Pieter Mulier is the new creative director of Italian fashion house Versace, it has been announced this afternoon. The widely rumoured move was all but confirmed on Friday when the Belgian designer announced his departure from Alaïa, after a five-year tenure defined by critical success and commercial expansion.

Mulier replaces Dario Vitale, the successor to Donatella Versace, whose brief tenure saw him present only a single runway show at Milan Fashion Week last September. His exit followed a time of major change at the house: just two days prior to Vitale’s exit, the Prada Group’s €1.25 billion deal to purchase the Gianni Versace-founded brand was finalised.

Pieter Mulier is heading to Versace

Now, the Prada Group is backing Mulier to breathe new life into Versace, which, despite its status as a household name, has seen its sales steadily decline in recent years. His time at Alaïa was transformative: the first designer to take the helm of the house after Azzedeine Alaïa’s death in 2017, Mulier sought what he called a ‘modern beauty’, inspired by the namesake couturier’s focus on form and silhouette.

‘The women who wear Alaïa are not static works of art, but are active in society, working, running, busy with children. I want to create clothes that carry this idea of a modern beauty, always in movement,’ he told Wallpaper* in the September 2022 Style Issue.

He came to Alaïa with a strong pedigree: a longtime right-hand of Raf Simons, first at the Belgian designer’s eponymous label, then at Jil Sander, Dior and Calvin Klein (Simons was creative director of each). In 2021, he became creative director of Alaïa, his first major role.

‘When we considered the Versace acquisition, we identified Pieter Mulier as the right person for the brand,’ said Lorenzo Bertelli, Versace’s executive chairman, in a statement this morning (Bertelli is the son of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli and has held various roles within the Prada Group).

‘We believe that he can truly unlock Versace’s full potential and that he will be able to engage in a fruitful dialogue with the brand’s strong legacy.. We are excited to begin this journey together.’

It is yet to be announced when Mulier will hold his debut show for the house.

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This has been a watershed year in fashion. A quarter of the way through the 21st century, 2025 saw the industry hit refresh: in September alone, 15 designers made their debuts as creative directors of fashion’s major houses, ushering in a bold new era in style (and, as with any such change, prompting passionate – and oftentimes divided – online commentary).

Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* style team, are the 25 fashion moments that defined the zeitgeist in 2025 – from a viral Marty Supreme track jacket and Saint Laurent’s thigh-high wader boots, to big-name buyouts, runway returns and, of course, all those debuts.

Willy Chavarria made his mark in Paris with a powerful duo of shows

In January, CFDA Award-winning designer Willy Chavarria chose to shift his runway show from New York, where he lives and works, to Paris. A striking first show, held at the American Church on Quai d’Orsay, came just a few days after Trump’s inauguration, with Chavarria – whose runway shows have long been a clarion call for the rights of immigrants and the queer community – soundtracking the show with Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon imploring the incoming president to ‘have mercy’ towards marginalised communities. ‘It was so beautiful, and it fell exactly in line with what we were doing,’ he told Wallpaper* of the speech. ‘I wanted to show that everyone is welcome, and to do that in a church seemed like the most pronounced way of showing queer people, trans people, in this environment where they were the saints’. His sophomore Paris show, this summer, was similarly impactful: it opened with 35 kneeling men wearing white T-shirts made in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a reference to those being unlawfully detained by ICE in the United States.

READ: Willy Chavarria: ‘We’re still so stuck in fashion’s old guard’

Faux fur and shearling took over the runway

Not a moment, per se, though the proliferation of faux fur and shearling on the runway – spanning both the men’s and women’s collections – was one of the year’s undeniable style takeaways (so much so, we even spotted it on the spring/summer runways). ‘When worn, it becomes a heady meeting place of signifiers – luxury, wealth, power, but also protection, armour against the elements, an ancient and primal urge to be swaddled in the spoils of the hunt,’ we wrote earlier this year of the renaissance of fur – albeit in imitation fabrics – which seemed to a response to the tumult of contemporary living. Indeed, at Prada, where co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented a collection of ‘Raw Glamour’, ‘fur’ coats – constructed from cleverly manipulated shearling – had strange protusions at the collar or were trapped under plastic. ‘We asked ourselves, what is femininity today? It is a constant questioning,’ said Mrs Prada. ‘It is not my job to be political, but when you open a newspaper – oh my God! Our job is to think about what clothes a woman can wear, about what kind of femininity makes sense in this moment.’

READ: Faux fur and shearling dominated the A/W 2025 runways – these pieces capture the material’s ‘raw glamour’

Alessandro Michele entertained with a showstopping haute couture debut for Valentino

Haute couture was always going to be a medium which suited Alessandro Michele, the former Gucci creative director who now heads up Valentino. For his first couture collection for the house – presented this past February – the Italian designer, known for theatrical runway shows and richly imaginative collections, hit new heights, employing the ‘petits mains’ of the Valentino atelier to create a series of showstopping gowns. In a style typical to the deep-thinking designer, they were explained in the book-length collection notes through the language of philosophy and semiotics – Homer, James Joyce and Italo Calvino were all mentioned – with each gown representing a ‘list’ of words and influences (‘[lists] confine the infinite extension of the existing within a meaningful framework… to bring some order to the chaos of the universe,’ Michele wrote, quoting Umberto Eco). These surreal lists scrolled across the show’s set on a series of ticker-tape screens as the dramatic looks wandered across the stage, a millefeuille of satin, lace and tulle – eclectic, intricate and, as fashion sleuths showed after the show, rooted in the Valentino archive. ‘To attempt to describe each look – and its multitude of elements – would require a pages-long list of its own,’ we wrote at the time. ‘It was best to simply let yourself be entertained.’

READ: Inside Alessandro Michele’s showstopping debut haute couture show for Valentino

Martine Rose held her first gallery show – an ode to Bronski Beat’s radical energy

During London Fashion Week in February, Martine Rose hosted her first gallery show at Sadie Coles HQ, revisiting her 2016 film Everything Must Change – a Sharna Osbourne-shot short starring Bronski Beat frontman Jimmy Somerville. ‘Pop charts at the time I was introduced to Jimmy Somerville’s voice were dominated by gay musicians: Erasure, Bronski Beat, Marc Almond,’ Rose told Wallpaper*. ‘Mainstream pop by out and proud gay men making serious, respected pop music – not tokenistic – which can never be replicated. It was a radical time for music, all about individuality, no stylists, all genuine expression.’ It’s a statement that captures the radical, subculture-infused energy of Rose’s own work: later that year, in June, she staged a one-off show in an abandoned west London job centre, adorned for the occasion in boudoir-style ruffled curtains. ‘I was exploring this new shrunken silhouette,’ she said after the show. ‘Everything feels a bit cinched, a bit too tight, slightly awkward, but somehow still sexy, I hope.’ It is this idiosyncratic approach – at once strange, sexy and real – which has made Martine Rose one of London’s defining voices, doing things her own way for close to two decades.

READ: Martine Rose’s first gallery show celebrates the radical queer energy of Bronski Beat

Calvin Klein returned to the runway with a new ‘sexitude’

In February, Calvin Klein hosted its first runway show since the departure of Raf Simons in 2018 (under him, the runway collections went under the moniker Calvin Klein 205W39NYC; now, they are back to being called Calvin Klein Collection). In one of the year’s first notable debuts, it was former The Row designer Veronica Leoni who took the helm, seeking a mood of sensual minimalism she dubbed ‘sexitude’ – a nod to the pulsing undercurrent of eroticism which ran through the brand’s advertising campaigns and collections in the 1990s. ‘When it comes to sexiness, it’s more like an attitude,’ the Italian designer said backstage. ‘You own it in the way you wear the clothes. I think it’s really intimate being sexy – regardless of the silhouette, the amount of skin, it’s about the confidence.’ The collection came with the blessing of Mr Klein himself, who watched on from the front row. ‘He told me he was happy he had found a new coat to buy,’ she said. ‘I’m really proud for him to feel at home again.’

READ: For her Calvin Klein debut, Veronica Leoni stripped it all back

Fendi celebrated its centenary with a blockbuster show in Milan

2025 was a definitive year for Fendi: not only did it mark a century since the fashion house was founded in Rome, but, after the departure of artistic director of womenswear and couture Kim Jones in October 2024, the beginning of its new chapter. As such, in February, Fendi opened the doors to its newly renovated Milanese headquarters for a celebratory runway show, seeing house scion Silvia Venturini Fendi take the reins for the blockbuster spectacle which included a cast of Fendi muses, past and present. The granddaughter of house founders Adele and Edoardo Fendi, Venturini Fendi started at the house in the 1990s under Karl Lagerfeld, and would go on to head up menswear and accessories, though this was just the second time she had also designed the womenswear line (the first was after Lagerfeld’s death in 2019). Talking to Wallpaper*, she said that it was an honour to head up such a definitive show for both her family and the house – but was adamant this was not about living in the past: ‘I tried to avoid any precise reference because, to me, anniversaries are beautiful, but you don’t want it to be a retrospective or nostalgic’. After presenting a second co-ed collecti on in September, she stepped down from the creative role to become ‘honorary president’. Her successor will be former Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri in a much-rumoured move.

READ: Silvia Venturini Fendi on luxury, lineage and looking to the future: ‘If it reminds me of something we’ve already done, we move on’

Prada agreed to purchase Versace for $1.375 billion

The subject of much speculation and rumour after Donatella Versace stepped down from her role as creative director the month prior, in April, it was confirmed that the Prada Group reached an agreement to purchase Versace after the Italian house was put on sale by former owner Capri Holdings earlier in the year. Agreeing to a deal of $1.375 billion for 100 per cent of the company – well below the initial $2 billion asking price – it marked a definitive move from the Prada Group to establish an Italian luxury conglomerate (The Prada Group comprises Miu Miu, Church's and Car Shoe; in 1999, it purchased controlling stakes in Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, though they were later sold). ‘We are delighted to welcome Versace to the Prada Group and to build a new chapter for a brand with which we share a strong commitment to creativity, craftmanship and heritage,’ said Patrizio Bertelli, Prada Group chairman and executive director, at the time (the deal was completed in December). ‘We aim to continue Versace’s legacy, celebrating and re-interpreting its bold and timeless aesthetic; at the same time, we will provide it with a strong platform.’

READ: Donatella Versace is stepping down as creative director

The Met’s Costume Institute explored the figure of the Black Dandy

In a year which was notable for its slew of fashion exhibitions – from the confection-like gowns of ‘Marie Antoinette Style’ at London’s V&A to a Rick Owens retrospective featuring a lifelike sculpture of the designer ‘urinating’ water into a trough below – the Metropolitan Museum’s annual Costume Institute exhibition in May still demands the most attention. This is largely because of the accompanying Met Gala – the starry event heralds the exhibition’s opening – though it is also down to the Costume Institute’s head curator Andrew Bolton’s eye for finding intriguing subject matter in the Met’s extensive archive. This year, he drafted Monica L Miller, author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, to help curate the exhibition, which traced the sartorial history of the Black Dandy from the 18th century to the present day. Titled ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, alongside historical garments, it featured the work – or personal wardrobes – of Virgil Abloh, Andre Leon Talley and Grace Wales Bonner, among others, with set design for the arresting exhibition courtesy of artist Torkwase Dyson. ‘I clocked into how people have fashioned themselves as a manipulation of autonomy and ownership in which clothing is a resistance,’ she told Wallpaper* of the design, which riffed on her signature trapezoid sculptures.

READ: Torkwase Dyson’s set design for ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ at The Met meditates on ownership, charisma and histories

Saint Laurent’s viral knee-high boots heralded menswear’s dark, sensual mood

At Cannes film festival, while promoting queer ‘dom-com’ Pillion – a film which explores a dom/sub relationship between a shy parking attendant and a biker – Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård donned a thigh-high leather wader boot by Anthony Vaccarrello for Saint Laurent. Shown at the house’s runway show earlier that year, it became one of the viral accessories of the year, worn by everyone from Pedro Pascal to Marc Jacobs, and ubiquitous in magazine spreads. Inspired by an imagined meeting between two men who designed the aesthetic of the 1980s – Yves Saint Laurent and Robert Mapplethorpe – the collection captured a mood of dangerous sensuality which ran throughout the season, from Prada’s patchworked leathers to Maximilian Davis’s S/S 2026 Ferragamo collection, inspired by the languid sensuality of Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Vaccarello dubbed it a ‘menacing, seductive elegance’ – classic menswear with an inflection of kink.

READ: Inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe, Saint Laurent’s surprise menswear show captured ‘a menacing, seductive elegance’

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake channelled la dolce vita in Florence

It would prove one of the most memorable show locations of the year: unfolding against a painterly Florentine sky at sunset, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake staged its S/S 2026 show at Medicea della Petraia, a former Medici residence on Monte Morello in the rolling Tuscan countryside. A guest of Pitti Uomo menswear fair, the Issey Miyake offshoot used the occasion to introduce a new roving format of runway show: eschewing its usual place on the Paris Fashion Week schedule (its position has been taken by IM Men, another brand in the Issey Miyake family), it will show in a series of locations around the world in the coming seasons. As such, collections will draw inspiration from local landscapes: here, it was done via an evocative use of colour, utilising hues sourced through trips the design team had taken around Italy (from ’Cinque Terre Yellow’ to ‘Zucchini Flower Orange’). The result was a collection which fused Italian charm with Homme Plissé’s pioneering fabrications: played out in the villa’s winding, maze-like gardens, it was impossible not to be seduced.

READ: With an ode to Italy, Homme Plissé Issey Miyake brings its brand of fashion magic to Florence’s Pitti Uomo

Rick Owens spread the love with a Paris retrospective

‘I’m surprised I got so far,’ Rick Owens told Wallpaper* in a wide-ranging conversation to mark the opening of ‘Temple of Love’, a career-spanning retrospective at Paris’ Palais Galliera. A celebration of the American designer’s singular approach – one laced with both subversion and wit – the exhibition took attendees on a trip from his early years on Hollywood Boulevard in the 1990s (a recreation of his Los Angeles bedroom of the time appears in the exhibition) towards his blockbuster spectacles at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo (indeed, in June, an opening party took place just after his S/S 2026 menswear show, with guests simply having to cross the road from one institution to another). ‘Michèle [Lamy, Owens’ wife] kept telling me, ‘You gotta stop calling it a retrospective!’ She doesn't like the finality – I'm leaning into it,’ he said. ‘A retrospective implies a decline, it makes you think about legacy and mortality and ageing, and how long do you stay relevant, and how important is that? I don't have the answers to any of those things, but I am thinking about them and addressing them publicly.’

READ: ‘I’m surprised that I got this far’: Rick Owens on his bombastic Paris retrospective, ‘Temple of Love’

Jonathan Anderson rebooted his brand – and debuted at Dior

It was a busy June for Jonathan Anderson. Alongside his much-anticipated debut show at Dior – a menswear offering for S/S 2026 presented at Paris’ Hôtel National des Invalides, which astutely reworked formal dress codes – the Northern Irish designer also revealed a rebooted vision for his eponymous, London-based label JW Anderson, which propelled him to renown after it was established in 2008. Doing away with the label’s usual seasonal runway shows, the new vision centres on the idea of the shop: in Paris, during haute couture week, he constructed a simulacrum of a new store concept by architects Sanchez Benton which included not only a fashion collection (a greatest hits of sorts, seeing signature pieces imbued with a greater commitment to craft) but a curation of intriguing objects and curiosities, from ceramics and vintage gardening tools to furniture, art, even honey. 'I like change. I have wanted to change things around for two years now, and finally I feel at one with who I am today and what the brand means,’ he told Wallpaper*. ‘It’s things that I either want to wear or want to live with.’

