘I thought that was a pretty great metaphor for where we are at right now!’ For autumn, the eco-minded designer created an impressively well produced, shot on the Skaftafellsjökull glacier, which was presented as a trailer for a feature film titled ‘Endurance,' which documents the threat of earth's extinction. The clothing suited to his supporting actors? Items that mashed up different clothing archetypes, like overcoats beloved of metal heads, retro Nordic knits in recycled cashmere and Seventies skiwear like long johns and onesies. Up clothes, clothing had a twisted edge, like cute band tees with glitter pink typography, emblazoned with the phrase ‘Save the fucking wales'. ‘Very tongue-in-cheek but totally earnest too,' Phipps says. 

Dolce & Gabbana

Lockdown has allowed designers to focus on trends which are not only emerging on catwalks, but on social media, including Tik Tok - think e-boys, e-girls, cottage core, grandma core. There were elements of these subcultures present at Dolce & Gabbana's A/W 2021 runway show, which in a democratic move, was live streamed not only on the brand's own digital channels, but through online retailer Farfetch too. This was a show that reveled in ostentation and exuberance, featuring clothing that would look stupendous through a screen: glitchy Technicolour knits, oversized metallic puffer jackets, shaggy fake fur robe coats and glittering paint-splattered denim. The brand also placed focus on its tailoring heritage, showcased patchwork pinstripe suits, paired with fluffy slippers and moon boots. We expect these items to be replicated on a Tik Tok Challenge any time soon.

Kiko Kostadinov

For Kostadinov’s A/W 2021 collection, the designer didn’t only take 30 traditional catwalk images of his offering (a classic way to distribute collections to media outlets), but also offered a further 60 silhouettes through a ‘Projection’ window on his eponymous website. The decision is a reflection of the collection as a whole – one that defies parameters or linear evolution, and has silhouettes which are open to interpretation. For autumn, Kostadinov looked to two texts, Christopher Priest’s ‘A Dream of Wessex’ (1977), which delves into a future trapped within virtual reality, and Patience Grey’s Honey From A Weed (1986), which charts the author’s culinary adventures of foraging across the Mediterranean.  What evolved was an offering in hothouse and coastal shades, featuring spliced jackets in bourgeois French tweeds, gardening aprons, V-neck knits and utilitarian trousers. Hybrid floral silks swathed sarong skirts and suiting and uniform silhouettes were layered to striking effect.

Sneakers have taken on even more collectible currency. In September 2020, Sotheby’s Cult Canvas auction saw a series of artist-designed Nike trainers sell for prices as high as $63,000, customised by creatives including Futura and Jeff Staple, and in November of the same year, Detroit-based sneaker reseller Stock X announced it had an average of 25 million monthly users worldwide. Earlier this month, trainers even stepped into the NFT market, with virtual sneaker brand RTFKT Studios linked up with the crypto-artist FEWOCiOUS, on a sale of over 600 styles that totalled over $3.1 million in sales. From Dior to Celine, a host of brands are stepping out with new coveted styles, guaranteed to be future collectors items. Walk this way!

Sneakers to step out in now

Valentino

The rebellious stud detail of Valentino Garavani's accessoriesa are a contemporary style signature of the Roman maison, which has now been applied as an accoutrement to its trainer silhouettes. The newly released Valentino Garavani One Stud sneakers feature enlarged macro stud details, sure to draw attention. We're opting for the mid-top style for Eighties-inspired oomph.

Palm Angels

Think of Palm Angel's newly released Palm One sneaker as the trainer version of a white t-shirt: timeless, versatile and sleek. The subtly retro style's optic white upper also boasts a bold ankle tab in black and paint box tones - an exuberant way to show off your personality.

Louis Vuitton

For S/S 2021, men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh has created eco-aware upcycled versions of a sneaker he first debuted on the Vuitton runway in 2019. The styles have a skate culture sensibility and have been imagined in a spectrum of colour blocked shades, from fuschia to highlighter green. Which colour combination are you wishing for?

Dior

The Dior x Nike Air Jordan 1 has already had sneakerheads salivating, and now Kim Jones has released the latest style in Dior's sneaker cannon. The B27 nods to the sartorial sway of 1980s skateboarders and features an upper laser cut with the Oblique Dior logo. The styles are available in white and black and also grey – Monsieur Dior’s favourite colour.

Asics Kiko Kostadinov

In celebration of the GEL-LYTETM III’s 30th anniversary, Kiko Kostadinov has spliced up the three-decade old style, amalgamating the curved sole of the Asics Glideride model to its form. This hybrid shape encourages the feeling of seamless coasting when running, as the sole minimises lower leg movement through each stride. Get that runner’s high with fashion-forward form.

Celine

There’s a renegade sense of retro behind the label’s newest trainer styles, which were debuted on a motor racing track in Southern France. This high top silhouette, featuring bold colour blocked panels, speaks of sports hall sessions and cigarettes beneath the bleachers. The styles are also available in shimmering metallic.

Prada 

The second iteration of Prada and Adidas’ partnership culminates in a sleek silhouette crafted for the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team, who will be representing Italy at the 36th America’s Cup next March. The ergonomic and lightweight shape is inspired by the design of the team's AC75 boat and its upper is composed of recycled Primegreen. Smooth sailing style.

Balmain

Been pining for the natural world? The undulating upper of Balmain’s B Runner sneaker is inspired by the curving and meandering pathways of water. Despite being formed from rubberised leather, nylon mesh and suede, the style weighs a mere 730 grams. How’s that for added bounce?

Adidas x Meissen

Adidas and fellow German Meissen, the specialist porcelain brand, have teamed up to create the ZX 10,000 C sneaker, a style with a naturalistic floral design, created for the first time in Adidas’ Scheinfeld factory. In celebration of the collaboration, a one off art piece – the ZX 8000 Porcelain – has also been created, comprised of leather hand-painted by Meissen and porcelain overlay. It's currently at auction at Sotheby’s New York and estimated to sell for $1,000,000.

The newest style in Tod’s innovative No_Code series? A sleek high top silhouette inspired by Mario Bellini's Brionvega RR130 - Totem, a sleek 1970s soundsystem, with a turnable and speakers which folded from a monochromatic cube. Whether you opt for designer Yong Bae Seok’s white or black sneakers, you'll achieve real design-led drama.

Designers in Milan – with a substantial reduction of international visitors – held a fashion week of sorts, with a mix of real shows and virtual presentations, all of which were streamed on their websites and via their social media platforms, in a bid to connect with their international clients. For those actually attending (I counted just two editors from France, a handful from Germany, six from the UK, and no one from the US or Asia) it was all about masks, hand sanitiser, temperature checks, self-declaration Covid-19 forms, very last minute changes to shows from real to digital or from digital to real and location changes. As for the clothes, as a rule Italian designers are collectively wishful that S/S 2021 is nothing like the summer before it.

Fendi kicked off the week’s proceedings with a significantly sized down runway show, which marked Silvia Venturini's final solo outing, before KimJones joins the creative helm of the brand next season. The mood spoke of sophisticated comfort, with models including Penelope Tree and Cecilia Chancellor wearing floaty shirts printed with shadows of windowpanes, snuggly duvet coats and buttoned dresses in quilted upholstery satins.

The N°21 show, held in the brand's own Garage Ventuno showspace, was a marker of how fashion shows operate during Covid-19. In place of the usual benches chosen to get as many bums on seats as possible (until now, there was always room for another guest) were stacking chairs spaced around two metres apart in a diagonal format. If clothes are being designed for our new less social lives, founder Alessandro Dell’Acqua created good looking knits and sweats amongst the looks, but matched with marabou incase you get the urge or chance to dress up.

Dolce & Gabbana’s purpose built Metropole show space can seat more than a thousand, but its S/S 2021 show was reconfigured to seat 300 on rich brocade cushions. Unlike a show with a 1000 guests, it was effortless to get in, with temperature checks and hand sanitising stations plus guidance on how to leave after, similar to new disembarkation rules on aeroplanes, sector by sector. A little like the famous Ford Model T motto ‘any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black,’ the message here was you can have anything you like as long as it's patchwork. This meant macro or micro silhouettes from mini dresses to caftans, signature sartorial tailoring through to highwaist jeans and sneakers imagined in brocade, lace, carré silks and denim. The brand covered all options for a summer of going out or staying in, depending which way the pandemic plays out.

Max Mara chose to show in the cloisters of the courtyard of the Accademia di Brera, and guests sat spaced apart on cubes, the preferred seating choice of the week. Protective Cloisters – of which Milan has many fine ones to offer – were to become the venue of choice seen also at Boss, Ports 1961, and Salvatore Ferragamo. Amongst the tailoring and coats that Max Mara is famous for, creative director Ian Griffiths interwove appropriate pieces for our changed lifestyle, like strong knits, raglan sleeve sweats, parkas, and sporty silhouettes made from thermo bonded lightweight technical jersey. After long periods spent at home the message was a clear: clients now expect comfort as well as style.

For his digital Emporio Armani presentation, Giorgio Armani hired directors Leandro Manuel Emede and Nicolò Cerioni to film ‘Building Dialogues', a seven minute film shot over three days outside the company’s offices adjacent to Armani/Silos and across the road at the Tadao Ando show space. Its architecture – which is almost entirely pale grey – formed an appropriately background for the collection.