READ: Jonathan Anderson’s Dior debut: ‘bringing joy to the art of dressing’

Craig Green returned to the runway – and to Paris

After just over a decade in business, Craig Green remains one of British fashion’s definitive voices – a singular creative force whose imaginative collections transform humble menswear archetypes (workwear, uniforms, biker jackets) through imaginative construction and unusual fabrications, oftentimes evoking sculpture. This year, he made his return to Paris Fashion Week, having shown a year prior in his London studio, and elsewhere via lookbook (Green is one of a handful of designers who seem to be flourishing outside of the typical fashion calendar). The show was one of our highlights of the year: a poetic, free-thinking collection inspired by The Beatles, psychedelics and 1960s bed sheets – albeit in his typically inventive style. ‘Creativity how everything moves forward,’ Green told us in the October 2025 ‘Long View’ issue of Wallpaper*, in which we documented the process behind the collection. ‘You need creative thought for things to progress, and for new things to happen. You have to have the freedom to make mistakes, to create work and not live in fear.’

READ: ‘You have to be fearless’: inside the free-thinking world of Craig Green

Glenn Martens unveiled his vision for Maison Margiela

The task was unenviable: as the new creative director of Maison Margiela, Belgian designer Glenn Martens would not only have to follow the house’s namesake – arguably the most influential designer of recent times – but also John Galliano, his predecessor, whose final collection, which conjured a troupe of contorted dolls on the drizzly moonlit banks of the Seine, was a true fashion epic. But Martens, who comes with a pedigree of his own after zeitgeist-defining stints at Y/Project and Diesel, was more than up for a challenge. His own creatures were sheathed in masks (a nod to a Margiela hallmark, that of anonymity) and appeared pulled through the the walls of history – quite literally, with a melange of jacquards, Renaissance motifs and embossed leather (inspired by 16th-century Flemish wallpaper), evoking the faded grandeur of abandoned stately homes (indeed, the show set was a series of ‘palatial interiors’ printed on crumpled and crased paper). We called it a ‘thrilling’ debut, a task of ‘reinvention and reconstruction – a precarious balance of what to take and what to leave behind’.

READ: Glenn Martens’ thrilling Maison Margiela debut was a balancing act between past, present and future

Fashion East celebrated a ‘rowdy and raw’ 25 years of nurturing emerging talent

In September, Fashion East’s S/S 2026 runway show doubled as a celebration: 2025 marked 25 years of the Brick Lane-based talent incubator, which was founded by Lulu Kennedy to help forge the careers of London’s rising stars. The roll call of names which have passed through its doors is proof of its success: Jonathan Anderson, Martine Rose, Kim Jones, Craig Green and Grace Wales Bonner are all alumni of the unique scheme, which has long encapsulated London’s unique brand of young talent – defiantly creative, ‘rowdy and raw’ (as Kennedy herself described in a letter distributed to guests at the show). Taking place at the ICA, this season’s show – comprising collections by Nuba, Jacek Gleba and Mayhew – doubled as a Nike-sponsored exhibition tracing Fashion East’s impressive quarter century through its memorable clothing and ephemera, from Green’s ‘broken-fence’ chestplates to a leopard-print cake by Mowalola. Later in the year, in December, Kennedy and her creative partner Raphaelle Moore collected a Special Recognition Award at the 2025 Fashion Awards. ‘We’re proud to have created a unique space where designers have both the freedom to create fearlessly, and a family unit to uplift them,’ they said.

September’s fashion week saw almost too many debuts to count

2025 was fashion’s big reshuffle, seeing an unprecedented number of designers making their debuts at fashion’s biggest houses – from Dior to Chanel, Gucci to Celine. It was September fashion month, though, that was a true changing of the guard moment, with over 15 designers presenting their first collections as newly installed creative leads. These spanned an energetic and playful debut from Nicholas Aburn at Area in New York (the former Balenciaga designer riffed on the figure of the party girl in irreverent style), Simone Bellotti’s masterful first outing at Jil Sander, which saw him astutely explore ideas of modernity and lightness (staged in the brand’s white-walled Milan headquarters, it was a true clean slate momet), or Pierpaolo Piccioli’s typically heartfelt first collection for Balenciaga (an appearance from the Duchess of Sussex ensured column inches).

Elsewhere, notable debuts included Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe and Duran Lantink at Jean Paul Gaultier. And, while these debuts were largely lauded – particularly by critics – fiercer debates broke out online in the depths of Instagram comment sections. ‘I have read some really heinous comments about the work of many designers in these last few days,’ wrote Perfect magazine’s Edward Buchanan, former design director of Bottega Veneta, in a much-shared post. ‘It is not always perfect, and it is not always what you personally imagined it to be. You don’t have to like everything… but why not celebrate and talk about what you love?’

Though in Paris, it was Chanel and Dior which commanded the most attention

There were two debuts, though, which commanded the most attention: Jonathan Anderson’s womenswear debut for Dior (he had previously shown his first menswear collection in June) and Matthieu Blazy’s opening act for Chanel. Shrugging off the weight of expectation, both collections provided an astute and contemporary viewpoint on the future of two of fashion’s most storied houses – Anderson through a fearless ‘recoding’ of the house’s archive in his idosyncratic style (we said it was a collection of ‘bravery, vision and instinct’), Blazy through a collection of unbridled freedom and optimism (a twirling Awar Odhiang in a gown of kaleidoscopic feathers, the model who memorably closed the show, encapsulated the ‘triumphant’ mood). After Chanel, which marked the end of fashion month, we said that after all of the debuts, it finally felt like a ‘weight had been lifted’. ‘There will be no more anticipation or speculation, no more guessing games or gossip. The designers are in place, and a new chapter of fashion has begun – from there, the hard work begins.’

While Demna marked his Gucci debut with a Demi Moore-starring film

In what proved an astute move, the Georgian designer Demna – previously of Balenciaga – got ahead of the season’s other debuts by presenting his first collection as creative director of Gucci on the first day of Milan Fashion Week, allowing him a moment in which he dominated the narrative (and, of course, social media). Revealed first through a lookbook of Gucci ‘archetypes’, rewritten in his typically irreverent and subversive style (he called it a ‘bold, sexy new chapter’ for the house), it was followed up by a Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn-directed short, premiered at Milan’s Palazzo Mezzanotte. Titled The Tiger, it starred Demi Moore as the fictional ’head of Gucci international and chairman of California’ whose world begins to unravel at a family gathering. Even cleverer? Demna will get another ‘debut’ in 2026 when he holds his first runway for the house during Milan Fashion Week, in February.

READ: Gucci reveals its ‘bold, unapologetically sexy’ new era under Demna

The fashion world mourned the death of Giorgio Armani

In early September, the fashion world mourned the death of Giorgio Armani, an arbiter of Italian style who founded his eponymous house half a century ago, in 1975. One of fashion’s great success stories, Mr Armani began the label using funds made from selling his old Volkswagen Beetle; on his death, he left behind a multi-billion dollar empire spanning not only fashion but homeware, hotels, restaurants, fragrances and cosmetics. To mark his death, after a private funeral held earlier in the month, well-wishers gathered at Milan Fashion Week in September for his final Giorgio Armani show. Originally intended to celebrate 50 years in business, it took place at Brera’s Pinacoteca di Brera, where an accompanying exhibition unfolded in the galleries above. As ever, the S/S 2026 collection – modelled on a cast of Armani models past and present and watched on by muses Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton and Cate Blanchett – encapsulated Mr Armani’s brand of soft elegance, culminating with model Agnes Zogla in a glimmering gown adorned with his face. Afterwards, guests milled the galleries, where the designer’s work took its fitting place amid the great Italian masters – from Bellini to Raphael.

READ: In Milan, the fashion world gathers to say goodbye to Giorgio Armani at his final show

A Virgil Abloh exhibition celebrated his landmark legacy

Just over four years since his death, American designer Virgil Abloh leaves behind a towering legacy – one which was celebrated this September in Paris with the opening of an exhibition at the Grand Palais. Open for just a few days (cue a sold out booking system and snaking queues around the block), the exhibition opened the doors to his prolific archive of objects, clothing, ephemera, furniture and art, displayed across sprawling tables and shelves as if stepping into his headquarters. Indeed, one senses the polymathic designer – who made history as the first Black creative director of Louis Vuitton – would enjoy the exhibition’s approach, which eshewed the behind-glass formality of the traditional museum (only self-restraint stopped you from picking up the objects on display). Titled ‘Virgil Abloh: The Codes’, the idea is for it to go on display around the world. ‘This is a true celebration of Virgil's vision and ethos,’ said the late designer’s wife, Shannon Abloh. ‘This offers an invitation to the world to engage and to build upon his ideas.’

READ: Inside the Paris exhibition cataloguing Virgil Abloh’s extraordinary archive

Grace Wales Bonner is appointed at Hermès

In late October, Hermès announced the appointment of Grace Wales Bonner as the house’s head of menswear, replacing Véronique Nichanian who made the choice to step down from the role after a record-breaking 37-year tenure (the longest of any working creative director at a fashion house). It felt long overdue for the British designer. An LVMH Prize-winning designer whose deeply felt collections for her eponymous label Wales Bonner – exploring themes of Black masculinity, migration and luxury – have consistently won plaudits for rich storytelling and meticulous craftsmanship, leading many to question why she hadn’t been chosen for a creative director role sooner (she had been rumoured for roles at both Louis Vuitton and Givenchy which went to Pharrell Williams and Sarah Burton respectively). On social media, there was a rare positive consensus on the decision: in her own post, the designer, who was born in South London to a British mother and Jamaican father, expressed her ‘deep honour’ at being chosen for the role. ‘It is a dream realised to embark on this new chapter, following in a lineage of inspired craftspeople and designers,’ she wrote.

READ: Lauded British designer Grace Wales Bonner is the new head of menswear at Hermès

1980s ‘architect of glamour’ Antony Price returned to the runway

The fashion critic Alexander Fury – who is an avid collector of his work – has called Antony Price, a British fashion designer who came to prominence in the 1980s, as ‘criminally underrated’. Best known for creating the visual universe of Roxy Music, and staging similarly dramatic runway shows in the decade, the ‘architect of glamour’ made a welcome runway return in November, courtesy of a one-off salon show with London-based label 16Arlington. Staged in the latter’s east London studio, the high-profile cast – from Lily Allen to Adwoa Aboah – prowled the runway in the high-voltage creations, puffing on cigarettes before posing for photographer Felix Cooper. ‘I personally felt Antony never really received his flowers,’ Capaldo told Wallpaper*. ‘To have been able to witness such a legend at work has probably been one of the most incredible and pivotal moments in my career. It's been really magical.’ Sadly, it was announced that Price passed away at the age of 80 on 17 December 2025.

READ: ‘Architect of glamour’ Antony Price makes a high-voltage return to the runway with 16Arlington

Dario Vitale said goodbye to Versace

It was to be one of fashion’s shortest tenures – just a few short months after his debut, in December, it was announced that Italian designer Dario Vitale would be exiting Versace. The former design director of Miu Miu, and the successor to Donatella Versace, the news came as some surprise: Vitale’s debut show at Milan Fashion Week, though divisive, had won over critics and was already being worn by celebrities (Olivia Dean wore custom Versace for a recent SNL appearance, while Addison Rae was also an early adopter). We said that Vitale had ‘stripped back conceptions and ushered in an energetic new vision: sexually charged and ‘reckless’, one that harkened back to the dress codes of Gianni Versace without nostalgia.’ On social media, the announcement came with some disappointment at the way in which designers are given so little time to make their mark: ‘There’s a disturbing pattern across the fashion industry: giant companies, plucking creative directors, placing them on a pedestal, parading them as the future, and then discarding them just as quickly,’ wrote casting director Anita Bitton in a much-shared Instagram post.

In Vienna, there was a chance to see Helmut Lang’s fashion archive for the first time

Though he exited the industry 20 years ago, Helmut Lang’s influence on fashion remains palpable. A definitive figure of the 1990s, he proposed a vision of sensually-charged minimalism and utility which continues to define the way that we dress today. He also changed the way we consume fashion, too: his memorable New York runway shows stripped back the artifice of the 1980s and its elevated runway, drafting friends to walk alongside supermodels, while stripped-back campaigns were captured by a young Juergen Teller. This revolutionary spirit is celebrated in ‘Séance de Travail 1986-2005’, an exhibition which opened in December at MAK in Vienna, which marks the first time Helmut Lang’s fashion archive is on show to the public – from memorable garments to archival film, ephemera, even recreations of elements from his equally definitive stores (Lang donated his archive to the institution in 2011). ‘Looking at Helmut Lang’s store architecture, it became obvious: his stores were all about directing the gaze. This is also what exhibitions need to do, but here it was essential. A photo wouldn’t suffice; you have to experience it,’ curator Marlies Wirth told Wallpaper* of the exhibition, which is designed to immerse you in the Lang universe – all the way down to the floor, which features a seating plan from a runway show.

READ: Inside Helmut Lang’s fashion archive in Vienna, which still defines how we dress today

Marty Supreme birthed the year’s viral garment – thanks to Timothée Chalamet

The Marty Supreme press tour has already come with some memorable sartorial moments – the film’s star Timothée Chalamet and girlfiend Kylie Jenner in matching orange Chrome Hearts for one – though it was more humble track jacket which went viral in December (the Josh Safdie-directed film is out on Christmas Day in the United States). The nylon windbreaker, created by the film’s production company A24 alongside California-based label Nahmias, was part of a merch drop for the film – adorned with ‘Marty Supreme’ and three gold stars, Chalamet has barely taken it off since. Pop-ups in New York and London have seen queues around the block to lay their hands on the $250 jacket – with resale sites selling the garment for up to for up to £4,366 (that’s over 20 times its original price). It speaks not only to A24’s marketing prowess, but also to the rise of movie merch – at the end of 2024, Mary Cleary explored its rise for Wallpaper*. ‘How it will continue to play out is yet to be seen, but one thing is almost certain: movie merch will continue to take over fashion,’ she wrote – and was right.

Milan Design Week 2025 saw the fashion contingent put on its most comprehensive showing at the design fair to date, taking up residence in some of the city’s storied landmarks to do so.

From Gucci’s ‘Bamboo Encounters’ staged in the cloisters of San Simpliciano and Aesop’s ‘The Second Skin’ exhibition in the sacristy of the Chiesa del Carmine, to Loewe at the Palazzo Citterio and Prada Frames taking over the iconic Milano Centrale station, the showcase proved a heady melting pot of sensorial immersions and design collaborations.

Here, Scarlett Conlon highlights the standout fashion moments of Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week 2025 – from Loewe’s playful artist-designed teapots to a blockbuster Charlotte Perriand exhibition from Saint Laurent.

Georg Jensen’s ‘Gelateria Danese’

Danish design house Georg Jensen provided Milan Design Week’s most palatable pit stop: Gelateria Danese, an ephemeral ice cream parlour that drew inspiration from the interiors of Copenhagen’s Palace Hotel (opened in 1910, Georg Jensen provided furnishings and silverware) while referencing Milanese café culture. On the menu was traditional affogato (coffee was sourced from local roastery Prolog), while an array of ice cream flavours were dreamed up by Copenhagen-based Italian chef Chiara Barla. Each was served on Georg Jensen silverware, from coupes to tub-shaped cups, as well as spoons taken from ‘The Artisans Series’. ‘You’ll find pieces you’d typically associate with ice cream, but instead of being disposable, they’re crafted in silver,’ said recently appointed creative director Paula Gerbase. ‘Not only creating durable objects, but elevating the fleeting moments we use them in.’

The Row’s first homeware offering

In signature understated style, The Row launched ‘Home’ at Salone. Comprising a collection of three handwoven throws and a quilted blanket, the Olsens’ first foray into luxury home design was presented elegantly draped over steel and bronze rails by Julian Schnabel in the frescoed rooms of what will shortly become the New York-based brand’s Milanese HQ. Created with artisans in Kashmir, India, each blanket takes between 600 hours to craft and employs a different weaving technique from which they take their name: the Classic, The Row Weave, and the Himalayan Weave, arriving in four colourways – mink, ivory, brown and black. Lightweight at less than 14.5 microns and discreetly embroidered with the brand’s initials, they stand to become one of the year’s most coveted IYKYK home improvements.