Back in February, on the last day of Milan Fashion Week, Giorgio Armani, alone, decided to hold his fashion show behind closed doors and asked everyone already invited, even his VIP clients who had flown in to Milan expressly for him to watch it from their homes or hotel rooms. This season he streamed Giorgio Armani's show online and on Prime time Italian TV (adding around a million extra viewers). And with a larger audience in mind (who may find the average 12 minute show length somewhat short), it was preceded by a 20 minute ‘house made’ documentary called ‘Pensieri Senza Tempo' or ‘Timeless Thoughts', with archive footage of Armani fashion from 1985 onwards.

I watched ‘Building Dialogues' from the Armani/Hotel which reopened in July. Some luxury hotels, such as the Park Hyatt, have been shuttered for almost six months. It was also in my room where I watched the Prada show. It was odd to be in Milan and watch a show broadcast from three kilometres away and not actually be present. This was the highly anticipated debut collection of dual creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons. Shot in a yellow carpeted and curtained room designed by OMA/AMO, models walked followed not by the eyes of guests but only the articulated robotic cameras. The show was followed by a Q&A session where Prada and Simons answered questions submitted from the public via social media, discussing topics around the importance of novelty, collaboration and what defines Prada-ness. The session was a much more comfortable and civilised way of learning about the collection than popping backstage for a bun fight to speak to the designers.

For his second season at Tod’s, creative director Walter Chiapponi opted to stream ‘The Song', a film directed by Antoine Asseraf shot at Casa Villa Necchi, where the protagonists including Karen Elson and singer Okay Kaya dressed up in suede, denim and frilled dresses and connected with each other over imaginary Zoom calls or face time links.

Sunnei – who just announced a new investment from Vanguards – celebrated Milan's summer spaces, inviting guests to the Lido of Milan in the north of the city. There, guests stood on designated circular markers inside an empty swimming pool (sheltering from rain with umbrellas) watching models wearing relaxed tailoring, caftans and loose dresses in the brand's signature bold hues.

Amidst Covid-19's new reality, designers are all looking for appropriate methods to show their collections. Francesco Risso, creative director of Marni, pulled off an most extraordinary feat, casting 48 members of his creative community for ‘Marnifesto', a film spanning locations from Tokyo to Dakar, with each model wearing one look from the collection that had been remotely fitted with the aid of video and local seamstresses. All 48 feeds were mixed live in New York, with each model setting out at the same time, filmed on a smart phone by their boyfriend, girlfriend or roommate at home, on the metro, in the supermarket or on the street. As I watched it at 4pm in a Milan cinema, Risso was sitting there too, seeing it for the first time. He'd gave up his creative control when he sent of his S/S 2021 pieces, passing the freedom of self-expression to the cast.

Moschino’s Jeremy Scott worked with The Muppets creator Jim Henson to create ‘No Strings Attached’, a fun and perfectly executed 40 look fashion show modelled by puppets, set in a tiny filmic couture salon set to schmaltzy classical music by Michel Gaubert. 

For Salvatore Ferragamo, creative Director Paul Andrew turned to film director Luca Guadagnino to produce a short film set in Milan. Although the men’s and women’s ready-to wear-and accessories were the focus, it was equally a homage to the city and its architecture. ‘Life in Technicolor', picked up the vibrant green, mauve, yellow and lobster in the collection and accessories, but also illustrated hidden colours found in the city.  The 40 looks featured in the film were also shown on the runway in the rounded cloisters of La Rotonda della Besana, the Florentine houses usual venue, albeit with a substantially reduced number of guests.

At Versace, the label presented Versacepolis, a show streamed live with everything aside from the usual audience (the brand decided a week before to run the show with no physical guests). Everyone participating from set builders to producers, models to hair and make-up artists, plus Versace staffers, had all been tested by the company as negative for Covid 19. The show, featuring both men and women was full of joyous colour and print. Stand outs were the pleated looks, plain or printed, with some sculptural ruffling nodding to Roberto Capucci. This was a very confident message. The brand is hoping their clients have reason to dress up next summer, those décolleté bra topped dresses are a little too saucy for Zoom.

The Ports 1961 show, held in the warm autumn sun of the cloisters of the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia was intimate for very few but filmed for a larger audience. Karl Templer wanted this collection to be tactilem ‘as touch is forbidden now and everything is on screen’, and with its classical references, spring was all about embrace and touch. Templer is optimistic about people still finding pleasure in dressing up.

Valentino is based in Rome and traditionally shows its men's and women’s ready to wear and couture collections in Paris. Exceptionally this season it came up to Milan to show in a metal foundry in the north of the city. This show was inside, with a small crowd in a enormous space, but safety was key so all guests (who all turned up in masks) were given a new FFP2 mask and asked to wear it for its duration. We were treated to a sound track performed live by Labrinth, while creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli offered plenty to like for real life including exclusive Valentino 517 boot cut jeans made in collaboration with Levi’s, which will surely get everyone wearing the styles again come spring, whether we have to stay at home or not. Piccioli paired the jeans with oversized mannish shirts in chiffon, taffeta and lace and accessorised with the new macro Rock Stud bags and shoes. There were of course some more dressy pieces including fluid long dresses and a chocolate brown slinky sequinned cape-shouldered and ribbon-sleeved dress. Even you don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to see sometimes its great to dress up just for you.

Mood board: Picture Monica Vitti in a sleek sleeveless dress in 1962’s L’Eclisse or a trenchcoat in 1960s L’Avventura: Leather specialist Tod’s take on luxury has a classic, cinematic sweep, and for S/S 2020, the label looked to Vitti’s feminine wardrobe in films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. This wasn’t a nostalgic collection, it offered a forward-looking wardrobe in organic tones with splashes of sunny yellow. Cue rubberised leather trenchcoats, nappa intarsia pleated skirts, subtly oversized suiting and body skimming sleeveless dresses with sporty poppers, all sartorial staples for Tod’s leading woman.

Best in show: Tod’s skill lies in its mastery of fabrication. Alongside rubberised, tie-dye and swirling laser cut leather, a pony skin zebra print – the only one in the collection – had a modern, seductive flair. This was used in smart pencil skirts and trench coats, it’s black and white hues complemented the monochromatic hues offered elsewhere.

Finishing touches: For that easy understated luxury, of smart sliders and loafers were imagined in an array of colourful leathers and skins.

Contemporary life has broken age-old societal codes. We live in an agile state, working on-the-go. Luxury is not about owning property but existing peripatetically between time zones. We no longer exist in a physical form, but a digital one too. Fashion does not work in categories. Clothing must embody an amalgam of elements that cater to our ever-adapting lifestyles.

The concept of hybridisation fascinates Tod’s men’s collections visionary, Michele Lupi. The brand’s latest creation the ‘Shoeker’ is a symbol of versatile amalgamous design. Conceived by Korean designer, Yong Bae Seok, its shape is a hardworking hybrid that unites the classic shoe and sports sneaker.

Lupi, the publishing industry veteran, who joined the Tod’s Factory project last December, sees two antithetical and ever present strands in today’s hybrid world. We live in an ever-evolving digital sphere, but as the world goes online, and we see evolution in VR and note the stronghold of social media, we also place new value on artisanal craft, and the power of human-made handwork. We value the tactile; something available to touch.

‘No_Code Shelter: Stories of Contemporary Life’, an exhibition conceived by Studio Andrea Caputo at this year’s Salone del Mobile, is a show that explores this synergy. ‘Caputo has always worked around the theme of hybridisation,’ says Lupi of his decision to enlist the Italian architect for the project. For the exhibition, Caputo has looked to the history of primitive habitations – from tepees to Bedouin tents – erecting a series of time and continent spanning shelters inside the spacious Cavallerizze, in Milan’s Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci.

‘The idea has been to answer the question of how lives change based on changes in society,’ says Lupi. The show features five shelters, a ‘Yurt’, ‘Persian Camp, ‘Museum’, ‘Pitched Hut’ and ‘Casamance’, which guests can wander into at will, without following a prescriptive path. Inside each, a video interview is housed, filmed with a host of creatives, who operate from varying aesthetic standpoints.

These include Amsterdam-based Italian design duo Formafantasma; American car designer Chris Bangle; Japanese art director and racing driver Mai Ikuzawa; and No_Code Shoeker designer Yong Bae Seok. ‘The protagonists in the videos discuss their own lifestyle and the result of choices they have reacted to in periods of change,’ says Lupi.

‘The exhibition offers a backward leap through eras and civilizations to the origins of our first human needs, housing and behavioral codes,’ Caputo explains of its erected structures. ‘No_Code Shelter’ is also a starting point for reflection on construction technologies – the methodologies lost in the transition from manual to industrial and, today, technological construction’.

Each shelter in the exhibition is a symbol of human evolution and endeavour, and a response to environmental and societal change. Viewed together they offer an image of architectural advancement. Each video installation you’ll find a modern day map of human advancement and a digital exploration of the myriad of lifestyles that exist today. ‘The visual story of the contemporary protagonists matches the shelter concept and our dilemma,’ Caputo adds. ‘How do you live today? How will you live in the future? How will your habits change radically?’