Prada Frames boards a restored Gio Ponti train

As the city’s most majestic portal, Milano Centrale station proved the perfect location for the fourth edition of Prada Frames, ‘In Transit’. The annual event curated by Formafantasma that invites panellists from all areas of design, including architecture, engineering and environmental planning, into thematic dialogue has become one of the most popular attractions at Design Week, taking place in iconic landmarks around the city. This year, attendees were invited into the station’s Padiglione Reale that once served as the waiting room for Italian royalty and heads of state before boarding the Arlecchino train designed by Gio Ponti and Giulio Minoletti in the 1950s and recently restored by the Fondazione FS Italiane (out of the entire original fleet, this was the only one viable to be brought back to its former glory). Over the course of the week, discussions on digital, global, material and hacking infrastructures, along with interrogations of infrastructures of power, played out on board, seeking to examine ‘the impact of digital revolutions and global distribution networks on daily life’. Once again brilliantly introduced and contextualised by Alice Rawsthorn, several key takeaways included the necessity for infrastructure to collaborate rather than colonise, integrating ancestral knowledge to reframe industrial design, and the urgent need to re-evaluate industrial infrastructures to work in conjunction with the natural world rather than see them as separate entities.

READ: Aboard Gio Ponti's colourful Arlecchino train in Milan, a conversation about design with Formafantasma

Stone Island’s ‘sonic experience’

Stone Island invited visitors to its ‘sonic experience’ called ‘Friendly Pressure: Studio One’, staged in collaboration with Friendly Pressure, the London-based sound system studio founded by Shivas Howard Brown. A study of the textures of sound, the week-long programme of events took place in spaces that had bespoke hi-fidelity audio systems installed by Friendly Pressure in direct response to the precise dimensions of the space to rouse emotions akin to ‘the golden age of recorded music, treating sound as both a sensory and physical experience,’ the brand relayed. Studio One, where the events took place, was inspired by Carlo Scarpa, while inside soundproofing by Soundwave Jasmine and CC-Tapis rugs ensured the desired sound dispersion. Mirroring Stone Island’s sartorial approach to how materials respond to their environment, an allegorical experience emerged, parallelling reactions to touch and sound.

Louis Vuitton’s latest Objets Nomades series

Louis Vuitton revealed its 2025 home collection by staging a takeover of the neoclassical residence of Palazzo Serbelloni in the centre of Milan alongside its Objets Nomades series. Featuring designs from leading artists that the Paris fashion house has collaborated with over the years – including Patricia Urquiola, Jaime Hayon and Atelier Biagetti – it drew special attention to the work of futurist artist Fortunato Depero and Charlotte Perriand, whose textile work for the house was realised for the first time. Elsewhere, a special-edition trunk celebrating the house’s original design icon, the Malle Vaisselier, opened to reveal a service of refined porcelain and delicate glasses. It was the more whimsical items on display that drew the most attention: the Odyssée table football and a pinball machine inspired by the A/W 2025 fashion show by creative director Pharrell Williams were designed for Studio Louis Vuitton by Estúdio Campana and balanced the splendour with a cheeky wink.

Miu Miu’s ‘Literary Club’

The doors to The Miu Miu Literary Club opened once again during Salone, inviting guests into the Circolo Filologico Milanese that had been given a modernist Miu Miu makeover. Conceived under the direction of Miuccia Prada and curated by writer and researcher Olga Campofreda, the theme for this year was ‘A Woman’s Education’ and saw two days of panel discussions exploring the subjects of girlhood, love and sex education through the pages of Simone de Beauvoir’s 1954 coming-of-age novella ‘The Inseparables’ and Fumiko Enchi’s groundbreaking 1957 novel charting female desire, ‘The Waiting Years’. On day one, author Lou Stoppard moderated a panel discussion exploring ‘the power of girlhood’ in the context of De Beauvoir’s work with Lauren Elkin, Geetanjali Shree, and Veronica Raimo, and on day two Kai Isaiah Jamal delved into Enchi’s with through the lens of ‘love, sex, and desire’ with Nicola Dinan, Naoise Dolan, and Sarah Manguso, both championing the voices of female literary voices past, present and future.

Valextra’s ‘travelling sculpture’ with Zaven

Milanese leather goods brand Valextra is famed for sitting at the intersection of fashion and design with an archive dating back to 1937 that includes collaborations with AG Fronzoni and the first Compasso D’Oro award. For its Salone project this year, it continued its Vocabulario Project, inviting the Venice-based design studio Zaven to work with one of its most famous creations from the last century and recontextualise it through an idiosyncratic lens. The result is the ‘Costa 70 x Zaven’ suitcase, an identical re-creation of the Giovanni Fontana-designed luggage that dates back to the 1960s filled with a series of abstract resin objects that Zaven designed to be engineered into a build-it-yourself home sculpture. ‘Responsive and thought-provoking design has been at the core of Valextra’s DNA since 1937 and Zaven mirrors our own passion in realising objects of excellence in both a functional and meaningful way with this exceptional reinvention of an archival icon,’ says Valextra CEO Xavier Rougeaux.

READ: Valextra’s collaboration with Zaven is a ‘travelling sculpture’ with its own suitcase

Brioni bottles a rare fragrance with Lalique

If time is regarded as one of the greatest luxuries, then Brioni bottled it for Salone. A project four years in the making was unveiled at its Via Gesu flagship to mark Brioni’s 80th anniversary. Beloved for its exquisite attention to sartorial detail, the brand unveiled the Dualité Crystal Edition Perfume in collaboration with Lalique, an ode to artisanal craftsmanship and the art of olfactory. The glass bottle – of which only 18 are available – stands at nearly 40cm high and features an internal sculpture that was created using the cire-perdue method, the lost-wax technique first used by René Lalique in 1893 and passed down through generations of glassmakers. Inside, the Extrait de Parfum scent was created by master perfumer Michel Almairac over a seven-year-period and features notes of green apple, violet, Ambroxan, and rare iris butter. ‘This collaboration between our maisons became one of shared passion, representing everything we stand for: a dedication to time, the selection of precious raw materials, exquisite artisanry and the difference that human touch makes,’ says Brioni design director, Norbert Stumpfl.

Luca Faloni collaborates with Winetage

Luca Faloni partnered with Winetage, the fellow Italian brand that upcycles wine barrels into original design objects, to create a daybed upholstered in its exquisite brushed linen fabrics. Crafted from wood that still bears the red-wine stains and aromas from years of maturing the best Italian vintages, the daybed is furnished with padded tubes in fruity Bordeaux-red tones. Designed to spotlight the best of Made in Italy, the finished product combines fashion, wine, and design, providing the perfect resting spot to indulge in all three.

Missoni Home opens new Milan store

Missoni Home might be a mainstay in many a Milano dwelling, but it didn’t have its own spot in the city it calls home until this design week. Beside the brand’s Via Solferino showroom, the first dedicated Missoni Home boutique opened this week with its interior decor riffing on several of the brand’s most distinctive signatures, including degradé-painted pillars, zig-zag wallpaper, and its joyful rainbow colour palette, featuring a special curation of its expansive home offering.

Tod’s celebrates Made in Italy craft

As one of Italy’s most recognisable design icons, the Tod’s Gommino driving shoe holds a special place in the Made in Italy playbook. For Salone, the brand released a limited edition of the driving shoe (above) and unveiled a special coffee-table photography tome, ‘Italian Hands; Artisanal Stories From Italy’. A celebration of the processes and products that are exported all over the world, it features prominent Italian tastemakers alongside the artisans with whom they collaborate and promote – including master Murano glassblower Giberto Arrivabene, master of terracotta Rosario Spina, artisan of brass and bronze Ernesto Carati; and pesto connoisseur Christian Belforte. ‘This book is a tribute to those who, every day, with passion and commitment, contribute to keeping a fundamental part of our cultural identity alive,’ says Tod’s group president Diego Della Valle. ‘It is a recognition of those who know how to enhance craftsmanship, making it a symbol of authentic, timeless quality, even for new generations.’

Gucci’s Bamboo Encounters

Few materials are as synonymous with Gucci as bamboo. One of the fashion house’s defining motifs since it was first used on its iconic handbag in 1947, its legacy defines the innovation inherent to the Florentine brand. For Milan Design Week this year, the house invited seven artists to give their take on the material in their own mediums for its installation ‘Gucci Bamboo Encounters’. Curated by 2050+ founder Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli and staged in the cloisters of the Chiostri di San Simpliciano, works ranged from a sculpture by Swedish-Chilean artist Anton Alvarez and a collection of baskets featuring hand-blown glass accents by Palestinian architect, artist, and researcher Dima Srouji, to a jubilant collection of bamboo kites by the Dutch design collective Kite Club. They were joined by artists Nathalie Du Pasquier, Laurids Galleé, and Sisan Lee, each of whom explored the shapeshifting possibilities of this chameleonic material.

READ: Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli on curating Gucci Bamboo Encounters at Fuorisalone: ‘We didn’t want to produce commodities’

‘La Prima Notte Di Quiete’ by Loro Piana and Dimoremilano

Loro Piana may have staged its design week event in the Cortile della Seta courtyard of its Milan headquarters, but there was nothing familiar about this space. Realised in collaboration with design duo Dimorestudio (founded by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci), the usually light-flooded space had been transformed into a decadent 1970s film set meets affluent Milanese penthouse accessed via a cinema foyer draped in red theatre curtains. Invited through the curtains, visitors were presented with a fully furnished home, featuring furniture designed by Dimorestudio for Loro Piana Interiors alongside exquisite vintage pieces upholstered in Loro Piana’s luxurious home textiles and art from Tornabuoni Art, Cardi Gallery, and Galleria Gracis e Secci Gallery. Immersing visitors in the space for four-minute intervals was a soundtrack curated by music composer and multimedia artist Nicola Guiducci that ranged from excerpted dialogue on a rainy evening to a phone ringing and a piano playing that both heightened the cinematic experience.

Saint Laurent’s homage to Charlotte Perriand

When it comes to the design world, Yves is never far from Saint Laurent. For its design week installation, creative director Anthony Vaccarello looked to one of the design heroes of the French fashion house’s founder, Charlotte Perriand, commissioning four pieces of furniture she conceived between 1943 to 1967 that have only existed as sketches or prototypes until now. Comprising the rosewood and cane sofa designed for the Japanese ambassador’s Paris residence in 1967; the rose and cherrywood Mille-Feuilles table that she made a reduced-scale model of in 1963; the Indochina Guest Armchair she designed for her own home in 1943; and the Rio de Janeiro bookcase she designed in 1962 for her husband Jacques Martin’s apartment, the collection has been produced in full scale for the very first time for Milan Design Week. Standing in homage to the design talents of both Perriand and Saint Laurent, each piece in the collection will be available on an exclusive made-to-order basis following the showcase.

Versace’s celebration of the ‘Art of Living’

The Versace brand may be undergoing creative changes following the announcement last month that Donatella Versace would be stepping down as creative director, but its extravagant proposition for home design remains steadfast at its Milan Design Week presentation, The Versace Art of Living. Described as a ‘universe that brings a fantasy of poise, extravagance and heritage to life’, the star of the show this season was the reinvention of the ‘Harem’ chair, its steel frame made bountiful with the addition of thick padded satin cushions and, of course, a large gold Medusa head, alongside an update the of the 1994 wooden chair the ‘Vanitas’, upholstered in velvet. The house referenced Versace’s last fashion show at the event, stating that, like its ready-to-wear offering, ‘to embody Versace is to embrace a way of living at once proudly historied and decidedly modern, and to live it – to wear it, eat from it, sit on it, sleep in it – with uncompromising intention.’

Dolce & Gabbana’s ode to ‘love and hospitality’

The master of Southern Italian charm, Dolce & Gabbana, brought the verdant coastal landscapes of its founders’ native Sicily to the northern design capital for Salone with Verde Maiolica, a porcelain service in green and white. Celebrating the handmade craftsmanship of the region, its botanical design finds its roots in the Mediterranean shrub, while the collection – comprising tea and coffee sets alongside tableware, flatware and glassware – ‘represents and narrates the tale of love and hospitality’, relayed the brand at its Via Broggi cocktail presentation.

Fendi Casa’s collaboration with Lewis Kemmenoe

Fendi Casa continued its Design Miami collaboration with British designer Lewis Kemmenoe in Milan, seeing him take over the windows of its Via Manzoni flagship with his large-scale abstract panels. Acting as a metaphor for the savoir-faire behind the Rome-based brand’s furniture, they encapsulated the duality of the new interiors collection that is at once sumptuous and minimal. New to its line-up this year was ‘Cover’ sofa, designed to be ‘dressed up or down’ – a sartorial reference to reliable wardrobe staples; the ‘Twist’ chair by Stefano Gallizioli, a wood structure upholstered in leather with armrests resembling the swirls of a ribbon; and the modular ‘Later’ sofa, designed by Ceriani Szostak and inspired by the rationalist architecture of Fendi’s iconic Rome HQ that is famously both imposing and inviting.

Issey Miyake’s ‘Type-XIII Atelier Oï’ lighting

Issey Miyake invited guests to its Milan flagship to unveil ‘Type-XIII Atelier Oï’, the fruits of its collaborative project between the Swiss design studio Atelier Oï and A-POC Able Issey Miyake, which explores the seemingly limitless possibilities of its iconic ‘A Piece of Cloth’ concept. Unveiling lighting prototypes that use one piece of wire and a piece of cloth in several formations, the house presented two distinctive series. The first, the ‘O Series’, draws inspiration from the Japanese art of Ikebana, with five sculptural lights designed to take on the same decorative presence as flower arrangements that can be easily moved around the home with the recycled polyester ‘Steam Stretch’ material used in A-POC Able’s clothes-making process appearing to blossom in spontaneous directions. The second, the ‘A Series’, pays homage to Miyake’s iconic 1997 APOC show that saw a formation of models take to the runway connected by one continuous roll of fabric. Here, a pre-knitted roll stretches out to create a three-shade interconnected light installation that can be cut to size to suit the space it is destined to take pride of place in.

READ: A-POC Able Issey Miyake’s lighting collaboration with Atelier Oï is based on its philosophy of ‘a piece of cloth’

Hermès’ brilliant white box

In a departure from the darkened rooms of recent years, Hermès turned its La Pelota venue into a brilliant-white box. ‘To design an object, to make it, a box is needed,’ visitors were told before stepping into the stark space. Designed by Charlotte Macaux Perelman, architect and artistic director of Hermès collections for the home, the cavernous box-like room presented four polyhedron shapes descending from the ceiling and emitting a fluorescent glow beneath.‘Like a sculptor's marble block, [the box] contains the object, the idea we have of it, and the dream it inspires,’ the house continued. Each of these suspended structures featured this year’s ‘Objects For The Home’, including the ‘Contrepoint Dinner Service’ by Nigel Peake and Pivot D’Hermès side table by Tomás Alonso alongside the ‘Double D’Hermès’ jugs and ‘H Partition’ throws by Studio Hermes. Positioned both inside the cavities and on cutout shelves along their surface, the intersection between an object of function and admiration was brought to the fore.

READ: A bit of all white: Hermès unveils its latest home collections in Milan

Armani Casa’s ‘Oriental Inks’

After two years of delighting Milan Design Week-goers by throwing the doors open to his historic Palazzo Orsini home on Via Borgonuovo, Giorgio Armani opted to redirect attention back to the sprawling Armani Casa flagship on Corso Venezia to mark 25 years of Armani Casa and unveil its new homewares collection, ‘Oriental Inks’. Working in collaboration with De Gournay, iconic items of furniture in the permanent Armani collection were transformed with exquisite silk and beaded embroidery and gold-leaf appliqué depicting bamboo, dragons and jungle landscapes, chosen for being ‘auspicious symbols of strength, flexibility and endurance’ designed to transport their owners – and admirers – elsewhere. The ‘Amedeo’ bed, in particular, took over 200 hours to embroider its monkey-inhabiting canopy scene. ‘The display and the new pieces, authentic examples of the highest level of craftsmanship, are visible through the windows to anyone passing by,’ shared Mr Armani. ‘I quite like the idea of a surprise that captures attention, a suggestion that broadens horizons, now that horizons are often becoming narrower.’

Loewe’s artist-designed teapots

Former Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson may have left the building, but one of his proudest legacies lives on at design week. Marking its ninth craft exhibition during the city-wide showcase, the brand presented ‘Loewe Teapots’ featuring 25 different interpretations of the ubiquitous vessel by 25 international artists and the last curation from Anderson to be presented by the Spanish house. From the coral-like glaze application of South Korean artist Jane Yang-D'Haene’s pot to the surrealist two faces of Spanish ceramicist Laia Arqueros Claramunt’s design, the collection ranged in depiction from classic ceramic to convention-defying proportions, with each piece representing the intimate ceremony in which a teapot takes the lead.

READ: 25 artists reimagine the teapot at Milan Design Week 2025

Dior expands ‘Ode to Nature’ collection with Sam Baron

Dior Maison worked with French artist Sam Baron to expand its ‘Ode To Nature’ collection with three one-metre-high glass vases that were every bit as intricate as one of the French fashion house’s couture creations. Each depicting its own garden of intertwining branches, petals and foliage, the bodies of the hand-blown and hand-constructed vessels were inspired by the first Miss Dior amphora perfume bottle from 1947. Starting as a ribbed glass tube, each was gently blown and fired over several hours to create the distinctive shape before the exacting process of applying the delicate decorative details could begin. Designed to conjure the bouquets of flowers that founder Dior insisted on having in his salon, each of the three designs is available in a limited edition of eight – Monsieur Christian Dior’s lucky number.

Stay tuned for more of the best fashion moments at Milan Design Week 2025.

At Versace’s A/W 2025 runway show, held in Milan earlier this month, there were whispers that it was to be Donatella Versace’s last. This afternoon, the rumours have been confirmed: the indomitable Italian designer – one of fashion’s most recognisable and well-known figures – is to step away from her role as creative director at the house her brother Gianni Versace began in 1978.

She will be replaced by Dario Vitale, a former design director of Italian house Miu Miu, who was recently appointed by the brand. Donatella Versace will remain present, taking on the role of chief brand ambassador, honouring her embodiment of the house’s glamorous spirit (she will undertake red-carpet appearances, philanthropy, and will likely remain present at the house’s runway shows).

Donatella Versace steps down as creative director

‘It has been the greatest honour of my life to carry on my brother Gianni’s legacy,’ she said in statement, having taken over the creative direction of the house a year or so after the murder of Gianni in 1997 in Miami. ‘He was the true genius, but I hope I have some of his spirit and tenacity.’

Under her direction, Versace has continued to be a major-league fashion player, mounting high-profile campaigns starring the likes of Madonna, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez (the latter made Donatella Versace’s plunging ‘jungle’ dress one of fashion’s most well-known looks after an appearance at the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000). Her runway shows have always dealt in spectacle, with pounding soundtracks and a phalanx of supermodels. One memorable show ended with a shimmering tableau of supers, among them Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen, in a S/S 2018 collection that marked two decades since Gianni’s death.

Vitale, known to be one of Miuccia Prada’s secret weapons during his time at Miu Miu, rose up the ranks at the Milanese house following his arrival in 2010 (he left in January 2025). The new role is another example of a behind-the-scenes designer stepping into the spotlight – a way of hiring which has so far had mixed results (for all the success of Matthieu Blazy at Bottega Veneta, Sabato De Sarno’s recent exit from Gucci shows the risk of hiring names unknown outside the industry). That said, Vitale is widely regarded as an impressive talent.

‘I am truly honored to join Versace as the chief creative officer and to be a part of this special and powerful fashion luxury house created by Gianni and Donatella,’ he said today. ‘The house of Versace has a unique heritage that has spanned decades and has shaped the history of fashion. I want to express my sincere thank-you to Donatella for her trust in me, and for her tireless dedication to the extraordinary brand that Versace is today. It is a privilege to contribute to the future growth of Versace and its global impact through my vision, expertise and dedication.’

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The fashion show has a tendency to be prescriptive. It tells its viewer what to wear, and often how. It proposes a certain silhouette – the hiking up of a hemline, the shift from the slender-cut to the oversized – or garment, which then becomes an object of desire. Often, these runway shows are filtered through a particular theme, which might be esoteric or universal; the next season, the designer will evolve that vision or reject it. And so the cycle goes on.

At Prada’s latest womenswear show, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons offered an alternative. In recent seasons, the co-creative directors have seemed to feel increasingly constricted by strict thematics. Instead, their shows together have become meditations on more abstract themes such as time or youth, which are open to interpretation. Even when they have elucidated a theme – a recent menswear show clashed corporate attire with outdoor wear – there was a feeling that they were seeking something more intangible, a sense of style that defies categorisation. ‘We try to make the best out of our work, to make beautiful things, for today,’ said Miuccia Prada, simply, in 2023. ‘That may sound banal, but it is the truth.’

S/S 2025 heralds a new era of fashion eclecticism

The S/S 2025 show, which was staged among snaking benches covered in sheets of raw-edge grey satin, operated more like an open-ended invitation: who do you want to be today? ‘Infinite options proffer infinite opportunities,’ said the house. These options comprised 49 entirely different looks to choose from; a collage of elements with barely a garment or idea repeated. There was no discernible diktat on silhouette, fabric or colour. Instead, it was an electrifying melange of ideas: 1960s swing coats in trompe l’oeil fur, luminous nylon windbreakers, satin gowns reminiscent of midcentury haute couture, bug-like sunglasses-cum-hats, BDSM hooks as adornment on leather belts, glimmering Space Age silver skirts dotted with huge round eyelets. The list went on.

Miuccia Prada called it ‘a Prada for every individual’. Simons concurred. ‘We thought of each individual as a superhero – with their own power, their own story,’ he said. ‘That reflects an idea of transformation – through your practice, actions or the clothes you wear. They’re all means to express a message about your personal strength. They can transform your perception of yourself.’

The pair said it was, in part, a reaction to the internet algorithm, evoking the feeling of an infinite scroll; an onslaught of information designed to mine our dopamine-fuelled desires. Miuccia Prada said it wasn’t necessarily a ‘critique’ of the technology, though she asserted it can silo us into ways of thinking and dressing. ‘[Everyone] sees their own version of the present; their own reality curated for them,’ she said. Because, despite the illusion of endless choice, the effect of an algorithm is more likely to smooth and homogenise: after hours of scrolling, everything eventually begins to look the same.

‘An incredible amount of information is collected on us all today. Everything you like is recorded by an algorithm. This is our proposal for an alternative,’ concluded Miuccia Prada. These were clothes to reassert your authority over what you wear; a riposte to the ‘derivative and the expected’.

As is so often the case with a Prada show, the collection would set the tone for a season whereby designers embraced the eclectic and advocated individual style, albeit in a multiplicity of ways. It led to collections that were infinitely richer in construction; more colour; more adornment; a certain nostalgia. Like at Prada, designers offered invitations: who do you want to be when you put on these clothes? How will you wear them? Will you mix or match?

It provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the wearer. By and large, designers rejected the swaddling safety of quiet luxury, and the reassurance of uniform dressing. It’s easy to put on an expensive sweater and jeans to walk out of the door in the morning; to wear a piece from Anthony Vaccarello’s opulent S/S 2025 collection for Saint Laurent – its flourishes of brocade and lace inspired by the heady rush of Yves Saint Laurent’s 1970s oeuvre – is an altogether bolder proposition. The same goes for the strange and seductive clashes of colour and print at Dries Van Noten, or the dishevelled glamour of a Numeroventuno collection inspired by the rebellious female subjects of Austrian photographer Karlheinz Weinberger.

‘I took their creative spirit, which, in my opinion, came from their urge to put different fads and fashions together,’ said creative director Alessandro Dell’Acqua. ‘They reinvented themselves day after day.’

Bolder still are the riotous creations of Benjamin Barron and Bror August Vestbrø at Paris label All-In, which offers a playful ode to the perennial party girl (ruffles, sequins and a purposeful dishevelment are de rigueur). This season, the pair took inspiration from Melanie Griffiths’ character Tess McGill from 1980s romcom Working Girl, a figure who uses clothing to transform herself. Staged against the backdrop of a late-evening Parisian sky, it was a collection that conjured up the thrill of flicking through a fashion magazine as a teenager (indeed, All-In began life as a magazine).

At Louis Vuitton, models pounded a raised runway in looks that also evoked 1980s abundance, albeit with Nicolas Ghesquière’s futuristic, postmodern sheen. He has always been a master of eclectic style, and is steadfast in his rejection of thematics or trends, instead ricocheting between centuries and place, the real and the imagined. There might be a gulf between the might of a house like Louis Vuitton and the wildness of All-In, but the resulting collections were rooted in the same feeling of self-expression, a no-holds-barred approach.

These were the highlights of the season. So too was Matthieu Blazy’s latest collection for Bottega Veneta, which would also be his last (in December, he was announced as the new artistic director of Chanel). For S/S 2025, he thought about the ‘primal’ moment of a child dressing up in a parent’s clothing, seeing oversized shapes meet illustrated animals, tasselled wigs and a pile-up of floral appliqué. It’s not a stretch to say the unbridled joy of the collection helped him secure what is arguably fashion’s top job. And, with close to a dozen new creative directors beginning their tenure in 2025 – from Sarah Burton at Givenchy to Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford – the challenge is for designers to be equally fearless in their conviction. To stoke desire, clothes have to say something again. There will likely be reward in risk.

Here, we have imagined similar acts of transformation and invention; the feeling of stepping through a door in the boldest of looks. It is an ode to personal style, an invitation to get dressed up again. Take inspiration from these pages, or don’t. Search out the new or reinvent the old. Express yourself. Who do you want to be today? The options are infinite.

Model: Katlin Aas at Supreme Management. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Set build: London Art Makers.. Hair: Masayoshi Fujita at Of Substance Agency using Oribe. Make-up: Sandra Cooke using Victoria Beckham. Beauty. Manicure: Cherrie Snow at Snow Creatives using Pleasing. Digi tech: John Cronin. Photography assistant: Charlotte Ellis. Fashion assistant: Nathan Fox. Set and 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.

While January might typically be a month of piety and abstinence, we have always been proponents of embracing the new year in a more celebratory fashion. Particularly when it comes to clothing – after all, in the year’s darkest months, there is still joy to be had in dressing up.

Here, taken from the January 2025 issue of Wallpaper* – a celebration of a new era of design – photographer Dham Srifuengfung and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes capture the best men’s and women’s looks from the Resort 2025 collections, which herald the beginning of a new year in style.

The best Resort 2025 fashion

Reflecting a wider shift in fashion, away from the quiet and the beige, the Resort 2025 collections are defined by a mood of nostalgia and eclecticism, with looks made to be mixed and matched with abandon – whether flourishes of animal print or faux fur, pussybows or neckties, or playful combinations, like a classic Dunhill tuxedo worn with MM6’s riff on the carpenter jean.

Each look comes complete with an equally sonic accessory: an assemblage of vintage music devices, from Walkmans and Discmans to dictaphones and iPods. It’s our nod to the season’s free-spirited mood: we imagine these looks as ones to pound the streets in (complete with your own soaring soundtrack) or for letting loose at your very own silent disco.

Models: Giovanna Pinho and Anick Chan at IMG, Valentin Haedecke, Raad Al Gabril and Abdallah El Farjani at Supa Management, Jamie Riselay, Kentha Kirezi and Marcello Chang at The Milk Collective, Zhou at Linden Staub. Casting: Hien Le Casting. Hair: Anna Cofone using Authentic Beauty Concept. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Surratt. Props stylist: Haleimah Darwish. Photography assistants: Emmet Banahan, Ben McManus. Fashion assistants: Lucy Proctor, Leonie Dennett. Hair assistants: Jessica Hau, Lee-Anne Willoux. Make-up assistants: Craig Hamilton, Lily Simmonds. Props assistant: Kash. Production assistants: Archie Thomson, Ady Huq.

A version of this article appears in the January 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 2024 and the wider Milan Design Week got underway this week in the design capital, one thing quickly became clear: the majority of the fashion contingency among the schedule was in a reflective mood.

While some brands looked to design masters past, others mined their archives: Bottega Veneta worked with the Le Corbusier Foundation to re-interpret its LC14 Tabouret Cabanon stool; Yves Saint Laurent collaborated with the Gio Ponti archive to create an exclusive porcelain collection; and Gucci presented archival re-editions in its now-signature Ancora red from the likes of Tobia Scarpa and Venini.

Elsewhere, Hermès and Armani placed their new furniture and design creations beside the sartorial objects that inspired them (with Giorgio Armani sharing personal photographs that span his career) and Loewe worked with its Craft Prize alumni to create 26 unique lamps that spotlighted the time-honed craft techniques that still exist around the world.

It’s a move that reflects a recent trend in their primary medium of fashion, where reminders of iconic codes are increasingly served up to highlight the importance of respecting the signatures that stand the test of time.

Here, in our comprehensive round-up, is the Wallpaper* edit of the best fashion moments at Milan Design Week 2024.

Fashion moments at Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week 2024

Armani Casa

Held once again in Palazzo Orsini on Via Borgonuovo (also known as Armani HQ), Armani Casa’s Salone installation took visitors on a journey of the places founder Giorgio Armani has been most inspired by during his illustrious career. His travels have taken him far and wide – all over Europe, as well as Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and Morocco – and over the years, homages to the craft and skill he has discovered in each have appeared in his ready-to-wear collections. For this installation, called ‘Echoes From The World’, he placed his exquisite couture creations and his own personal collection of souvenirs (from Samurai swords to kimonos) alongside new pieces of furniture such as the Venus console with a hand-painted lacquered glass top backed in gold-leaf to give a luminous shimmer in the room dedicated to China and the blue velvet bed in the room celebrating Morocco that took months to make (only seven centimetres of this fabric can be woven in a day and this bed took 12 metres of material). A highlight waiting at the end of the show was a room with supersized images from Armani’s private photo album in a few of the locations celebrated here. ‘For this edition of the Salone del Mobile, I imagined a “cinematic” journey to the countries that have always inspired me: places and cultures that spark highly personal reworkings,’ shared Armani, adding: ‘I like to present myself to the public in the most authentic and direct way possible.’

Hermès

Taking over the sprawling La Pelota space for the week, Hermès presented ‘Topography of Material’, an installation conceived ‘to create a dialogue between roots and movement, between materials and know-how’, shared the brand. Suspended below foot-level on a diagonal catwalk of sorts, guests were welcomed by 16 intersecting floors that brought together 16 different types of stone, ten types of earth, four types of wood and many variations of terracotta brick all sourced from either Italy or France arranged in intricate ways to celebrate the skill of timeless handcraft. It formed a powerful introduction to the presentation of objects itself as this year Hermès made a point to highlight its own enduring codes. Behind a 35m-long and 6.m-high suspended black wall lay objects from the house’s archive juxtaposed with recent masterpieces and objects making their debut. For example, the silver Timour choker necklace from 2002 sat beside the new Diapason D’Hermès chair designed by the Hermès Studio this year in homage to the piece of jewellery; the original Mangeoire pouch from 1949 (used to feed horses) stood beside the new Derby leather buckets, also launched this year; and the Drag travel bag from the 2010s was presented next to Jasper Morrison’s Equilibre chair for Hermès from 2020. As intended, it effectively presented the virtues in time-honed skills and luxurious designs that retain a forever relevance.