INFORMATION
‘No_Code Shelter: Stories of Contemporary Life’ is on view from 9-14 April. For more information, visit the Andrea Caputo website and the Tod’s website

ADDRESS

Spazio Cavallerizze
Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci
Via Olona 6bis
20123 Milano

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Mood board: David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel was the opening song played at the luxury leather house’s A/W 2019 show (the singer is becoming Milan Fashion Week’s favourite singer – Heroes was also played at the finale of Fendi’s show, in an ode to Karl Lagerfeld). And while its accompanying look – a belted leather trenchcoat paired with a rollneck – had 1960s appeal, its collection was rooted in contemporaneity. This was an offering imagined in black and tan, with pops of forest green and raspberry and hints of leopard print. Leather has been the season’s key fabrication, just look to Bottega Veneta and Chalayan. It was used here in mannish staples like double-breasted blazers, knee-length shorts and seductively slashed patent pencil skirts. There was interplay between strength and comfort, seen in the sporty outerwear, and chunky knit patterned cardigans.

Best in show: That twist on tradition was conveyed through smart coats, which appeared classic face-on, but had down-filled, padded details at the reverse. Confidence came in the insouciantly styled ensembles, like a leather knee-skimming skirt paired with a snowy ribbed jumper and loafers.

Finishing touches: The bovver boot is back. There’s been a sense of insurgence on the Milan Fashion Week catwalks, with models at Prada and Daniel Lee’s new Bottega Veneta stomping the catwalk in exaggerated boot styles. Tod’s fabrications are rooted in luxury, but those boots are really made for walking. 

Mood board: We saw baby dragons, chameleons and snakes being carried by models on the Gucci catwalk earlier this week, and there was plenty of puppy love on the A/W 2018 Tod’s runway, as models strode the catwalk carrying tiny French Bulldogs and King Charles Spaniels. Puppies aside, the brand presented an elegant and easy autumn collection, one brimming with finely crafted outerwear and sporty motifs, in elegant browns, berry and yellows. There were chunky fleece coats and leather tailoring, trenchcoats and suede playsuits, oversized tracksuits and quilted bomber jackets. What more could the Tod’s woman ask for?

Best in show: There’s been a resurgence of fleece tops, items once reserved for hiking trips and outdoor pursuits. Tod’s took note of this trend, and presented a range of fleece pieces, like a snuggly jacket in rusty patchwork shades and a retro zip-up sweater with sporty stripes. Pieces likely to attract not just the core Tod’s customer, but also a new younger audience, watching the clothing trends that flood Instagram feeds during fashion week.

Finishing touches: While we’d all love to carry a Tod’s puppy, there was also a range of excellent accessories on show. Sporty belt bags with Gommino studding, fleece doctor’s bags and bum bags worn hanging from the shoulder were standout.

From Caravaggio to the Cinecittà, the Italian arts form a truly distinctive brand across the globe, recognised for its beauty, excellence and style.  ‘I think Italians have a different perception from what the rest of the world sees,’ comments the dancer Roberto Bolle, folded up onto a sofa at the La Scala in Milan in between rehearsals.

Today at Milan Fashion Week it was announced that he has become an ambassador for Tod’s, the luxury maker of shoes and accessories led by the benevolent Diego Della Valle, himself a passionate patron of Italian culture. Yet the national attitude to Italy’s colossal cultural status can sometimes prove surprisingly modest. Bolle says: ‘We export so many wonderful things and there’s a really positive feeling all over the world about our culture, our arts and fashion – but Italian people don’t always believe in it.’

Bolle has given his life to ballet. At the age of seven, he began his studies in the Piedmont region of Italy and, at 12, he entered the prestigious La Scala ballet school. A turning point came when, three years later, his talent was spotted by the legendary Rudolf Nureyev, who cast him in a production of Death in Venice.

At 20, Bolle was promoted to principal dancer at La Scala following an appearance in Romeo and Juliet. Today he is an internationally respected principal at both the American Ballet Theatre and the La Scala. Living between New York and Milan presents some curious contrasts – these two worlds come together in Tod’s S/S 2018 campaign directed by Fabien Baron.

Bolle appears in a cinematic tableau eating pasta, frolicking at the beach and snapping photographs with Kendall Jenner within the grounds of a Malibu mansion. He says, 'There is a difference when you are working with photography because on stage we’re athletes as well as actors, yet the performance is still all about the character.’

Right now he is playing the quixotic Armand in The Lady of the Camellias, a ballet adapted from the 1848 novel by French writer Alexandre Dumas. ‘With every performance we’re telling a story for the people who come to see us. You have to do your steps and perform, but that all comes secondary to the emotion of the role you are playing,’ he says. With Jenner, he decided to let go and improvise. ‘We had to forget about the camera and just play between us.’ The campaign evokes a fresh, youthful mood.

Bolle’s first appearance on fashion’s glossy stage came a decade ago when he revisited the role of Romeo in a lavish Shakespearean editorial lensed by Annie Leibovitz for American Vogue. Since then he’s been photographed in countless editions of style titles around the world, including a series of quirky pictures in which he is poised wearing the suits of the season for the cult men’s magazine Fantastic Man. His relationship with Tod’s began in 2016 when he was a guest of the brand at The Colosseum in Rome, at a gala celebrating the first phase of its restoration funded by the Tod’s Group.

When protecting and promoting Italian culture, Della Valle’s words are backed up by action. Only last month, Italy's Prime Minister inaugurated a new factory built by Tod’s in the quake-devastated central Italian town of Arquata del Tronto. ‘No one else did anything; Diego was the first to act and that’s what I like about the brand,’ Bolle says. ‘It’s not just beautiful product, it’s what’s behind it. We’re both committed to doing something beautiful for our country.’

Roberto Bolle is Tod's latest brand ambassador and star of its S/S 2018 brand campaign

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Tod’s website and the Roberto Bolle website

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Roos Quakernaat's website

Scene setting: As guests entered the show space at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, they were greeted with an installation of television screens, playing sunkissed Italian scenes from films like Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley and Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt. Filmed around Positano and Ischia, and at Adalberto Libera’s famed modernist house Casa Malaparte on the Isle of Capri, they reflected the brand’s preoccupation with Italian holidays and a sumptuously dressed sightseer.

Mood board: The collection riffed on the classic silhouettes essential for a chic Italian getaway – micro print pyjama tops, halter-necks cut from vintage-inspired silk scarves, white chinos and knee-length skirts, and perforated sports jackets. Tod’s mastery of Italian leather goods shone in oversized nappa shirts in yellow and tan, laser cut skirts and pyjamas. The collection also touched on the American West in cowhide biker jackets and vests, fringed box bags and suede shirt dresses in ombre brown suede. Capri meets cowgirl.

Finishing touches: Accessories were updated with aplomb this season. There were luxurious python doctor’s bags, sandals which tied around the ankle with thin silk scarves, tasseled pumps and fringed moccasins. The brand often uses saddlery motifs, and this was further emphasised in this season's preoccupation with the West, such as in the metallic straps of python box bags, which resembled linked horse bits.

Designers are bringing a soft touch to the utilitarian trench coat this season, reimagining the quintessential style in leather. ‘It is fascinating to work with classic shapes and see how you can develop them without losing their essence,’ says Copenhagen-based designer Freya Dalsjø. Her trench coat has a double layer with a python-skin collar peeking from a folded off-the-shoulder sleeve.

‘The detailing highlights the detail of the inner jacket,’ she says. ‘It looks like two jackets in one.’ The designer launched her eponymous label in 2012, and presents her seasonal collection’s at its now globally popular fashion week. Dalsjø studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Art in Antwerp, a school renowned for its avant-garde and eclectic approach to design.

Her aesthetic – which for A/W 2017 culminated in square shouldered pinstripe dresses, button-bulging silk shirts and fur coats – unites a Danish and a Belgian design approach. ‘Copenhagen is about easy more understandable products,’ she says. ‘Antwerp is about creating something new. I’m constantly debating how to create pieces that contain both ideas.’

Dalsjø, who has also designed technical performance wear for H20 Sportswear, says, ‘I love all the hidden smart details often found in outdoor wear’. This is an intricacy applied to a range of A/W 2017’s trench coat designs. Italian leather house Tod’s, has brought biker jacket details to its khaki trench coat. Valentino’s interpretation comes in sugary-pink lacquered leather, while Bottega Veneta has added a shinier top coat, reimagining the trench coat silhouette in glossy patent leather.

A version of this article originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*222)

INFORMATION

Shot on location at the Claudio Silvestrin-designed Cannon Lane House in Hampstead. For more information, visit the Beauchamp Estates website, Freya Dalsjø website, the Tod’s website, the Valentino website and the Bottega Veneta website

Nothing speaks more of modern luxury today than a personalised wardrobe item. Be it a monogrammed notebook, the material of a watch strap or the chosen leather of a favourite shoe, we want to invest in items that well and truly align with own aesthetic and attitudes.

Not forgetting our endless cravings for high-end craftsmanship and timeless design. And when it comes to footwear, what speaks more of quintessential Italian artisanal quality than Tod’s signature ‘Gommino’ moccasin? Handcrafted from the finest leather and finished with 133 idiosyncratic rubber pebbles, the shoe – thanks to the luxury label’s ‘My Gommino’ service – can now be personalised to a customer’s whim, allowing them to select from a variety of leathers, colours and details.

Tod’s renowned ‘Gommino’ shoe – and founder Diego Della Valle’s original 1978 release – conjures images of elegant road trips through Italy, powering from Positano to Sorrento with a well-soled driving shoe pushing down on the accelerator pedal. Now, Tod’s is taking a turbo-charged world tour, hosting ‘My Gommino’ pop-ups in its boutiques, from Milan to Shanghai, and inviting its global customers to customise their own designs (we’re pedalling towards a space in the label’s Madison Avenue boutique in New York).

Merging technology with tradition, customers can select their customisation options of choice, be it a stamped initial, an eye-catching insole, a grained leather, or a bold-hued pebbled sole, through a custom-made instore app (also available online). British tattoo artist Saira Hunjan – who created a series of inked bag designs for the brand last year – has also turned her attention to the ‘Gommino’ silhouette, with intricate dragon-inspired details that snake around its upper and pebbled sole.

Requiring 100 painstaking steps, all ‘Gommino’ designs are assembled by hand using 35 pieces of leather. So whether you’re sauntering through Shanghai, or making moves on Manhattan, it’s time to put your foot down.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Tod’s website

Scene setting: Having teamed up with artist Vanessa Beecroft for the past two seasons, the Italian leather house collaborated with the Italian performance artist Thomas De Falco for A/W 2017, whose live installation pieces feature eerie textiles resembling the roots of trees. Before the runways show began, guests entering the showspace were greeted with models, including Naomi Campbell, sitting or standing backwards on steps swaddled in wraps of cream and sandstone leather.

Mood board: In a timeless natural colour palette, the Tod’s collection featured supple leather parkas and pocketed utility style dresses, skinny trousers and explosion print knitwear. Quilting too came into focus, with khaki padded coats, leather quilted waistcoats and even a black knitted sweater with camel quilted-leather sleeves, inspired by ski gloves.

Best in show: A series of leather dresses, t-shirts and knee length skirts with complex cut outs – a nod to the artisanal skill of the luxury leather house. Moccasins were also reimagined with harder creeper-style rubber soles.

The new Tod's boutique in Miami's Design District designed by the New York-based architects Bonetti/Kozerski fuses raw and luxurious materials

Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture, the New York-based firm which designed the Tod’s showroom in the Milk Studios Building, has joined forces with the Italian leather label again on a new boutique in Miami’s bustling Design District.

‘The neighbourhood itself has an industrial atmosphere and we strived to maintain this in the store design’ explain Bonetti/Kozerski of the 2400 sq ft space, which houses men’s and women’s ready-to-wear and accessories.

Polished concrete floors and steel fixtures are juxtaposed against luxurious details, including panelled walls clad in tanned Vachetta leather, a signature fabrication of the house. In keeping with the fashion house’s classical heritage, the bespoke leather sofas in the space were also handcrafted in Italy.

The facade of the Miami outpost features custom ceramic tiles produced in Italy

Taking cues from the art and design culture of its location, the store’s walls also fold like trunk doors, allowing it to transform into a gallery space, which will house a selection of artworks. ‘Part of the vocabulary used in the architecture of the space, like the neutral but sophisticated backdrop and functional high-tech ceiling comes from the art gallery lexicon,’ say Bonetti/Kozerski.

Located on 39th Street, the store’s external facade makes use of Miami’s warm climate. ‘We created a corrugated facade from custom ceramic tiles produced in Faenza, Italy,’ the architects add. ‘The pattern vibrates with the sunlight and creates a unique street presence in the Design District.’

INFORMATION

For more information visit the Tod’s website and the Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture website

ADDRESS

143 NE 39th Street
Miami, FL 33137

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Cedric Charlier: The designer’s debut menswear collection effortlessly merged tailoring with sportswear. Block colour was used to graphic effect on the panelling of tracksuits. A knitted jumper appeared in flecked grey from the front, but it’s back offered a surprise of acid yellow. Elsewhere a black jacket came with a cobalt blue front panel and baby pink collar.

Caruso: The Italian tailoring brand continued to explore its idea of what a good Italian man should wear. This time around, more casual outwear pieces were added to his wardrobe. A softly tailored jacket in the finest cashmere found its buttons being replaced with a zip, while a parka was cut in wool suiting. Other notable items included a shirt with a detachable ruffle button stand, and another with pleated cuffs.

No 21: Designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua looked to the rebellious spirt of young political activists in the seventies for inspiration. This manifested itself in reworked men’s wardrobe staples with an anarchic edge. A knitted oversized jumper appeared half finished, while a Price of Wales check jacket came with camouflage patches. Heavy duty footwear came with bold buckles, and straps hung from trousers adding a punk edge.

Giuseppi Zanotti: A recent trip to Shanghai inspired Giuseppe Zanotti this season. Custom designed brocades adorned the brand’s signature style boots, tasselled slippers and bags. Other new offerings included flocked sneakers in shocking pink and electric blue, alongside loafers trimmed with metal pearls at the opening.

Missoni: Designer Angela Missoni looked to the architecture and industrial elements of Japanese cities for A/W17. Knits came with sharp, geometric lines reminiscent of the Tokyo skyline. Metallic embroideries were inspired by Japanese Shibori design and blurred motifs referenced Kasuri textiles. The brand also collaborated with Paris-based milliner Larose on a series of loom-knitted bucket hats, caps and berets.

Valextra: This season Valextra collaborated with design studio Snarkitecture on a new pop-up store, in celebration of the brands 80th anniversary. The all-white space showcased the brands monochrome collection, consisting of iconic pieces from its history, alongside new all-white styles. Highlights included the ’Tric Trac’ wrist case from 1968, designed by Valextra’s founder Giovanni Fontana. The design was originally inspired by Fontana seeing a London cab driver who tossed his keys, coins and receipts back and forth into a small box and a wallet.

Neil Barrett: This season Neil Barrett delved into his own archive for inspiration. Tailoring was key, with Barrett playing with volume and proportion: a drop shoulder blazer was teamed with cuffed three-quarter length trousers, while a generously cut overcoat was thrown over a relaxed knit and running leggings. Military inspired shoes and boots gave the collection heavy-duty appeal.

Dsquared2: DSquared2 designers Dean and Dan Caten took to the Rocky Mountains for inspiration. Oversized, slouchy cardigans were layered over boxy workwear jackets and plaid shirts, while slim fit trousers cropped at the ankle and climbing boots helped to emphasise the play on proportions. Other highlights included a voluminous sheepskin jacket that snugly enveloped its wearer, and a camouflage puffer jacket made from multiple padded layers.

Jil Sander: For the label’s A/W 2017 collection, inspiration came from the earthy and merciless landscapes in Halldor Laxness’s Nobel Prize winning novel Independent People. Heavy coats and parkas came fit for bitter winters, and were imagined in chalky greys, yellows and mossy tones.

Tod’s: Set in the grounds of the grand Villa Necchi Campiglio, Tod’s presented a collection of fine menswear staples, giving each a luxury makeover. Sheepskin ran throughout the collection, appearing shaved to resemble corduroy on a peacoat and puffer jacket. Elsewhere it colourfully framed seams on sneakers and weekend bags. Functionality was also key, with jackets carrying multiple pockets and inside compartments.

Diesel Black Gold: For A/W17, creative director Andreas Melbostad took inspiration from the uniforms of Ninjas. Jackets came with enlarged envelope collars and kimono sleeves, while others were tied at the waist samurai-style. Quilting, alluding to armour, was also a key motif, which was urbanised with Japanese raw denim.

Santoni: A mysterious curtain-lined corridor with shoes peeping from beneath greeted guests at the Santoni presentation. The ominous soundtrack of The Pink Panther theme tune by Henry Mancini only heightened the mood. The iconic Santoni double buckle appeared with a cosy fur lining, while tasselled loafers came in high shine patent leather. A pair of midnight-blue climbing boots in astrakhan and crocodile perfectly married Santoni’s craftsmanship in a modern luxurious way.

Moschino: Creative director Jeremy Scott enlisted stylist and jewellery designer Judy Blame to create bric-a-brac chain, coin and safety-pin details for his military-focused collection. These embellished berets, belts and the straps of parachute bags, and hung as chunky necklaces. 

Wood Wood: Nineties New York streetwear and the east coast hip-hop scene were the two key inspirations for Wood Wood’s A/W 2017 collection. Sportswear was fused with formal suiting throughout: a fleece hoodie emblazoned with the ’WW’ logo was teamed with a pair of loose fit pinstripe trousers, elsewhere a formal cut coat in checkered wool was teamed with track pants.

Ports 1961: Designer Milan Vukmirovic stripped back on fuss this season and took a more minimalist approach. Inspired by workwear uniforms, reflective bands cut across parkas and bombers. Chucky cable knit jumpers, utility vests in wool, and shirts with quilted fronts hammered home the point.

Rossignol: Skiwear brand Rossignol hit the streets this season with a collection of functional separates made for the mountains as well as city life. High performance fabrics such as paper nylon and neoprene were fused with fur and leather in parkas and puffer jackets, while padded vests added an extra layer of protection.

Pal Zileri: For A/W 2017, Pal Zileri celebrated the craftsmanship and skill of those who create their pieces. Models walked between sewing machines and seamstresses hard at work, as if producing the clothes being shown. Tailoring and outerwear was the focus. Suits were made up of sharply cut blazers and teamed with slouchy wide leg trousers, while generously cut overcoats offered sartorial shielding from the winter elements.

Fratelli Rossetti: Luxury shoe brand Fratelli Rossetti looked to 1930s swing dancers for its inspiration this season. Alongside a collection made up of only brown styles, dancers performed with a live swing band. The colour was extremely popular at the time and the brand reinterpreted it using various hand painted techniques, making each pair of shoes unique.