Valextra

Valextra worked with Bergamo-based Studio Temp (with whom it also collaborated for Casa Valextra) on its Valextra Vocabolario concept that transformed its John Pawson-designed Via Manzoni flagship into the Valextra Spa. The idea was to highlight the exceptional care that goes into each of Valextra’s leather goods, from the hands that craft them to the after-care that the brand offers its clients. Inside a huge, simulated sauna, guests were invited to sit and observe the brand’s artisans hand-painting its signature black lacquered Costa edging onto handbags in real time. In the pink-carpeted space around, the brand’s new Assoluto collection – a three-piece capsule crafted from Econyl – was unveiled as machines worked in real time to 3D-print the new Iside Onda handbag. Combining state-of-the-art handbag development and best-in-class customer service through a radical architectural lens, it beautifully captured the DNA of this Milanese brand.

Bottega Veneta

Bottega Veneta presented ‘On The Rocks’ at the Palazzo San Fedele, a special location for the house as it was the setting for creative director Matthieu Blazy’s first show and is its soon-to-be HQ. Partnering with Cassina and Fondation Le Corbusier, the brand honed in on the iconic LC14 Tabouret Cabanon stool that it described as ’a timeless icon of Le Corbusier that embodies the excellence of the Cassina carpentry workshop’. First conceived by the designer for his Côte d'Azur cabin, it was inspired by a washed-up whisky box he found on the shores beneath the residence, hence the title of the installation, which saw several iterations piled high, one on top of the other, reminiscent of a jagged coastline. This isn’t the first time Blazy has affiliated himself with the object; at his recent A/W 2024 womenswear fashion show set, guests sat on bare wooden versions. For Salone, they came in the same rendering but also covered in the brand’s famous intrecciatio leather to create 160 limited editions.

Loewe

Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson primarily worked with alumni from the brand’s prestigious Craft Prize on his first-ever lighting installation at Salone del Mobile. Staged at Palazzo Citterio in the heart of the Brera Design District, the presentation featured one-of-a-kind lighting designs from 24 artists who the brand has either worked with or supported in the past. Remarkably, it was the first time that any of the featured makers had worked with light, which accounted for the originality on display. From Enrico David’s curved Onyx table lamp that features the face of a woman on closer inspection and Dahye Jeong’s spherical structure using an ancient weaving technique using horsehair, to Young Song Lee’s hollowed-out calabash fruits covered in twisted mulberry-tree paper and Dame Magdalene Odundo’s cinched leather hanging lamps (above), each captured the celebratory spirit of Loewe in the world of craft and design that promotes and helps preserve the most exquisite techniques from all over the world. While each of the 24 pieces was for sale at the start of the week, by 5pm on the second day the majority were – predictably – all snapped up.

Gucci

Gucci’s creative director Sabato de Sarno’s ‘Ancora’ campaign continues to thrive in Milano as the brand unveiled Gucci Design Ancora in its newly reopened flagship on Via Montenapoleone. Entering through a carpeted staircase surrounded by lacquered walls in the dark red ‘Ancora Rosso’ hue that is a signature of the De Sarno era at Gucci, visitors were presented with an antidote in acid green when they reached the top. Inside this starkly saturated mini maze, architected by Guillermo Santomà, were five objects De Sarno had chosen from several Italian masters over the years that had been re-issued in the Ancora-red hue for the occasion. The Le Mura sofa by Mario Bellini for Tacchini from 1972; the Clessidra rug from an iconic design of Piero Portaluppi made by CC-Tapis; the Storet tallboy by Nanda Vigo for Acerbis in 1994; the Opachi vase by Tobia Scarpa for Venini in 1960; and the Parola lamp by Gae Aulenti and Piero Castiglioni for FontanaArte in 1980 each stood in their own space to be admired from all angles. ‘Through Design Ancora, Gucci doesn’t simply celebrate old icons, it creates new ones,’ said Michela Pelizzari, founder of P:S Agency, which co-curated the project. ’The aura emanating from the brand spotlights five pieces by Italian masters that are perfect from a design standpoint but less known to the general public.’

Thom Browne

For his Salone del Mobile debut, Thom Browne took over the Palazzina Appiani to unveil his collaboration with the 160-year-old home textiles expert Frette with his performance, entitled Time To Sleep. True to his reputation for subverting traditional settings and concepts into unexpected scenarios, Browne placed six identical beds under the frescoes in the Hall of Honour and had models undress themselves before getting into bed. In the models’ getting dressed, rather than undressed, to sleep, Browne intended to ‘challenge the audience to question the role of dress in public life’, highlighting that the act of sleeping is just as important as the hours we are awake. ‘I think it's so much more interesting, and it elevates the product launch, when you create an installation that transcends the specific world that it’s in,’ Browne told Wallpaper* during rehearsals for the performance. The collection, which is available immediately, comprises sheets, blankets, terry-towel and cashmere robes, bath towels, and a quilted bath mat in crisp white cotton-sateen. ‘The reason I wanted to work with Frette is because they’re the best at what they do,’ added Browne.

Saint Laurent

The Paris-based house turned the clock back to 1953 and the private collection of Anala and Armando Planchart who commissioned the legendary architect Gio Ponti to mastermind their hilltop Venezuelan villa overlooking Caracas. On finishing the project, Ponti commissioned artisans from his native Italy to help furnish the space and turned to Ginori 1735 to create a collection of porcelain plates featuring motifs from around the villa and the couple’s initials. It is these plates that creative director Anthony Vaccarello curated and had reissued by the ceramic experts for Saint Laurent’s special installation in the cloisters of the Chiostri di San Simpliciano. Displayed in oscillating tubes on a raised platform that mirrored the height in which they originally lived in Villa Planchart Segnaposto, the presentation marked a coming together of multiple design icons.

Prada

Once again collaborating with FormaFantasma (above), Prada staged its Prada Frames seminar discussions on the theme of Being Home. Throughout the week, luminaries in different fields came together – including Paola Antonelli, Brigitte Baptiste, Kate Crawford, Jack Halberstam and David Van Severen – to cover myriad topics that were contextualised by Alice Rawsthorn. Each of the 17 sessions took their leave from different rooms around the home: for the bedroom, Gulsum Baydar and Philippe Rahm discussed the bedrooms role as a comfort zone; for the living room, Jayden Ali and Jack Halberstam were in conversation with Andrés Jaque exploring the rituals of diaspora communities in architectural spaces; and in the library, Isabella Rossellini and Mary Kuhn examined the relationship between humans and nature in the home, past and present. Staged each year to invite people out of their everyday lives and explore new and alternative analysis of familiar situations, it continues to be a highlight. Read more about Prada Frames.

Issey Miyake

60,000 bamboo skewers were used to create the one-of-a-kind carpet collaboration between Issey Miyake and the Dutch collective We Make Carpets. Famous for transforming everyday objects into artistic works of beauty, the artisans channelled Issey Miyake’s own skill at finding the sweet spot of robust-delicacy with the piece that was created by inserting the skewers one by one by hand into a thick piece of foam. The resulting patterns emerged organically as their dipped ends started to create surface patterns. Issey Miyake praised the group’s tenacity in making something meaningful without the need for ‘fancy gadgets and advanced technologies’, praising their labour-intensive and synchronised teamwork in bringing the piece to life. Transported flat to Milan city centre from where it was crafted in the Netherlands, in a nod to the national emblem it was presented resting on wooden beams crafted from tulip trees at the Via Bagutta flagship.

Versace

‘If These Walls Could Talk’ is an apt name for Versace’s Salone del Mobile presentation staged in its original atelier, the Palazzo Versace on Via Gesu. As many a fashion aficionado will know, it is at this residence that many of the fashion house’s famous catwalk shows have taken place over the years (including that 1991 show that birthed ‘the supermodel’) and where many of its globally recognised logos and icons were first designed, including the Medusa, Barocco and Greca emblems. They were omnipresent through this presentation that guided visitors from room to room, with even more opulence around each corner – an experience heightened by an audio experience created in collaboration with Radio Raheem for each space. They featured pieces new and reworked including The Medusa ’95 Conversational Sofa, the La Greca Bed and the Lady Desk, each a conversation starter in the space they stood.

Loro Piana 

Paying tribute to the late Milanese designer and architect Cini Boeri, Loro Piana showcased the most iconic pieces from her archive and presented them in its famously luxurious interiors fabrics. The collaboration with the official archive of Boeri, marks not only what would have been the year of Boeri’s 100th birthday, but the year Loro Piana also celebrates its centenary. Honouring Boeri’s insistence that furniture should be engaged with at all times, visitors to the presentation were encouraged to touch and sit on the pieces as they moved through the space. ’The thinking of Cini Boeri is extraordinarily contemporary,’ shared Francesco Pergamo, Director of Loro Piana Interiors. ’Just as extraordinarily contemporary remain the pieces we have chosen to exhibit together with Arflex and Archivio Cini Boeri, and to dress with our fabrics.’ Featured in the presentation are the famous modular Strips system, that won the prestigious Compasso d’Oro in 1979, the corresponding bed, the Bobo and Boborelax armchairs and the Botolo Chairs that have been covered in the brand’s ‘cashfur’ and made in a limited edition of 100. ’The dual centenary of Cini’s birth and the founding of Loro Piana has offered us the opportunity to contribute to the appreciation of the architect's figure,’ added Pergamo, who revealed plans to work with the archive on additional projects over the next three years.

Fendi Casa

Welcome to the world of Fendi Casa where the family keeps growing. This year, the Via Manzoni space was masterminded by Silvia Venturini Fendi and realised by Controvento creative collective. Together, they kept the house’s ‘double F’ logo of the house front and center, creating intimate spaces that invite people to cosy up, much like the emblem. The perfect example lies in the new Fendi F-Affair sofa by Controvento that is an interlocking platform of seats and suspended tables presented with a champagne bucket and glasses. It was joined by other collaborations in the sumptuous sofa department, the F-Stripes by Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba and the Sohoft by Toan Nguyen. Existing families grew their brood, too: Thierry Lemaire’s Parsifal sofa was joined by the Mrs Parsifal armchair; Stefano Gallizioli’s Adrianand’s Audrey chair was complemented with square-shaped Audrette chairs; and Cristina Celestino's Ottavia chair was delivered of a sister, the Lazy Ottavia armchair.

Zegna

Zegna staged something of a takeover of Milan as it released its new Rizzoli tome, Born In Oasi Zegna. Named after the 100km of forested land north of Milan in the Biella Alps where its founder Ermenegildo Zegna initiated a reforestation programme in 1910, the book marked a moment for the brand to celebrate both its values and association with the city of Milan. In celebration, mini Zegna-branded newsstands (‘edicolas’) that are famously found on most corners were giving out limited-edition tote bags, while over in the piazza in front of the landmark Duomo, tulips transported in from the area were being planted in the square’s new flower beds. ’The project aims to convey the value and urgency of respect for the Earth and nature, as well as the importance that urban green spaces can bring people closer to natural ecosystems and the protection of biodiversity and social responsibility,’ shared the brand, ’concepts that are fundamental to Oasi Zegna.’

Dolce & Gabbana

Fresh from setting the city alight with its extravagant Milanese exhibition, ’From the Heart to the Hands’, Dolce & Gabbana staged an intimate reveal of its new interiors offering, The Dreaming Collection. Here, it was all about sitting comfortably, as the Moss Curved Sofa, which sits on a polished metal base in black nickel, and the DG Casa Moon Island armchair (above, which the brand said was ‘reminiscent of a warm embrace’) were joined by the Moon Island Sofa – designed to steal the spotlight in any room it’s in, much like everything this brand turns its heart and hand to.

Lanvin

Parisian house Lanvin looked towards its heritage for its installation at Milan Design Week; specifically, Lanvin Decoration, a furniture and decoration line which was first introduced by founder and couturier Jeanne Lanvin in 1920. Lanvin united with Rooms Studio – founded by two Georgian designers Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia in 2007 – for the project, which saw the pair curate a number of their pieces, including a series of sculptural chairs and benches, which were displayed at Lanvin’s Milan outpost.

The Palazzo Versace Macau hotel has opened in China, at Macau’s Grand Lisboa Palace Resort – known as the region’s equivalent of the Vegas strip, and renowned for its lavish entertainment and hospitality offerings, including The Karl Lagerfeld Macau hotel, which opened in 2023.

Palazzo Versace Macau opens its majestic doors

Commencing the journey into the long-awaited Palazzo Versace is a grand lobby embellished with a mosaic crafted from more than 80,000 hand-laid enamel tiles, which portrays the palazzo at Via Gesù 12 in Milan, where the Versace Atelier resides. This dedication to its origins resonates throughout the entirety of the property's design, as elaborate sculptures, custom carpets, and the iconic Medusa head motif intertwine with geometric patterns.

While embracing Italian aesthetics, Palazzo Versace Macau also pays homage to local Chinese traditions – symbols such as the chrysanthemum flower and an intricate dragon create a captivating fusion of cultures.

As guests ascend one of the resort’s three towers, they encounter 271 rooms and suites, each embodying the timeless elegance of an Italian palazzo. Within these sanctuaries, bespoke furniture, linens, and artworks curated exclusively for the hotel extend the Italian theme from public areas to private retreats.

The Premier and Deluxe Rooms are adorned with the house’s Barocco print and vibrant orchids, while the Grand Suites elevate the experience with Versace-selected artworks and furnishings. At the pinnacle of luxury lies the Imperial Suite, featuring Versace Home furniture and chinaware from the Rosenthal x Versace Asian Dream collection.

The dining experience at Palazzo Versace Macau includes two exquisite venues. Don Alfonso 1890, a Michelin-starred restaurant, transports diners to the sun-drenched shores of southern Italy, while La Scala del Palazzo pays homage to Versace’s Milanese palazzo with its grand staircase.

Wellness and spa experiences at the property are equally extraordinary – from mosaic-adorned spa facilities, including a Versace-inspired Turkish hammam, to the fitness studio and Romanesque outdoor pool in the hotel’s private gardens, each enclave embodies the brand’s modern take on classical beauty. The swimming pool, entered through a waterfall, showcases the hotel’s signature dragon depicted in a mosaic by Fantini Mosaici.

The Macau property joins the house’s Palazzo Versace Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which opened in 2016.

grandlisboapalace.com

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, the house’s 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.

For S/S 2020, Jennifer Lopez sashayed down the Versace catwalk, sporting a version of the cleavage-revealing chiffon jungle dress she wore to the 1999 Grammy Awards – the one that prompted Google to invent its Image Search function, after the dress design became the most popular search term ever. The house's S/S 2017 show, meanwhile, commemorated the 20th anniversary of the murder of founder Gianni Versace, and recreated the brand’s infamous A/W 1999 runway show, when Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni and Helena Christensen swirled down the catwalk, mouthing the words to George Michael’s ‘Freedom! ’90’. 

Title: Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections, by Tim BlanksPublisher: Thames & HudsonPrice: £55Publication date: October 2021

Now, 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.

‘There comes a moment in one’s life or career when in order to evolve, you need to draw a line and acknowledge where you come from. This book is exactly this for me,' says Donatella Versace of the tome, which is cloth bound in a metallic cover, and accented with alluring foil blocking.

Keen to revisit every Versace viral moment? With Versace Catwalk: The Complete Collections, you might just discover a few more.

INFORMATION

Released 28 October 2021

versace.com

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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.

We’ve always erred towards classic dress codes, but, for A/W 2020, our failsafe silhouettes have had an experimental uplift. The catwalks saw something of a tux redux, with brands offering new takes on the eveningwear essential.

At Prada, an oversized blazer came festooned with flapper girl fringing, acting as an androgynous upgrade on Jazz Age embellishment, while at Dolce & Gabbana, a cropped tuxedo took on a softer silhouette, with a bow detail that fluidly draped across the body. Versace spliced and diced the style, piercing cut-outs with punky metal hoops, while Alexander McQueen dabbled in deconstruction, with a tuxedo resembling a doubled-up jacket.

For those that prefer androgony over ostentation and fine form over frou, the tuxedo offers a precise take on party wear - whether your attending an event in IRL or toasting the end of 2020 via Zoom. For your male counterparts, we also suggest you direct them to our guide on shopping for a sensational smart jacket. You'll be sure to take A/W 2020's timeless dressing with a twist into 2021.

INFORMATION
This article originally appeared in the December 2020 issue of Wallpaper* (W*260) – available for free download here

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.

British photographer and Wallpaper* contributor Jason Lloyd Evans has been shooting behind-the-scenes backstage snapshots from the runway shows of the world’s most creative brands, since the early 2000s. Here we reveal his favourite sublime snapshots, spanning the last eight years.

Armani Privé S/S 2012

‘Giorgio Armani hosted a “One Night Only” event in Beijing and seemed to be one of the first to really tap into the market and bring his show direct to his there. It was a great experience to go and cover the trip for them.'

Proenza Schouler S/S 2012

‘Proenza Schouler has always been one of my favourite brands to cover in New York. The brand's shows always have such a special casting, concept and collection.'

Burberry A/W 2013

‘Karlie Kloss and Jourdan Dunn showing their love for Christopher Bailey's Burberry. His shows always had a super positive energy.'

Givenchy S/S 2014

‘Being backstage at Riccardo Tisci's shows for Burberry was always an en experience, you never knew what you'd be allowed to shoot. The make up which Pat McGrath created for his shows was very special too.'

Chanel A/W 2015

‘Chanel doesn’t generally allowed backstage access and therefore it is always a bonus to be covering it for a special feature. This A/W 2015 shot from Karl's reign ran as part of a 12 page feature in 10 Magazine. Big, bold and beautiful.'

Gucci S/S 2017

‘Gucci really hit its stride under creative director Alessandro Michele – his eclectic collections are such a departure from what came before and add a real buzz to the Milan schedule.'

Tommy Hilfger S/S 2017

‘This LA show tapped into many emerging patterns in fashion. It was a collaborative collection with Gigi Hadid, it used the See Now Buy Now retail model and had real focus on consumer activation.'

Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda S/S 2018

‘I have been really lucky to cover Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Moda events. The summer show is always hosted in a stunning Italian location such as Sicily or Capri. The clothing is always exceptional.'

Alexander Wang S/S 2018

‘All the cool girls want to be in Wang's gang and that's the energy his brand's shows really tapped into. Case in point, here you find Bella Hadid, Kaia Gerber and Kendal Jenner.'

Valentino Haute Couture S/S 2019

‘This was one occasion where I was happy to be shooting the catwalk rather than backstage. The show, the venue, the music and the collection was incredibly moving, and many editors were weeping! At the end of the show, I whizzed to the front of the runway and caught these really intimate shots.’

Versace S/S 2020

‘This is part of a backstage series of portraits of Jennifer Lopez and Donatella Versace, after Lopez had walked the catwalk in a revisited version of the brand’s iconic Jungle Dress.’

Fendi A/W 2020

‘For Fendi, I captured days of clothing fittings, hair and makeup tests, the show’s set build and DJ meetings. How fashion shows are presented may change, but for me the creative and collaborative process that comes from them will always be at the heart of fashion.’

Quotes: Jason Lloyd-Evans. Additional writing: Laura Hawkins

INFORMATION

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Scene setting: How to compete with the most talked about social media moment of last season, when Jennifer Lopez broke the internet for the second time sporting a new version of the tropical print dress she wore to the Grammy Awards in 1999 (which triggered the invention of Google Image search). Turn the voyeuristic concept of a runway show on its head, and make its style conscious guests stare at themselves instead. As they entered the brand’s cavernous show venue, narrow tiers of seating faced a reflective live screen. As the style conscious set sat waiting for the show to begin, staring at their own reflections, the screen began hallucinogenically distorting, with front rowers’ heads and bodies bulging, contorting and merging into each other. Signalling the start of the show, Donatella Versace’s face appeared in tessellated form, performing a variety of pouts and poses, reflecting the brands all attention grabbing aesthetic.

Mood board: The show combined men’s and womenswear for the first time, ranging from seductive tailoring to colourful sportswear, incorporating seventies swag – hot pink suiting, denim and leather patchwork, tropical and zebra prints – and a series of astonishingly sexy micro mini dresses in silver and neon chainmail, sported by Bella Hadid and Kendal Jenner, naturally.

Finishing touches: Prepare for vertiginous platforms, as Versace scaled up A/W 2020’s penchant for the lug sole boot (see Prada and Loro Piana) with sky high stacked boots. The multi piece bag, a hybrid style with clippable pouches, is still here to stay (also seen in a new bag cross body style at Bulgari with an attachable clutch), and at Versace this was echoed in a shoulder bag with a circular coin purse swinging from its strap.

In his memoir At the Stranger’s Gate: Arrivals in New York, writer and journalist Adam Gopnik recounts his longtime friendship with Richard Avedon. Gopnik records the debates he had with the photographer around his conviction that Avedon's fashion images were more powerful and existential than his more critically acclaimed visual explorations of American identity, which included the 1985 portrait series In the American West. ‘The wrly wrought surface of fashion photos, that was what we were taught to love,’ Gopnik writes. 

Despite a sixty-year career of producing pivotal and at times controversial advertising campaigns for over 600 clients, including Du Pont, Revlon, Calvin Klein, Dior and Versace, Avedon distanced himself from his commercial work. The only personal record of his campaigns were shoot dates recorded meticulously in calendars by Avedon’s assistants. From 1962 to 1964, Avedon worked on an astonishing 400 sittings for Du Pont. He also had decade-long relationships with a host of luxury brands. Shortly before his death in 2004, Avedon had just wrapped up a campaign for Harry Winston, who he first began working with in 1952.

Now, Avedon Advertising, published by Abrams Books, brings together the cannon of Avedon’s advertising campaigns for the first time. These era-reflecting images range from the earliest elegantly feminine shoots Avedon shot after being released from active duty as a merchant marine for New York ladies stores B Weistein and Peck & Peck in the mid-Forties, to the highly saturated, energetic and carefree campaigns he shot for Versace in the 1990s.

The treasure trove-like tome is chaptered into five sections, which document Avedon’s advertising output across six decades. Introductory texts and essays by Laura Avedon and Rebecca Arnold chart the socio-political, economic and aesthetic factors that affected Avedon’s work and his vision of American identity. Take the advertising boom of post-war America in the mid-1940s, which in a time of cultural uncertainty, encouraged rapid consumerism ‘endless opportunity, novelty and convenience’ and an aesthetic adoration of the naïve college girl look. Or the emancipated femininity of the Eighties, with advertising aimed at the discerning woman; majestic, powerful and strong, like khaki-clad Kelly LeBrock, Lisa Taylor and Beverly Johnson in Versace’s 1981 campaign.

Perhaps the most controversial image in Avedon’s advertising cannon is the portrait and film he shot of a teenage Brooke Shields in 1980 for Calvin Klein Jeans, lounging in an unbuttoned shirt and tight denim jeans and uttering the provocative words on television ‘Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.’ The campaign aimed to reflect the emotional relationship a woman feels with her jeans, and was met with huge public backlash. It also caught the zeitgeist, and within a year of its release, Calvin Klein's jeans were selling 400,000 pairs a week.

‘Many people stop me in the street in New York or Los Angeles and say, “You know, I loved that ad I saw by Mr Avedon of your clothing,"’ Gianni Versace once enthused. With the publication of Avedon Advertising, it’s a sentiment felt by Gopnik, Versace and countless other admirers that's sure to live on.

INFORMATION

abramsandchronicle.co.uk
avedonfoundation.org

Mood board: It’s been two decades since Jennifer Lopez wore Versace’s neckline-plunging tropical print chiffon gown to the Grammy Awards. Kim Kardashian may have broken the internet, but Lopez actually made it. The cleavage-revealing, glamorous design was the most popular search that Google had ever seen, and it prompted the then burgeoning dot-com company to design Google Image Search. It’s impossible now to think of a time when fashion – be it a fashion week runway look or a red carpet gown – can’t be immediately, digitally consumed. Donatella Versace alluded to such a pre-meme time for S/S 2020, ironically creating the spring shows’ most feasted-upon viral image. Her collection was packed with body-flaunting LBD’s, S/S 2000-referencing tropical prints, neon leathers and denim, and at its finale Donatella’s voice boomed across the in-the-round runway with the words ‘Show me images of the Versace Jungle dress’, before J-Lo’s red carpet looks where projected across its walls. Next, Lopez appeared IRL in a new iteration of the design, and strutted down the runway to endless applause.

Team work: Versace teamed up with Google for her S/S 2020 show. Her show invitation was a flip book with a tropical print cover, which featured the words ‘Versace women’s S/S 2020’ slowly appearing in a Google search bar. The company provided the technology which allowed Versace’s venue to be emblazoned with those SEO-ranked J-Lo snaps. Google those words now and the brand’s S/S 2020 show spectacle is the top News listing.

Finishing touches: We’re living in a nostalgic fashion moment. Fendi has reissued its Baguette bag, Dior its Saddle bag and our desire for 1990s and Noughties fashion is insatiable. Just look to Kaia Gerber’s 18th birthday party outfit earlier this month – a custom Versace bondage look recalling a 90s design worn by her mother Cindy Crawford. The tropical prints in the brand’s spring collection, splashed across trenchcoats, mini skirts and sequin mini dresses, are sure to procure many more nostalgic moments in the future.

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. The collection was titled 'The Ride' and consisted of pieces fit for a man who travels but also likes the exhilarating high driving a classic sports car gives when hitting top speed. A classic biker came in super soft tan leather with contesting racing stripes racing down its front, while a field jacket and vest came with multiple pockets making them perfect utility travel companion. Elsewhere, a tech fabric printed with graphic geological map lines was used for windbreakers and board shorts, and a car coat cane in lightweight suede. As always footwear was key – the classic Gommino was updated with an espadrille sole and sneakers appeared with suped-up soles reminiscent of the sleek lines of a sports car.

Versace: The alerting refrain to The Prodigy’s Firestarter announced the start of Donatella Versace’s tribute to Keith Flint, the band's eccentric frontman who died this year. Models aggressively strode around a black rotating sports car covered in flowers by artist Andy Dixon in classic Versace ensembles. The opening section paid homage to the codes Gianni dabbled with in the early 1990s – fringed biker jackets were worn over T-shirts printed with vintage Versace fragrance ads, while narrow leather trousers came with laces up their sides. Elsewhere, sharply cut blazers were spliced together – one side black, the other great, and lurex track pants looked fierce in leopard. The tempo revved up further in a series of pieces that featured a car motif printed on denim jackets and outlined in crystal on shirts.

Bally: The brand took us on a fashionable hike this season, tapping into its Swiss heritage. A neat boxy cut jacket was printed with motifs from the Bally archive, while a silk shirt bloomed with mountain flora and fauna. Elsewhere, a minimalistic navy trench came with suede belt fastening cuffs and bright orange bomber carried multiple 3-D pockets reminiscent of a foraging vest. An innovative pleated leather technique developed by the brand was used to startling effect on an overcoat, tee and pair of shorts.

Church’s: Stepping out at Church's this season is an update of the brand's classic ‘Shannon’, this time appearing in a vintage guise with an artistically worn toe. Elsewhere, a women’s leather cross strap sandal was reworked for men with tiny silvers studs outlining the sole. These were shown alongside debut styles including a retro sneaker in nylon and suede, a British military inspired boot in canvas and leather deck shoe.

Alexander McQueen: Sarah Burton was in a reflective mood for S/S 2020, reminiscing on the frequent trips the team, lead by the late Lee McQueen, made to Japan in the Nineties. She was also thinking of how to translate the reconstructed, cut up and pieced together technique used in her women's A/W 2019 collection to menswear. Magnified flowers blossomed over sharply tailored suits, while crystal and metal embroidered birds sat regally on jacket fronts. Mystical dragon printed silk back panels added an exoticism. Elsewhere, a beige cotton gabardine trench appeared with silk bomber sleeves, and a frock coats lower half entirely constructed from shredded strips of insider fabrics from previous seasons.

Valextra: In an ongoing series of yearly interior overhauls, Valextra's Milan flagship store has been reimagined by architect John Pawson for its third incarnation. A pristine concrete space made up of graphic lines showcasing the brand's kaleidoscopic bag range. S/S 2020 sees a new collaboration with Moncler on a collection of three bag styles – a boxy utility satchel on a nylon fluffy pillow strap, a weekend bag and an oversized tote. Finally, a new customising service will launch allowing customers to have their initials made into a repeated pattern that can then be printed onto a bag base.

Canali / Black Edition: This season sees the debut of Black Edition, a 31 look apparel collection that will run alongside the tailoring-focused main brand. Relaxed cut jersey blazers were teamed with matching track pants, while zip up anoraks in tech fabrics and fine gauge knitted polos continued the sportswear theme. For the main collection suits in lightweight fabrics exuded an easy elegance.

Brunello Cucinelli: Spending time with Silicone Valley’s tech giants, Cucinelli was struck by their casual, laid back style. The designer is known for his smart, elegant clothes but for S/S 2020 the codes were relaxed and less formal. The collection was based on comfort, inspired by men who do not wear suits to get big business done. Suiting was more deconstructed in linen fabrications, trousers had a sportier fit, lightweight nylon jackets were cut with a lapel. The classic Cucinelli camel cable knit worn underneath suit jackets was swapped for a ‘Be courageous’ logo Tee.

Santoni: The Italian accessories label has never followed presentation convention and this season was no exception, with the brand holding an exclusive Cineclub in the grand setting of Palazzo Gallarati Scotti. Guests were invited to sit back and watch four short films, each of which had inspired the collection. Derby and loafer styles came in soft nubuck, while desert boots appeared in unlined suede. Elsewhere, deck shoes with an ultra-light sole, cross strap sandals and espadrilles carried handmade details and the brand's trademark double buckle. A new retro sneaker style with a gum sole completed the collection.

CP Company: For S/S20, the brand is looking back to look forward. Downstairs in the recently opened Milan flagship, archival styles including a rare battered tan suede down jacket from 1979 are on display alongside a mini lab, which hosts a special custom dyeing process. The season marks the start of an ongoing project with Too Hot Limited; customers can bring in their own pieces to be valued and swapped for credit to spend on something new. Urban sportswear with no nonsense and high-performance.

Etro: An X-wing starfighter was casually parked at the entrance to Etro’s S/S20 show. Framed by a set of the Italian house’s iconic patterned luggage, it marked the arrival of an exclusive collaboration with Walt Disney Pictures’ Lucasfilm. In anticipation of the ninth episode of the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker, motifs taken from the films’ history were printed onto the front of genderless staples. Hoodies, sweatshirts and a bomber featured graphics from 1977’s A New Hope. Blue striped shirting popped with familiar pictures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and R2D2. A Star Wars logo t-shirt was worn beneath an exquisite bejewelled paisley blazer in an otherwise quintessentially elegant, nomadic collection.

Brioni: The Brioni S/S20 collection explored off-duty formality. Design director Norbert Stumpfl ushered in a down-time, relaxed attitude but still with impeccable style. ‘I wanted our guy to go on a rendezvous, a dinner,’ he said. ‘He’s out of the office.’ We know the Brioni man in the office, but what about other scenarios? The look was effortless, easy and expertly finished. A grey, washed silk trench was trimmed with leather. ‘If this is normally in the hands of somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing it’ll look like a hot mess,’ he said. Track pants were in tailoring fabrics, t-shirts finished with aloe-vera. Double face blazers had the lightness of pocket square. ‘It’s like air,’ Stumpfl smiled.