Church’s: Stepping out at Church’s this season is the ’Swing’, based on an American golf shoe, plus a new country collection consisting of heavy duty derbies and boots in hard wearing leather and pig skin. Church’s classic Penny loafer also gets an update in suede and a bold crepe sole.

Bertoni 1949: Timeless design, Italian craftsmanship, Moroccan-inspired colours and a hand-painted wooden print, this Bertoni 1949 collection inspired travel to Morocco and beyond

Bally: This summery hued collection by Bally was one that offered classic styles as well as a few new designs, such as a platform Geisha-inspired sandal. The accessories complimented the equally colourful and elegant ready-to-wear line

So Milano: Aldo Carpinteri and Giordano Ollari, founders of the new alternative retail concept So Milano on Piazza Risorgimento, left the opening honours to J.W.Anderson. The designer filled the space’s spherical volumes with bags, shoes and clothing from his A/W 2016 collection and adorned black-and white photographs of classical marble sculptures with jewellery – turning the historical palazzo into an imaginative and unconventional shopping platform

Sara Battaglia: This season the bag designer presented not only a new collection of bags in true Sara Battaglia style, in a second room, a row of mannequins showed her first clothing collection of 1950s-inspired feminine pieces that go perfectly with her colourful, geometric bag designs

Agnona: Imagining a collection for a ‘Swan of today’ Agnona’s designer Simon Holloway presented a romantic and sensual collection of fine cashmere and fluid silks in delicate, soft colours

Jimmy Choo: If we can’t spend enough time in nature, Jimmy Choo will bring nature to us. Surrounded by origami hummingbirds and orchids, the brand presented a vibrant collection of feather-inspired designs and tropical colours

Valextra: Valextra is taking its whole world of classic handbags to a new level. A terrific presentation was matched with sharp new graphic treatments on each handbag

Antonio Marras: Antonio Marras shook it up with a Sixties rock’n’roll collection inspired by the work of Malian photographer Malick Sibidé. A finale of twisting models in waisted dresses and flared skirts brightened the already sunny day

Giuseppe Zanotti: This season, the famous work of Botticelli was the starting point of Giuseppe Zanotti’s design process. Set in fauna and flora, the brand presented a collection of feminine yet powerful heels and flats

Gabriele Colangelo: Colangelo was in an arty mood for spring, bringing handcrafted techniques to his wide-ribboned woven frocks, dresses hanging with flaps and collages of lacework that climbed over tunics and trousers, that were worn with flat, pointed shoe-booties with cut-out sides.

Church’s: This season marks the debut of the women’s version of Church’s classic, the Grafton. Originally a men’s style, the new version will be available in four different colours

Tod’s: For spring, Tod’s skipped its usual runway presentation and instead created a series of tabeaux vivants staged inside Milan’s PAC museum. The Italian brand’s classic pieces and traditional leather good materials in neutral tones looked lovely in clustered groups of real models. But the real winner were the diorama boxes that showed only a flash of toe-tapping or walking feet wearing Tod’s moccassins that were accompanied by live human gloved hands that stroked each piece like a magic show.

Bvlgari: The Serpenti and Bvlgari Bvlgari collections captured the geometry of a sculpted garden and the sensuality of a serpent. The matching eyewear and silk scarfs come in popping colours and kaleidoscopic prints on python skin

Krizia: Long solitary walks and spending time at the historical archive gave Zhu Chongyun, owner and creative director of Krizia, her inspiration for Summer 2017. The result is a collection where East meets West, where past meets present and where fluidity meets sharp pleating.

Furla: Set in an urban field of flowers, Furla presented an energetic and colourful Field of Imagination collection. From bags to scarves and espadrilles to the brand’s first women’s backpack, each design comes in a range of exclusive nature inspired prints

Herno: Herno’s colourful collection of down jackets, raincoats and coats are sure to brighten up any rainy day. The designs come in a blaze of greens, blues and yellows as well strong graphic prints and are made using the finest Italian technical fabrics

Woolrich: In collaboration with the Olivades atelier, Woolrich presented a trans-seasonal collection in which firm fabrics and soft silhouettes come together. The different styles of outerwear and casualwear come in different blues as well as an exclusive camouflage print

Sergio Rossi: This season marks a fresh start for the Italian shoe brand as it harks back to its roots and authentic aesthetics. The contemporary collection was inspired by the graphic style from the 1990s, resulting in a part moccasin, part slipper

Giorgio Armani: ’Emotions of the athletic body’, an exhibition curated by Mr. Armani himself in his dedicated art space Armani Silos – fitted out with red running track flooring for the occasion – saw large-scale black and white photographs of sportswomen and men in perfect aesthetic action.

Fratelli Rossetti: Rossetti is a leader when it comes to loafers. Here, at Palazzo Cusani, pairs of them, in a rainbow of colours, were arranged on plinths set in a circle, with models having fun on swings and relaxing on loungers within a grassy playground.

Ports 1961: The signature yanked-off-center-tailoring at Ports 1961 got a further shake-up this season with bold strokes of striping, lending a graphic and even colorful touch to this brand’s usually minimal codes

Kalmar: A band of beauties and their mid-century furnishings gather in the front yard of a Milanese palazzo for the debut of the London based brand Kalmar

Philipp Plein: From marching bands to Fergie in a convertable, Plein’s ’Alice in Ghettoland’ show was a wild ride. Videography: Antonio Camera

British tattoo artist Saira Hunjan is no stranger to stepping out of her comfort zone. Although famed for inking celebrity skins (Kate Moss and Sadie Frost are clients) more recent years have seen Hunjan applying her artistry to everything from shorts to hipflasks for collaborations with the likes of Orlebar Brown and Ettinger.

‘When I was fourteen, I made the decision that I wanted to be a tattooist,’ recalls Hunjan. ‘This was also when I discovered Jean Paul Gaultier's tattooed clothing and instantly fell in love with his work. He has always been a big inspiration of mine. So being involved in the fashion industry has always been something I wanted to pursue. It's another way for people to wear and celebrate my art, which I think is really special.’

Furthering her foray into the world of fashion this autumn, today Hunjan will unveil the fruits of a new collaboration, this time with luxury leather brand Tod’s. Using the Italian brand’s Double T messenger bags as her canvas, Hunjan has created a set of 5 unique artworks that pay homage to the label’s rich heritage.

‘The idea was for me to create something romantic while encompassing something strong and powerful,’ says Hunjan of her symbolic design; a mythical beast with a lion’s head (a symbol of Tod’s) and the body of a dragon, clutches at a heart with his paws while piercing it with his dragon’s tail. ‘There is a sense of narrative on each bag. They are all compositionally different, but keep the mythical lion’s image alive.’

The collaboration, which will be unveiled tomorrow at Tod’s newly expanded and refurbished London Flagship, was the brainchild of Tod’s enigmatic founder, Mr Della Valle, who sees the tattoo project as a continuation of the brand’s mission to combine contemporary culture with the high standard of traditional craftsmanship upon which the Tod’s name has been built.

‘I treated the bag in the same way I would tattoo a body,’ says Hunjan of the design process. ‘It's important for me to work with the whole space and determine how the design would fit best when viewed from different angles.’

Working with the craftsmen at Tod’s factory in Brancadoro, Hunjan set about searching for the perfect canvas. ‘I tried a number of different skins including precious skins like alligator and crocodile. Some would not even absorb the ink, some the needle would not even penetrate. Once we found the calfskin leather in the Tod’s signature Vacchetta colour way, we were very happy with the look I was able to create on it.’

Following the unveiling of the five tattooed bags, a limited edition of ‘tattoo-inspired’ bags and wallets featuring laser prints of the Hunjan’s drawings will be available in the Tod’s flagship boutique in London and at selected other boutiques around the world and online in November/December. ‘I like meeting and working with other creatives,’ says Hunjan, hinting that this is not the last time we’ll see her artworks on the catwalk. ‘It gives me fuel to work harder, develop my ideas further and create new ones.’

‘The idea was for me to create something romantic while encompassing something strong and powerful,’ says Saira Hunjan. Watch the video of ’Tattoo’, featuring Suki Waterhouse

INFORMATION

For more information visit Tod’s website

Italian fashion brand Tod's and Rome's Archaeological Heritage Department have undertaken a colossal restoration project to return the Colosseum to its former glory. Watch how the fashion brand celebrated the unveiling, with a special performance conducted by legendary orchestra director Zubin Mehta

Rome's Colosseum has long been a ruin. A masterful ruin, imposing in stature and significance, but a crumbling one at that. Enter Italian fashion brand Tod's, which, together with Rome's Archaeological Heritage Department, has undertaken a colossal restoration project to return the landmark to its former glory.

The first phase of the works – which began in 2011 – have now been completed, focusing on the northern and southern façades, cleaning up a total of 13,300 sq m, including 31 arches and replacing the current arch enclosure system with brand new gates. All whilst remaining open to the public.

Next, the restoration will focus on the underground vaults and passageways – the old haunts of animals and gladiators as they awaited their entrance to the arena – as well as a service centre for visitors. This 'utility system' will allow visitors to access this historic space from the outer area of the Colosseum, rather than from within the walls of the site as it currently stands.

Restoration is slow, delicate work. Starting with a photographic survey and mapping of surfaces, a delicate hydraulic nebulous spray was employed to wash away years of dirt, deposits and growing microorganisms like algae and lichen. The loosened detritus was then brushed off and old interventions chipped away, before being replaced with more authentic, sensitive and true materials. New pointing finished off the process, aiming to reduce the infiltration of water into the stonework.

It seems such historic facelifts are rather in fashion. Tod's is the latest brand to pledge funds to similar projects in Italy; Prada and Versace teamed up to renovate Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and Fendi pledged €2.5 million to restore fountains in Rome, including the famous Trevi Fountain just last year.

At the official unveiling of the restoration work, hosted over the weekend for a group of VIP guests, a special performance by the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, featuring tenor Fabio Sartori and soprano Federica Lombardi, conducted by legendary orchestra director Zubin Mehta, filled the iconic landmark. An al fresco dinner followed, as the sun set and tricolore lights shone brighter.

INFORMATION

Photography/videography courtesy Tod's

ADDRESS

The Colosseum
Piazza del Colosseo, 1
00184 Rome

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Mood board: Tod’s creative director Alessandra Facchinetti cut crisp shapes this season, using men’s shirting and the brand’s signature leather as lynchpins for her spring collection. Striping was a key theme, going from miniscule, neat navy pinstripes and exploding into bolder umbrella stripes in vertical forms on square leather jackets.

Best in show: When Facchinetti kept her silhouettes simple, the clothes came into focus with striking effect. On the minimal side of that equation was an excellent pair of voluminous indigo blue cotton pants with a matching blue shrunken bomber jacket. On the more decorative note: perfect leather circle skirts that were pierced in a smattering of tiny holes and studs creating graphic - almost tribal - slashes that were effortlessly ornate.

Finishing touches: The footwear this season was simply striking. Facchinetti took Tod’s signature driving shoe and pierced the heck out of it, adding micro silver studding and macro silver buckles.  She also covered it in pinstripes or slick silver leather, and morphed it from a loafer shape into a more streamlined slip-on shoe. Those, together with the perforated studded leather slides were undeniable covetable.

Pringle of Scotland: In a continuation of the Scottish house's 200th anniversary celebrations, Michael Clark Company dancers performed live to an intimate crowd at Corso Como wearing heritage Pringle of Scotland knitwear from as early as 1915, combined with the brand's new S/S16 knitwear pieces

Brioni: This season Brioni drew inspiration from architect Carlo Scarpa, whose work was sensitive to the changes of time, seasons and history. Models breezed in and out of a concrete structure in elegant steel grey suits worn with parkas made from high-tech parachute-thin Japanese nylon that billowed with movement

Piquadro: The Italian accessory brand focused on remodelling the backpack this season. The graphics of a 'motherboard', a symbol of modern technology and the Eighties' idea of the future, was reworked to camouflage effect in brilliant colours

Diesel Black Gold: The denim titan pushed outerwear into a realm that was quite simply out-of-this-world for S/S 2016.

Salvatore Ferragamo: One of our favourite design gallerists, Claudio Loria of Leclettico, designed the brand's jungle-inspired S/S 2016 set, packed with real plants and design pieces from Gabriella Crespi, for Ferragamo this season

Bally: The Bally man took to the mountains this season in a collection inspired by the great outdoors. Jackets came with multi pockets while hiking boots and a Swiss Army inspired backpack were given a luxe overhaul in python skin

MSGM: Swedish artist Anton Alvarez of graffiti 'Yarn Bombing' fame inspired in a new era of knitting at MSGM.

Sportmax: During men's week in Milan, several women's brands got in on the fashion action like Sportmax who unveiled its latest artist collaboration with LA-based illustrator Langley Fox Hemingway

Facetasm: Showing at the Armani Teatro, Hiromichi Ochiai of Facetasm presented a collection of oversized shapes with an architectural edge that merged a street style swagger with a sartorial elegance.

Z Zegna: For spring Z Zegna fused city tailoring with the energetic world of kite surfing in a collection of weightless silhouettes with flighty kite-inspired shapes paired with sharp formal attire

Ports 1961: Marble skateboards took us back to our youth at Ports 1961

Missoni: The house of the zig-zag checked into the season's plaid trend for S/S 2016.

Calvin Klein Collection: Italo Zucchelli took to America's west coast in a collection inspired by Ed Ruscha's photographs of Palm trees and the surf culture of the area

Santoni: In addition to the footwear brand's superb S/S 2016 collection of new elegant sandals and formal shoes, the brand collaborated with Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda on its latest Milan presentation. The duo created hand-cut collages that were used on shoe pillows, a film and a giant book that was over two feet tall and all presented within Palazzo Bocconi that had been transformed into a summer garden to celebrate its 40th birthday. Here's a peak at the video

Santoni: The new Santoni colour card for spring 2016

Kiton: Naples in the 1940s and the distinct style of Neapolitan men inspired luxury tailoring brand Kiton's S/S collection. Once again fabric innovation was key with the development of a super light micro wool appeared as elegant double-breasted jackets in bright Mediterranean shades.

Caruso: The house paid tribute to International Yoga Day at its presentation of the finest men's tailoring

Fratelli Rossetti: A sea of plastic shoe models bobbed along the floor at Fratelli Rossetti's men's presentation

Tod's: Craftsmanship was key at Tod's with hand painted details on military inspired leather jackets and knitwear

Emporio Armani: Claw tooth lace-up shoes and wool beanie berets were the quirky extras to an otherwise sober and very cool Emporio Armani show.

Giorgio Armani: The award for best bathrooms during Milan fashion week goes to Giorgio Armani in his Tadao Ando designed theatre

Neil Barrett: This coral reef, puzzle-piece camouflage print climbed all over the floors and clothes at the Neil Barrett show

Neil Barrett: On the runway, three button jackets gave off a slightly Nineties vibe.

Andrea Pompilio: Part biker, part jogger, part boxer, part snowboarder, Andrea Pompilio's man for next spring is wholly eccentric and completely convincing. Showing outdoors in the back yard of Milan's Pinacoteca was the perfect foil for these male peacocks

No 21: Milan's Palazzo del Conservatorio was the site of Alessandro dell'Acqua’s spring collection for No 21

Brunello Cucinelli: There is nothing quite as soothing on the eyes as a Brunello Cucinelli presentation and this season it was all about the pleated and tapered pant

Corneliani: Milan fashion week started with a bang inside the richly frescoed interior of Palazzo Litta, site of the Corneliani show

Rick Owens: Everyone at fashion week has seen a fringe or two in their time, whether it's sported by a catwalk model, famous face or even a handbag. But an invitation? That's novel, even to us. Rick Owens is to thank for this one, sending a suede-covered, embossed board coated in deep tan and mouse grey suede, fringed by - you guessed it - a trim of luscious locks. Bonkers and brilliant in equal measure

Anya Hindmarch: The doyenne of tongue-in-cheek, Hindmarch sent a miniature textured leather road sign attached to a spot-varnished card, warning us of the dressed-up diversions that lay ahead. It seems she may have tempted fate; the show indeed held London's fashion crowd up, though the eventual M25-inspired runway-meets-motorway (and Little Chef breakfast) more than made up for it

Givenchy: We returned to last season's high school hall for Riccardo Tisci's A/W jumble show. A miscellaneous match of items including arcade games, helmets and out-of-date TV screens decorated the multi-coloured court lines of the Parisian sports hall. The assembled audience watched from a range of velvet armchairs or foldaway garden chairs

Louis Vuitton: For the French brand's second run at its impressive Louis Vuitton Fondation location, all the action was transported outside to an installation of transparent, Buckminster Fuller-esque domes

Louis Vuitton: Designed by Es Devlin, the geodesic structure's seating was splashed with a mix of futuristic tangerine, brown and stark white as natural sunlight flooded the catwalk

Thakoon: Thai-American designer Panichgul Thakoon joined forces with Jonathan Beck on behalf of Dizon Inc to play with high impact colour for Thakoon's A/W set. Tinted film room dividers created a somewhat psychedelic effect as light bounced off them in all directions

Chanel: The luxury brand once again fulfilled expectations (and appetites) with its transformation of the Grand Palais into the 'Brasserie Gabrielle'. Three operational pop-up bars were equipped with Parisian waiters, coffee and newspapers, while the space was set with red leather banquets, wood boiserie panelling and bistro tiled flooring.

Prada: Pastel hues and metallic panelling turned Via Fogazzaro into a futuristic realm for Miuccia Prada's A/W offering

Prada: The show's 'Softer Pop' clothes floated through Mrs Prada's pastel space odyssey made up of diamond shaped silver flooring and ceilings

1205: Palm trees and tumbling foliage were the striking accoutrements to 1205's greenhouse show. The Barbican Centre's central conservatory provided a jungle escape for Paula Gerbase's utility inspired collection. The contrast of brutalism and green leafage set a serene scene for the elegantly tailored collection.