Ralph Lauren Purple Label: Ralph Lauren took to the sea in a nautical inspired collection for S/S 2020. Seafaring troupes were updated in bold, graphic colour combinations – a wind sheeter came emblazoned with spliced together yacht flags inspired by an archive scarf print, while a lightweight intarsia knit jumper carried the motif of a lighthouse and ship. Eveningwear suits appeared in a riot of vibrant hues cut from decedent silk shantung, contrasting fine-gauge turtlenecks offered an air of ease. The seasonal ‘Ralph Suit’, inspired directly by the designers personal take on tailoring – a broad shouldered double-breasted jacket with neat waistline fastening at the bottom button – looked Italian Riviera ready in pale grey.

Giuseppe Zanotti: The distinctive blabber sneaker morphed into fresh iterations for S/S 20 – starting from minimalist black and taupe suede (with a clear rubber sole) all the way up to bright metallic gold. It came studded and in pearlescent leather too, for that extra Zanotti flourish. New for the season was a tie-dye story; Chelsea boots, moccasins and low-top sneakers in patterned canvas.

Trussardi Archive + Now3: Now in its third instalment, Trussardi's project Archive + Now invites creatives to reinterpret and evolve the brand's house codes in a seasonal collection. This time round designer Giorgio Di Salvo of streetwear brand United Standard was in the driving seat. Trousers and shirts were cut in butter soft leather giving a fluid feel, while a waistcoat was given multiple pockets. Elsewhere, sweatshirts and t-shirts were adorned with the brand's synonymous greyhound motif. Images and a film by cult artist Cali Thornhill DeWitt showcased the collection.

Serapian: For S/S 2020 Italian leather specialist Serapian launch its special 'Mosaico - Signed by our Artisans' collection of bags. Each item uses a unique technique developed by the brand's founder, Stefano Serapian, that involves braiding soft nappa stripes by hand to create geometric patterns reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics and Japanese origami. Oversized totes, compact crossbody and clutch bags find there signature monochromatic surfaces interrupted by coloured stripes woven in by the brand's master artisans.

Tom Ford: Tom Ford took a more minimalist approach this season in a pared down collection that played with classic silhouettes in subversive fabric combinations. Sharply tailored jackets were teamed with torso skimming shirts and fine gauge roll necks, while oversized coats where nonchalantly thrown over lean cut suits to emphasise the slim silhouette. Black leather was key – a neat biker and longer length blazer embossed in alligator added a touch of danger, while a classic sportswear zip up and track pants were given a luxurious makeover in perforated leather. Elsewhere, a series of pop coloured evening wear jackets came in a glistening leopard and zebra jacquard fabric. Bags in exotic skins came with concealed zips and robust hardware, angular sunglasses and a new square toed ankle boot expanded Ford's accessories range.

Scene setting: In recent seasons Donatella Versace has favoured intimate runway shows, but for S/S 2019 she upped up the ante with an enormous showspace inside Milan’s Palazzo delle scintille. Guests for the evening-time show opened up a rubber-wristband-come-invitation emblazoned with the word ‘Versace’. Assembled on colourful seating, which evoked the zesty retro shades of the brand’s S/S 2019 collection, Quay Dash’s Queen Of This Shit blared out as the show began.

Mood board: Dash’s soundtrack encapsulated the show’s empowering and emboldening theme, and was an evocation of the host of queens on the catwalk, including Freja Beha Erichsen, Anya Rubik, Bella and Gigi Hadid, Kaia Garber, Natasha Poly and a stupendous final walk from Shalom Harlow. Versace’s gang of girls were all here. Their ensembles of choice? Retro ribbed knits and tailoring, draped floral dresses, micro mini skirts and dresses in neon hued and block colour leather. There was a relaxed bohemianism to the draped numbers, with Versace’s flower power messaging enhanced by bloom-detail tights and its acid hues translated into more everyday pieces, like a neon green leather coat and a boxy red satin jacket.

Finishing touches: Clumpy cylindrical heel shapes bought a wearability to the house’s overtly sexy codes, and silk foulard turbans added further oomph to an accessory trend noted at Tom Ford in New York and JW Anderson in London.

Mood board: There’s a knowing chutzpah to Donatella Versace. In everything she does, from her tongue-in-cheek postings on social media with her Jack Russell, Audrey, to her peppy catwalk shows with their glitz, sex and gloss, she is marching the house of Versace into our brave new world. For so long, the label’s menswear has been the archetype for Italian machismo; eschewing stiff sprezzatura, the Versace brand has always catered for the most self-assured of men. For S/S 2019 this manifests into riffs on what power dressing can mean in a #metoo world; the clothes were inspired by what Donatella claimed were many different kinds of men, from the street-style peacocks to boardroom executives. 

Sound bite: These loud clothes are for proud men. ‘I conceived these clothes thinking that each of them could find something that perfectly fits his personal style. These are men who do not care about the rules and that is exactly what I love: they have an opinion and make their own style choices,’ Versace said. The season’s muse isn’t looking for permission to dress how he wants.

Best in show: The fragrant sensuality is pervasive. The muse for S/S 2019 is mixing lace, sheer, neon and floral prints; he is wearing a small fluro green shoulder bag, taken from the women’s collection, across the body. Traditional tailoring is paired with roomy denim. Splashed over shirts and t-shirts is a fun, fake tabloid print which the show notes say reference our celebrity-obsessed times. They nod to the styling of the early Noughties and Galliano’s newspaper print from the turn of the new millennium, currently racking up likes on Instagram.

Four years ago, when curator Edwina Ehrman started thinking about the Victoria & Albert Museum’s latest exhibition, ‘Fashioned From Nature’, she envisaged exploring how fashion designers had been inspired by the natural world over time – how, for example, they incorporated floral motifs into their clothing. When she started working on the show more seriously, she had a realisation: ‘I thought, "I can’t do that – it’s no longer appropriate". It had to be [mainly] about the impact of the fashion industry on the environment.’

The result is a sweeping survey of the industry’s relationship with nature over the past 400 years, exploring both our fascination with and exploitation of animals, birds, plants and natural resources. It has the air of a campaign about it. ‘We’re asking two questions,’ Ehrman says. ‘What can we learn from the past? And how can we design a more sustainable future?’

The first of these is addressed chronologically: outfits from the V&A’s historical collection are paired with materials such as raw wool and silk-worm cocoons, as well as photos of live animals (beavers next to a fur hat, for example) to reminder visitors of the origins of these items. Displays explore the use of products from endangered creatures, such as ivory, turtle shell, mother of pearl and whalebone. A soundscape of birdsong is slowly interwoven with the noise of humans seizing nature’s offerings – water wheels, looms, machetes – as the story shifts from the era of handmade and natural energy to industrialisation, fossil fuels and mass fashion.

The section spanning from 1600-1900, focused mainly on Britain, reveals that our relationship with nature has always been anthropocentric – from enclosing the countryside, to farming, taming and hunting animals, we have long viewed nature in utilitarian terms. During this time, imperialism and the expansion of trade brought new, exotic items into British wardrobes and demographic changes led to the scaling up of production. A single dress from the 1760s made with precious metals from Peru, dyes from the Caribbean, furs from North America and Russia and silk from Europe and Middle East, is a reminder that fashion was, even then, global.

The later years – the 20th century and beyond – show the growing environmental impact of the industry, and a greater awareness of the damage it was causing. While exciting manmade fabrics were introduced, many of these were made from toxic materials, petroleum and using harmful pesticides. Recently, designers have consciously highlighted environmental concerns – Alexander McQueen’s S/S 2010 show ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ referenced the melting of the ice caps, while Giles Deacon’s 2016 ‘Fabergé’ silk georgette printed imperial gown, elevated bird’s eggs to the level of the revered gold and jewelled ones. Nearby, is a display of protest material from the 1970s onwards, and a film that depicts oil spills, deforestation and polluted rivers.

The protests shown here are relatively recent, but it’s clear throughout that our concerns about the environment are not new: we’ve always wreaked havoc on the natural world globally, and there have always been those who have sought to protect it. What is different today is the sheer scale on which the fashion industry operates, and our technological capabilities. This complexity, Ehrman argues, demands nuanced solutions: a thorough consideration of how and where an item and its materials are sourced, processed and distributed, rather than a simplistic division between natural as good and manmade as bad.

The last section looks to the future, with a series of proposals for a more sustainable future. Some demonstrate an interest in traditional ideas (materials such as flax and hemp and the aesthetic of mending) while others suggest more innovative solutions (materials that weave themselves and biodegradable outfits).

The exhibition falls at a fortuitous time. In the last year, a host of luxury, high street and sports brands have announced they will be operating from a more environmental and ethical standpoint:  American label Theory has launched a sustainable ‘Good Wool’ capsule collection, burgeoning Swiss-born label Germanier uses recycled fabrics to create dazzling couture-like creations, Adidas has started upcycling plastic waste to create sock-like trainers, and H&M has collaborated with Control Union on a digital service which allows brands to monitor every step of its supply chains. In the last six months too, houses including Gucci, DKNY, Versace and John Galliano have pledged to go fur-free.

Finally, a series of interactive displays suggest that it is us – everyday consumers – who can shape the industry through our choices and demands. As Ehrman says: ‘When people talk about sustainability being a modern luxury, I don’t like that – it has to become the norm.’

INFORMATION

’Fashioned From Nature’ is on view from 21 April until 27 January 2019. For more information, visit the V&A website

ADDRESS

Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 2RL

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Mood board: it would be a daunting proposition planning a catwalk show after the runway spectacle of last season’s S/S 2018 Versace show – easily the most talked-about and Instagrammed show of fashion week, packed with supermodels old and new, lashings of gold chain-mail and archive silhouettes. For A/W 2018, Versace’s attendees had no need to fear a drop in momentum. The collection was a blend of ostentation and glamour, with sleek gold-detailed outerwear, swathes of tartan (a fabric popping up on a plethora of both men’s and women’s catwalks), leather and plenty of sex appeal. There were black mini dresses and full colourful silk skirts with splices of baroque and animal print, Versace logo-shirts and biker jackets. Autumn winter Eighties oomph.
 
Finishing touches: family values have always been intrinsic to Versace, and for A/W 2018 Donatella Versace drew on the concept of tribes – be they football fans or Scottish clans. Tartan Versace logo football scarves were paired with tiny black dresses and neon bright pencil skirts, while berets and Argyll print socks bought highland charm to the collection.
 
Best in show: a gold-buttoned camel coat highlighted the brand’s skill in tailoring and had more pared-backed Eighties appeal. A series of draped black dresses with balaclava hoods evoked the air of an Italian seductress poised for her next catch.

‘The smallest things are always the most precious,’ says Marco Zanini. He is used to thinking big, engineering a string of successful brand relaunches, but in late 2016, Zanini downsized to design for artisanal shoemaker Santoni.

On a sunless winter day, he arrives at Milan’s Casa degli Atellani – a Renaissance-era city landmark where Leonardo lived while painting The Last Supper – and opens the door to the whimsically deco apartment of the late architect Piero Portaluppi, which served as the inspiration for Zanini’s newest collection. Portaluppi was a key figure of early 20th-century Milan, and his style became part of the city’s fabric in buildings such as Palazzo Crespi, Villa Necchi and the Liberty-influenced renovation of Casa degli Atellani.

Zanini, a remarkably tall man, passes through Portaluppi’s foyer, a room frescoed like an arboretum with fan palms, laurel, ivy and cactus, and takes a seat in the living room. ‘Small means precise. Small means agile,’ he continues, bending his knees sharply to perch on a petite ivory couch. ‘Small was the very idea that gave birth to this project.’

The Milan-born designer, formerly creative director of Halston, Rochas and Schiaparelli, and an alumnus of Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, turned his back on Paris and New York for a home-town brand.

At Santoni, Zanini’s purview has been the introduction of a carefully considered handful of designs – the top tier of the company’s footwear offerings, but also its first lines of men’s and women’s apparel, a pared-down capsule collection of timeless wardrobe essentials he calls Edited.

‘The beauty of this project is its reduced dimensions. Being limited in scale makes the work more dynamic and autonomous than at giant corporations,’ he says, rolling his eyes skyward at the thought of past frustrations. ‘Now I’m free of certain deadlines. And I’m not contending with 500 cooks in the kitchen.’

‘Less is better,’ agrees Angelo Flaccavento, fashion journalist and Zanini’s collaborator on the Edited project. ‘This project is different,’ he says. At a time when designers complain of the fashion industry’s cyclical strictures and a ceaseless pressure to produce, the limited scale of the Edited collection allows the pair time to contemplate and experiment.

At Santoni, Zanini kicks off each collection not with sketches but with a visual and verbal concept, that becomes a book when the clothing collection is complete. ‘Recounting a collection this way reveals Marco’s ideas in designing it, with his universe of references condensed into a jacket or a dress,’ says Flaccavento. ‘I could never design clothes,’ he continues, ‘but it’s important to have not just a visual person but a verbal person. And to be a curator, or to be a journalist, is the same mindset because the starting point is analysis.’ For Edited Trip, the duo also collaborated wth Marco Cendron, creative director and founder of the Milan-based studio Pomo, who art directed the publication. ‘Today we’re drowning in products that are mostly pointless,’ Flaccavento adds. ‘This project is different.’

The latest outing of Edited has drawn on Portaluppi’s home, and the book features images of his kaleidoscopic marble collection that still lines wood shelves in the living room (the 1,500 little marble slabs, all cut to the same size, were assembled by a young geologist in Rome in the mid-19th century, who trawled the city’s archaeological sites). Architecture lasts. Marble lasts. To relay the story of the clothes with these images is a rejection of today’s over-evanescent fashion world, Zanini argues. The hardbound volume is filled with quasi-psychedelic close-ups of stones: the blood-red veins of a rosy marble and the painterly amber rings of a fossilised wood, interspersed with very occasional coolly moody images of the collection.

It’s understatement as a communication tool, but then Zanini is motivated by rejection as much as creation, having traded glitzier opportunities for the chance to create exactly what he wants: ‘an edit of things that don’t change every six months, designed to accompany the wearer in the long term’, as he explains. There are no extraneous details, no wild cards in this soft-spoken, cerebral collection; only finely wrought basics rendered in his signature subdued palette. In an industry shackled by fast-paced production and almost instant irrelevance, it’s the brave designer who abandons the limelight to create what can endure.

As originally featured in the March 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*228)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Santoni website and the Pomo website

In 1944, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged its first fashion exhibition, ‘Are Clothes Modern?’. Put together by architect and curator Bernard Rudofsky, the show explored attitudes towards clothes at a time when soon-to-be-outmoded traditions still prevailed, from superfluous pockets and buttons to rigid female silhouettes.

Despite its forward-thinking provocations, MoMA has not devoted another exhibition to the field of fashion since. Until now, that is. This month, the museum presents ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’, a comprehensive exploration of fashion design that considers the effects specific garments and accessories have had on society. Curated by Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s senior curator in the department of architecture and design, and curatorial assistant Michelle Millar Fisher, the show brings together 111 iconic fashion typologies from the last century that have had a universal and lasting impact.

‘When I started at MoMA 23 years ago, I noticed that there was no fashion and I started asking around why,’ says Antonelli. ‘I got many explanations about the fact that modern design is timelessness and fashion is ephemeral, but it didn’t make too much sense to me. So I began keeping a running list that I called “garments that changed the  world”.’ About three years ago, MoMA director Glenn Lowry suggested Antonelli make a show out of that list.