Dsquared2: In comparison to the past season where set designer Stefano Grossi re-created an actual apartment interior for the Caten twin's show, for A/W he went with a more graphic approach. A heavenly white staircase cascaded from a dimly lit, tiled marble entrance from which the models stormed the venue

Edun: New York's Skylight event space was left unembellished for this season's Edun show, leaving the venue's Stefan Beckman block installation to take centre stage. The set designer's studio created twin geometric structures that provided a narrow entrance for Edun's multi-cultural collection

Moncler Grenoble: On Valentine's Day evening we were welcomed into Moncler's 'love factory' inside the Duggal Greenhouse warehouse space within the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Set against a crimson draped backdrop, the action took place about a vibrant red, heart-shaped box. This later opened to reveal an array of his 'n' her Moncler outfits, each primed for a winter sport, before the male and female models took part in a kissing finale

Opening Ceremony: Humberto Leon and Carol Lim once again partnered up with Spike Jonze for their latest unorthodox showcase. This season, the white washed walls of New York's Cheim & Read gallery were plastered with a collage of photography by the American creative, which included profile images of both actresses and musicians

Tommy Hilfiger: There was a rush of all-American spirit surrounding the Tommy Hilfiger show in New York. For the brand's 30th anniversary Randall Peacock's design studio transformed the Park Avenue Armory into a Gridiron football field. Kitted out with 'Hilfiger' scoreboards, floodlights and even a Jumbotron, the stadium waited for the 'players' to storm down the green and compete in sportswear's finest

Dior: Upon returning to the Musée du Louvre, Raf Simons conjured a feminine glass box for Dior's A/W presentation. Producers Bureau Betak juxtaposed the soft pink flooring with thick black pillars and clean white benches, while huge windows offered striking vistas of the sandstone Cour Carrée

Wunderkind: Within the walls of the modern art emporium that is the Palais de Tokyo, autumn's Wunderkind collection was presented under a graphic mirrored enclosure. The concept, by Edwin Lemberg and Christian Weinecke, manipulated the spatial area through huge slanted mirrors that reflected faceted views of the collection around the clinical venue.

Emilio Pucci: Milan's Palazzo Serbelloni offered a palatial farewell to outgoing designer Peter Dundas. The Napoleonic room posed as a grand backdrop for Dundas' astrologically inspired collection, with its gold plating and crystal chandeliers shedding a glistening glow on all below.

Philipp Plein: In true Plein style, the showman's audience was given another thrilling performance to remember. A live music set by Azealia Banks kicked off proceedings, while a giant rollercoaster raced around the darkened theatre hall - save for the banner #pleinwarriors that shone in bright lights

Moncler Gamme Rouge: The outerwear giant took to the great outdoors for its Gamme Rouge showing at the Grand Palais. Equestrian models rode over an autumnal runway that was strewn with a patchwork of crispy brown leaves and green foliage

Kenzo: As creative sets go, Kenzo definitely rose to the occasion for A/W with its moving Paris installation. A 20-foot tall backdrop glided effortlessly across the enormous show space before splitting into six different blocks. The structures then rotated on the spot, revealing foiled metallic sides, which shone rainbow reflections onto Humberto Leon and Carol Lim's collection

Erdem: Back at London's Old Selfridges Hotel, Erdem Moralioglu enlisted the help of set designer Robin Brown to resurrect his A/W muse's fictional 1960s Parisian pied-à-terre

Erdem: Under the moody, shadowed lighting, the stained yellow wallpaper and tousled furniture brought a personal narrative to the artful presentation

Erdem: The retrofied apartment took some seven days to construct and fit-out

Versace: Dontella Versace's models arrived through a commanding red and black backdrop derived from the outer edges of the house's Medusa logo. Although the collection itself was more modest this season, the mood remained seductive thanks to the venue's dim boudoir glow and scarlet Perspex runway

Lacoste: In comparison to last season's themed set, for A/W Bureau Betak gave the spotlight to the brand's sportswear. The Lincoln Centre theatre offered a raw setting with white marking lines leading models around giant concrete pillars

Mary Katrantzou: One of the Royal Horticultural Halls was turned into a girl-power paradise for the Mary Katrantzou's presentation.

Mary Katrantzou: Bureau Betak created a spongy Barbie pink studded runway for the designer's cocktail attire to bounce over.

Proenza Schouler: The New York-based brand ran its sharply tailored collection down a stone tiled catwalk for A/W. Under low-hung lights, a backlit installation loomed over the venue's warm atmosphere.

Antonio Marras: The Milanese designer's gilt embellished set posed the perfect setting to compliment a show dedicated to Italian style icon Benedetta Barzini. Ornately printed walls offered an elaborate backdrop, while 18th century rugs marked the runway

Tod's: The Italian brand took over the Baroque setting of Milan's Palazzo Litta for its A/W runway presentation

Tod's: Deep red walls and gold seating dominated the opulent setting. The Italian brand's models entered from ceiling-high doorways as elaborate mirrors reflected the brand's A/W looks

Fendi: Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp's geometric abstractions boldy coloured both the Roman house's A/W show space and collection. Taeuber-Arp's distinctive style resonated in the graphic prints that ran along each side of the Via Solari venue

Hunter Original: Within the industrial surrounds of London's Albert Embankment Warehouse, Hunter creative director Alasdhair Willis continued his water world theme. This season, a trio of tumbling waterfalls flowed through the darkened venue

Maison Margiela: Although Paris' Grand Palais if often a rather, well, grand affair, Maison Margiela's high gloss white tunnel provided a sterile, blank canvas for John Galliano's first ready-to-wear collection

Marni: Consuelo Castiglioni 's Amazonian A/W 2015 collection was presented in an industrial-style den. The raw set space featured worn down plastered walls, rough grey pillars and a waxy red runway that drew the eye to the main event

Fashion week, these days, is about much more than just the collections. Showmanship is the name of game, and in the meticulously executed sartorial extravaganzas, the sound space is an element that no producer or designer can afford to overlook. Music royalty - past, present and future - is enlisted to ensure a full assault on the senses. Here, we bring you Milan Fashion Week's catwalk mega mix from the S/S 2015 womenwear collections.

WEDNESDAY 17/09

No 21
'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush; 'Come Undone' by Trentemoller; 'Love Is A Battlefield' by Pat Benatar
Music production: Mode-F

THURSDAY 18/09

Max Mara
'Requiem Pour Un Con - Remix 91' by Serge Gainsbourg; 'Laide, Jolie Laide' by Serge Gainsbourg; 'Pink Elephants' by Mick Harvey; 'Histoire de Melody Nelson' by Serge Gainsbourg; 'Paris Quatre (Instrumental)' by Malcolm McLaren; 'Intoxicated Man' by Mick Harvey
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Emporio Armani
'Brutal Hearts (FlicFlac Radio Edit)' by Bedouin Soundclash; 'Universe Lovesong' by Laid Back; 'Neeve' by Woolfy vs Projections; 'What's My Name (Extended Disco Mix)' by The Kenneth Bager Experience & Sofie Grabol; 'Lion' by Pang!

Fendi
'Car Ambient #3' by Babe Rainbow; 'Minnesota Winter' by Babe Rainbow; 'Need This (12" Dub)' by Bok Bok Feat Trago; 'Boring Angel' by Oneohtrix Point Never; 'Cocco di Mamma' by Laura Betti
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Dsquared2
'Hideaway' by Kiesza; 'When A Fire Starts To Burn' by Disclosure; 'When A Fire Starts To Burn (C2C re-edit) by Disclosure; 'The Roof Is On Fire' by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three; 'Children Of The Revolution' by Mark's; 'Boongie Drop (feat Jay Z & DJ Military' by Lenny Kravitz; 'Breathe & Stop (J Period Remix)' by J Period & Q-Tip; 'Partition' by Beyonce; 'All About That Bass' by Meghan Trainor; 'Flawless (MIA Partysquad remix)' by Beyonce; 'Wiggle' by Jason Derulo (feat Snoop Dogg); 'Flawless (MIA Partysquad remix)' by Beyonce

Prada
'Kiss Me (Maggot Brain)(Edit)' by Psychic TV & PTV3
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Ports 1961
'Down In The Traffic' by To Rococo Rot; 'Besides' by To Rococo Rot
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

FRIDAY 19/09

Sportmax
'Mambo' by Wally Badarou; 'Speechless' by Kruder & Dorfmeister; 'All Under One Roof Raving' by Jamie xx; 'Private Life (Dub version) by Grace Jones; 'Grillwalker' by Modeselektor
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Marco de Vincenzo
'We Share Our Mother's Health' by The Knife; 'Dreamy' by Go Dugong; 'Quad Boogie' by Populous; 'Fall' by Populous.
Music production: Stefani Libertini Protopapa

Missoni
'Les Ondes' by Motorbass; 'Force Marker' by Brian Eno; 'Shanzhai' by Fatima Al Qadiri
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Tod's
Speech from 'La Notte' by Michelangelo Antonioni
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Versace
'2020' by Suuns; 'All I Hear Is Drums' by Kasper Bjorke; 'Sex-O-Matic (Club)' by Melt; 'Video Fear' by Bitches From Queens

Philipp Plein
'Right Here, Right Now (Orchestral Version by Thomas Roussel)' by Fat Boy Slim; 'Enjoy The Silence (Orchestral Version by Thomas Roussel)' by Depeche Mode; 'Blue Monday (Orchestral Version by Thomas Roussel)' by New Order

SATURDAY 20/09

Bottega Veneta
'Triumphant Procession' by Tuxedomoon; 'Libertango' by London Concertante; 'Piazolla-Libertango' by Yo-Yo Ma; 'Libertango' by The Swingle Sisters; 'I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)' by Grace Jones
Music production: Sebastien Perrin

Giorgio Armani
'Hazey' by Glass Animals; 'Open' by Rhye; 'Candy (Steve Moore Remix)' by Lower Dens; 'Save' by Frankey & Sandrino; 'Tell Her Today' by Tom Baxter; 'Wicked Game' by Queen of Hearts; 'Last Words' by Amirali; 'Electric Sunburst (Phoreski Remix)' by Coyote; 'Blow Up' by Kid Francescoli

Roberto Cavalli
'Trap' by Camp Claude; 'Lost and Found' by Camp Claude; 'Hurricanes' by Camp Claude
Music production: Michel Gaubert

Jil Sander
'Four Solos' by Ars Nova & Tamas Veto; 'Living Room Music IV' by Ars Nova & Tamas Veto; 'Fermi' by Pan Sonic; 'Shaker Loops' by Dan Smiley, Lowendusky, Judiyaba & Ridge String Quartet; 'Release, Depart' by Scanner; 'Spacings' by Takehisa Kosugi
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Emilio Pucci
'Hey Now (Tensnake Remix)' by London Grammar; 'Hey Now (Arty Remix)' by London Grammar; 'The Cloud Atlas Sextet (Elektro RMX JK)' by Tom Tykwer, Kristjan Jarvi & MDR Sinfonieorchester; 'Ultraviolence' by Lana del Rey; 'All The Days' by Haerts; 'Dreams (Axwell remix)' by Deep Dish feat Stevie Nicks; 'Andare' by Ludovico Einaudi
Music production: Jeremy Healy

SUNDAY 21/09

Marni
'Moonrise Kingdom' by L'Orchestra Numerique
Music production: Frédéric Sanchez

Salvatore Ferragamo
'Teenage Lightening 2005' by Coil; 'Say Aaahh Again' by Chicago Damn; 'Mars' by Caribou; 'Merta' by Picchio Dal Pozz

There aren't too many shoes that have the ability to transcend dress codes like Tod's Gommino. For decades this iconic moccasin has comfortably carried men from turf-side polo matches to uptight member's clubs, without even the hint of a raised brow – just as the cosmopolitan women's incarnation crosses effortlessly from the boardroom to Sunday brunch.

'It is the trademark of the brand and part of its craftsmanship heritage,' explains Tod's womenswear creative director Alessandra Facchinetti of the distinctive loafer with the trademark sole of 133 rubber pebbles. 'To me, the Gommino is part of the Tod's legacy and has always been part of my life.' She adds that the driving shoe has long been a wardrobe essential of hers, even prior to joining the Italian house last year.

'When I started at Tod's, my first thought was to remain faithful to the brand's philosophy and lifestyle – and, of course, to its heritage,' she says. 'I've tried to maintain a good balance between the Tod's DNA, keeping iconic styles such as the Gommino, and adding my personal touch with feminine and graphic details – all in keeping with the refined craftsmanship it is known for.' Each pair of Gomminos require some 100 construction steps, and are hand-assembled in Italy using up to 35 pieces of leather per shoe.

For A/W 2014 Facchinetti upped the Gommino's saturation point, contrasting primary hues with pastels; she also added a front fringe secured with a Deco safety-pin (no doubt her twist on a classic) to the Gommino Spilla. 'I wanted to maintain all the strong points: practicality and the use of colour,' she says. 'Then, I decided to have fun – from the Gommino Spilla to the [limited-edition] Couture version.' (The latter has been embellished with a suitably graphic toe ornament.) 'In every shoe, in every structure, there's always a trace of the Gommino,' she says, referencing A/W 2014's Ballerina Margot. Here, the moccasin's signature sole has been reimaged as metallic pebbles on each ballet slipper's heel.

As for the boys? Since the 1970s the widely imitated Gommino has been a staple in the contemporary man's wardrobe, representing indisputable good taste or conformism, depending on your side of the style coin. The idea this autumn was to entice out the City Gommino during the cooler months with a full rubber sole, designed to keep up with Monday-to-Friday wear and tear. Rain puddles and suede pebble soles may never have been the best of friends, but the Gommino's hardly short of fans. In fact, the #todsgommino now has its very own dedicated social media site.

Alessandra Facchinetti is rapidly closing in on a sharp, well-defined fashion DNA for Tod's. In just a few short seasons the Italian designer has honed in on a few sturdy hooks that she wants to hang the leather goods brand on - namely, clean lines and crisp materials. Given Tod's leathery background, hides and skins play a leading role in her vision for clothing. But her calfskins are rolled thin enough to look like paper, while her cottons are starched to such an extent that they take on the stiffened body of leather. The fabrics' crispness allows her clothes to be cut into simple shapes and stay fixed into sharp A-line skirts, boxy cropped-tops or well-bodied culottes. The dazzling workmanship on floral appliqué leather skirts, leather sweatshirts perforated into screens or pierced with mirrored discs shows how technically savvy Facchinetti and the Tod's team are. But some of the clothes we loved most sung to a more subtle tune - such as the crisp blue cotton poplin full length peasant skirt with matching men's shirt. That felt just right with Facchinetti's great looking footwear that ranged from leather t-strap sandals with mirror buckles to sensible wood heel sandals and emerald suede fringe-front driving shoes.

Alessandra Facchinetti hit a home run last season in her debut for Tod's and her sophomore effort proved that this was no fluke. Building further on the strong foundation she laid last season, Facchinetti presented another collection rooted in the footwear brand's leather goods expertise. Working with buttery, paper-thin slices of leather in cream and white, or striking puzzle piece-like intarsia formations, Facchinetti cut voluminous asymmetrical anorak-style capes and clothes that edged away from the body. There was a strong focus on outerwear - it is a winter season after all - and she nailed a boxy silhouette with a boyish crop in the front while trailing a feminine flourish from behind. Train constructions, normally reserved for formal ball gowns, were worked in unusual ways, such as on a lavender patent leather dress cut to the knee. There were indulgent details every where you looked in this collection, from the supersized leather visors that wrapped around the head like chic umbrellas, to leather aprons worn as waist and shoulder flaps, and finally, touches of luxe mink that were wrapped around wrists, ankles and necks as chokers. Topped with Tod's fine footwear - patent leather knee-high boots, loafers and rugged ankle boots - Facchinetti has quickly created a signature look that is an intriguing and very welcome addition to Milan's sometimes-staid fashion scene.

A former architect turned handbag designer, Andrea Incontri is one of Milan's best-kept secrets. Having now taken up official post as creative director of menswear, the designer brings clean lines and a graphic approach to Tod's classicism. For his debut 'JP Club' collection, Incontri deftly re-worked the pebble-soled moccasin with perforated air holes (breathable, but good-looking footwear is a rising trend in Milan) and introduced an expanded world of ready-to-wear, including buttery soft suede separates, and safari pocket twill jackets layered with matching vests. It was a chic off-duty look that settled in nicely with the luxury brand's MO. Tod's has experimented with other creative directors in the past - but with Incontri helming men's and Alessandra Facchinetti leading women's, the brand has wisely culled a home-grown pair of Italian design talent who can pluck out the best of what this global house stands for.

Photography courtesy of Tod's

Italian luxury goods house Tod's has collaborated with photographer David LaChapelle on a project to celebrate the launch of its new A/W 2013 Sella bag. Watch the shoot unfold in this behind-the-scenes video

Having worked for years in commercial photography, capturing the world’s biggest stars and shooting for the likes of Vogue, Rolling Stone and i-D, David LaChapelle famously ’retired’ from fashion in 2006 to concentrate on fine-art photography. So it is rather a coup that Italian luxury goods brand Tod’s has enlisted him to commemorate the launch of its new Sella bag.

The photographic project, shot in LaChapelle’s signature semi-surrealist style, is constructed around a series of theatrical sets that see a heady coming together of miniature horses (because ’girls love horses’, explains LaChapelle), smoke machines and a model languidly posing with variations on the Sella. 

The equine dreamscapes in LaChapelle’s ’Pop Touch’ project are a nod to the Sella’s features - contours shaped to mimic that of a horse saddle, and metal hardware that references the fittings and joints of the bridle.

LaChapelle’s prominent use of horse imagery was also inspired by the world of traditional saddlery and the values of craftsmanship and heritage that make up Tod’s DNA. Reflecting on the ’whole connection with young girls and horses’, he goes on to note that ’a lot of my friends, sisters, cousins, when I was growing up, would have these horse dreams’.

Watch the video to see the project unfold.

Legendary Magnum photographer, Elliott Erwitt, has turned his witty lens on the world of Italian brand Tod's, with a series of black and white portraits for its 'Icons by an Icon' project, currently showing in its store windows.

The 40 images show cosmopolitan families from Europe and the US wearing Tod's classics, including its Gommino and Ballerina shoes and the D Bag. The couples' dogs are equally well-heeled.

Inspired by the project, we thought it time to put our own focus on the veteran photographer with 20 seminal images from his back catalogue, courtesy of esteemed photography cooperative Magnum.

Born in France in 1928 to Russian parents, Erwitt joined the Magnum stable in the 1940s, alongside greats like Robert Capa and Edward Steichen. He cut his teeth as a photojournalist while in the army during the so-called Korean conflict of the 1950s, and for over 60 years has roamed Europe and America with his Leica in toe. 'Some people think I'm dead because I've been around so long,' he once said.

Erwitt's work often bears a stark political statement - more organic than contrived – and everyone from Che Guevara to Marilyn Monroe has been his subject. But he has always preferred photographing those with less expertise before the camera. This perhaps explains his fascination with dogs – the subject of one his many books.