‘Items’ brings together sartorial archetypes such as the biker jacket, the white T-shirt and the bikini. Some are represented by multiple examples to give a sense of evolution: there are little black dresses by Dior, Versace and Rick Owens, and suits by Armani and Thom Browne. Added to these are contemporary icons such as Adidas’ Superstar trainers, Levi’s 501 jeans and Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo, all chosen for their revolutionary impact. Antonelli’s anthropological approach considers each item’s cultural, technological, economic, political and aesthetic relevance.

On our sartorial stop-off, three particular pieces caught our eye. Firstly, a transparent, slim jacket by British fashion designer and artist Carlo Brandelli made under his former label Squire; it is a piece that forms part of his seminal ‘Unstructured Tailoring’ cannon. The other two are part of the 19 commissioned prototypes for the exhibition, which riff on the designs of their predecessors – an oversized take on the guayabera shirt by the New York-based designer Ryohei Kawanishi, and a swirling 3D interpretation of the utilitarian jumpsuit, by London-based Richard Malone.

Brandelli gained renown in the nineties for his skinny and lightweight interpretation of Savile Row suiting. At Squire, he deconstructed the blazer silhouette exhibited at MoMA to its basic external form, removing its conventional inner fabric and horse hair linings, to create an unstructured sheath-like garment without additional internal weight. His designs anticipated the skinny suiting that was the silhouette du jour on the men’s catwalks in the early noughties.

‘I was always thinking about form, silhouette and function,’ Brandelli says. ‘Suits had always been so heavy. The first steps at Squire were to eliminate details... a process of reduction and abstraction as a reaction to the baggy long tailoring that was only available. I’ve always fused ideas of art process into my work, and perhaps this is why such a significant design was developed.’

Flourishing fashion designer Richard Malone was made aware of the significance of his commissioned design when Paola Antonelli sent him a selection of essays about the symbolic importance of the jumpsuit. ‘The shape goes back to Constructivist Russia,’ the Central Saint Martins alumnus explains. ‘It was a non sexualised uniform for everyone, about covering your body in order to function.’

Malone has created a fantastical interpretation of a functional garment – a swirling jumpsuit in his signature optical illusory patterns, complete with a 3D body and sleeves, sculpted using coils of wire. The Irish designer grew up working on building sites in Wexford, where he became familiar with workwear garments. His design has a more expressive and architectural flair. Due to the intricate nature of the forms he creates, Malone doesn’t sketch his designs in the conventional sense, but creates swirling patterns on paper, some of which he sent onto Antonelli’s teams during the creation process of his commission. He then notes how his designs conform to the body, ‘you get more unusual solutions and surprising silhouettes’, he says. 

Another Central Saint Martins alumni, Ryohei Kawanishi’s take on the guayabera shirt – a Central American and Caribbean staple that has become a symbol of immigration in the US – is not only oversized, but also festooned with politically charged embroideries arranged in patterns inspired by Afghan war rugs, Vietnam War souvenir jackets and Cuban media. ‘The guayabera shirt is said to be Cuban, but as a stereotype image, I’ve seen it a lot in American war movies,’ says Kawanishi. ‘I tried to find a way to approach the political scene and create a dialogue with those issues.’

The pieces are examples of MoMA’s intention to spark a deeper understanding of ordinary items we see every day. ‘It’s really a design show in which objects give you a chance to not only think about aesthetics, style, politics and anthropology, but also just the way we live,’ Antonelli says.

A version of this article is featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

INFORMATION

‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ is on view from 1 October until 28 January 2018. For more information, visit the MoMA website, the Carlo Brandelli website, the Richard Malone website and the Ryohei Kawanishi website

ADDRESS

MoMA
11 W 53rd Street
New York NY 10019

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Mood board: It’s been 20 years since the death of Gianni Versace, who was murdered outside his Miami Beach home at the age of 50. Donatella Versace’s collection – one that has dominated Instagram feeds – was a tribute to the designer’s beloved brother. It was strong on reinterpreted archive pieces and prints from the early 1990s, like thigh-high embellished cross boots from A/W 1991, bright Andy Warhol prints, underwater Tresor de la Mer and over the top baroque motifs. A Who’s Who of models sashayed down the catwalk in leather, denim, vivid prints, cowboy hats, and sexy thigh split dresses.

Finishing touches: Versace signatures were paraded in full force, from baroque print silk scarves to chunky Medusa-head earrings, gold buckled belts, and cowboy hats customised with medallions.

Best in show: It was no holds barred for the finale, as Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni, Helena Christensen, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford took to the catwalk in shimmering gold dresses – Donatella’s tribute to her brother’s legacy and his ‘dazzling metal mesh’. Flanked by the original 1990s supermodels, the designer walked the runway to George Michael’s freedom, and a rapturous standing ovation from the audience.

Mood board: The mood at Versace was ... pure Versace. It has been 20 years since Gianni Versace’s death, and his sister Donatella chose to revisit some of the house’s earlier statements. Reflecting on the history of the house, S/S 2018 is something of a reset on the Versace codes: the baroque silk printed foulards, the lux leisurewear, the pinstripe suits are all back and they mean business. Sneakers were moulded on the heel with the Medusa or Greek Key and velvet slip-ons were embroidered with crowns. The collection reflected the archives in a way that felt measured and instinctive. ‘This collection is like a homecoming. It’s about the passions that define Versace, the complexity of men, the energy of today,’ Donatella said.

Best in show: Silk shirts in baroque and optic prints were spliced together, stonewash denim jackets patch-worked with Versace denim prints. An instant hit will be the return of the 1989 Versace logo – embroidered in white on baby blue and pale pink T-shirts and worn on the catwalk with matching straight leg jeans. A nineties revival has been mooted at many of the S/S 2018 shows. If you’re going to do it, do it the Versace way.

Scene setting: An elevated glass catwalk snaked through the lush courtyard of the Versace family palazzo on Via Gesù, smack bang in the heart of Milan. The house was originally acquired from the Rizzoli family in 1981 and this show marked a return to the venue. Fun fact: Gianni was inspired to create the infamous Versace Medusa logo from a pebbled fresco on this courtyard’s very floor.

Mood board: In a season where political statements have been conveyed using emotive slogans, Donatella Versace’s unity-focused collection featured words including ‘Loyalty,’ ‘Quality,’ ‘Love’ and ‘Courage’, emblazoned on scarves, beanie hats and shirts. Having recently shifted its aesthetic into sportier territory, the house presented sporty knee length dresses with pleats and geometric prints, exquisite tailoring and delicate floral embellishments.

Best in show: A beautiful juxtaposition to the sportier and more feminine silhouettes on show, the show opened with a series of tailoring looks, including a double-breasted jacket and trousers, which were infinitely elegant.

Finishing touches: Sandals came with sporty neoprene and embellished floral details, while colourful leather bags had plaited straps that resembled Scoobie friendship bracelets.

Mood board: The soundtrack may have been dark and moody, and the models’ hair wet and scrappy, but Versace’s show shaped up to be the most wonderfully wearable and cooly grounded we've seen in seasons. From oil slick patent anoraks and hooded sweatshirts, to the most pristine camel coats and grey flannel suits, Versace delivered a whole closet of throw-them-on-now real clothes.

Best in show: Aside from great looking sharp suiting, sweeping blanket coats looked ruggedly handsome in boiled printed wools with huge slits up the sides. Also on point were the perfectly cut bomber jackets in wool felt, that added a preppy edge to street-kid plaid shirts and thigh-clinging pants.

Finishing touches: All of a man's classic extras came ever so slightly twisted this season. Wing tips sprouted bubble toes, oxfords sported rugged hiking soles, and an oversized satchel came embellished with a bounty of silver studs and a snaking medusa medallion.

Versace A/W 2017. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

The unveiling of Versace’s newest hotel in Dubai is proof abundant that good things do come to those who wait. Since launching its first property on Australia’s Gold Coast in 2000, it has taken the Italian fashion house 12 years to reveal the fruits of its labour in the UAE city – and there is no doubt that this is its most ambitious project to date.

Taking centre stage in Culture Village, a multi-purpose development that – when complete – will offer various retail, residential and commercial developments, as well as the world’s tallest building and a traditional souk, Palazzo Versace is an extravagant neoclassical masterpiece with 215 guest rooms and 169 residences.

Perched on the shoreline of the Dubai Creek, with clear views of the water and the city’s skyline beyond, the grandeur continues inside, where the lobby’s floor alone (a reproduction of a Versace scarf) took Italian mosaic masters Fantini, a painstaking two years to complete- just one example of the hotel’s level of craftsmanship as well as its distinct approach to branding, where everything, right down to the apples in the gym, bears the company’s hallmark.

Signature palatial hues blanket furnishings that are embellished with intricate Versace motifs and specially designed prints that pay tribute to the area with falcons, Arabian horses and peacocks. Meanwhile, a choice of three mosaic-tiled pools, eight restaurants – including a jazz bar headed by legendary musician Quincy Jones – and even a kid’s club colourfully decked out in the brand’s prints, ensure guests will never have to leave.

Mood board: A fantastic Bruce Weber-directed film opened the show at Versace where local groovesters from Chicago got down dancing on the streets with Karlie Kloss and Gigi Hadid. The joyful, perfectly in-tune moment set the stage for a collection that was uncharacteristically, but welcomely sober, featuring cleaned up streetwear in lovely, muted tones.

Best in show: Everything this season was washed off of excess and loosened from traditionally skin-tight fits. Fluttering anoraks floated like silk scarves, while elegant pants breezed by with a whisper rather than Versace’s usual bun-clinging trouser silhouette.

Finishing touches: There were of course a few classic lace up shoes but the main footwear news was a Birkenstock-meets-Teva hybrid worn with socks and cropped loose trousers.

INFORMATION 

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Black looks: In the new season’s monochrome, Louis Vuitton, Jil Sander, and Kenzo (pictured clockwise from left) opted for sleek, jet-black invitations. Louis Vuitton’s was debossed with its iconic monogram pattern; Jil Sander sent a soft, matte invitation with the event details embossed in a contrasting shiny black; while Kenzo’s came in the form of a mock concert ticket

Antonio Marras: Like a paper matryoshka doll, the ever-playful invitation from Antonio Marras was a decidedly meta affair – an illustrated paper envelope within an envelope within an envelope and so forth eventually revealed show details

Dries Van Noten: London-based illustrator Gill Button hand-painted no less than 1,200 invitations for Dries Van Noten’s A/W womenswear show after being discovered by the Belgian designer on Instagram. The collection – and invitations – nod to Italian heiress and muse Luisa Casati

Pattern power: Fashion powerhouses Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace and Bally went big and bold for their womenswear outings in Milan, commanding our attention with a graphic array of patterned invitations

Iris van Herpen: On the other end of the spectrum, Dutch designer Iris van Herpen aroused our curiosity with a tiny, pea-sized glass vessel. With careful tinkering we were able to coax the presentation details out, printed inside on a thin, plastic tape

Dior Homme: This season, creative director Kris Van Assche dipped into Dior’s floral archive as well as a black-and-red plaid that wouldn’t go amiss on the hip skater crowd, who were foreshadowed on his poster invitation

Anya Hindmarch: The English designer announced her London womenswear show with a diabolically difficult, all-silver riff on a Rubik’s cube (a few frustrating/gratifying hours were admittedly spent attempting to solve it). Set designer Stuart Nunn later brought this motif to life on the runway, creating a backdrop of illuminated surfaces based on 8-bit graphics and Rubik’s cubes, of course

Gucci: We opened Gucci’s mysterious invitation box for its menswear show with baited breath. Inside, it revealed a striking trio of scientific glass slides each adorned with its own specimen from Alessandro Michele’s Gucci garden, including a snake and bumblebee (a nod to European nobility and Rome, where the Italian house is based and also where the insect is carved into buildings all over the city)

Monochrome medley: It was a simple matter of black and white for Salvatore Ferragamo, Margaret Howell, Neil Barrett and Aquazzura, who all posted boldly monochromatic invitations to our letterbox

Prada: As ever, the guarded Miuccia Prada revealed nothing ahead of her Milan show. Instead, we were left tantalised by an off-white paper booklet with a concertina binding, slipped in a ghostly, semi-translucent acetate envelope

Metal heads: A metallic trend emerged among this season’s invitations, including a delicate, gold foil iteration for Palm Angels’ menswear show (left) and a creased, silver foil backed by cardboard for jewellery label Ambush

Paul Smith: Keen-eyed, longtime followers of the eponymous British designer might have recognised the glossy, red apple motif that appeared on his womenswear invitations from London’s salon and Paris’ runway show. Sir Smith, in fact, had first used it in 1982 and his recent collection took a bite out of his past endeavours

Art and soul: The Technicolor brushstrokes were flying as Paul Smith, Marques’Almeida, Céline (poured tinted rubber technically), and Hermès all jumped on a painterly trend for their respective show invitations this season

Acne Studios: There was no telling what to expect from Acne Studios’ show thanks to its poster invitation, illustrated with two wildly different scenes. Were we in for a psychedelic romp in Paris or something more darkly seductive?

Rick Owens: The American designer announced both of his A/W Paris shows on matching, soft leather invitations

Givenchy: Riccardo Tisci heralded his show with a black-and-white poster pin-up, painted over with a powder pink hue

Material matters: Luxurious swathes of suede and felt won out many of the invitations this season, including (pictured, from top) Victoria Beckham, Marni, and Jimmy Choo

3.1 Phillip Lim: It was only fitting that the American designer would send out a boxed bamboo invitation with the show details printed inside on a glossy, lacquer-red duplex card, framed with a black border. As it turned out, his A/W outing was infused with plenty of references that included Japanese craft and kimonos

Fendi: The Italian house announced itself – quite literally – with a white duplex card featuring its name playfully adorned in a lemon yellow felt inside a comic speech bubble

1205: The elusive Paula Gerbase gave nothing away ahead of her menswear debut in London thanks to her minimalist acetate invitation

Zest sellers: Several houses heralded their shows with a bold tangerine or vivid orange, including (clockwise, from top left) Marques'Almeida's paint-streaked offering; MSGM's fabric-pressed card; Miu Miu's soft suede invitation; and Carven's graphic poster

Edun: The label adorned its womenswear invitation, the runway and closing looks of the show with a design from Ethiopian Grammar by artist Wosene Worke Kosrof. The Ethiopian sculptor/painter is best known for his interpretations of Aramaic script; here, he conjured a pastiche of phrases like 'mother love' and blended it with the Amharic alphabet on duplex card

Upon the reveal, who didn’t want to pack their bags for Karl Lagerfeld’s tranquil Chanel oasis (pictured) or join Elie Saab’s passage to India? Bureau Betak’s mirrored prism at Dior quite literally refracted the sheer beauty of the Musée Rodin venue, while also offering a moment of reflection, as Bertrand Guyon sort to reconnect over the dinner table at Schiaparelli’s Surrealist feast.

This collective quest for peace was also stitched into the season’s purist obsession with white (from Viktor & Rolf’s Cubist sculptural confections to Valentino’s plissé gowns), along with a new, softer fluidity. Couture’s big gowns and starched tailoring was relaxed in favour of a more louche approach for S/S 2016, ranging from Dior’s slipping necklines to Jean Paul Gaultier’s pyjama suiting and Valentino’s kimono-sleeved robes. The mindful journey offered a silk road of visual escapism just as the Haute Couture shows should…

Chanel: If Karl Lagerfeld was to build a W* house, spring’s Isay Weinfeld-style villa, suspended over an infinity pool and surrounded by manicured turf, would surely be the residential result. Lagerfeld’s serene wooden block house could just as easily have been located within a far-flung Aman resort and that seemed to be the point – pure tranquillity from the chillout sessions soundtrack to the colour palette that was dominated by fifty shades of the house beige: from ecru to sand, ivory to taupe, with just a hint of deep water navy

Chanel: ‘The starting point for this collection was the silhouette,’ Lagerfeld decreed of his three-quarter length pencil skirts (some with a hint of glittering tulle kicking out from their back splits) or flared palazzo culottes, topped with soft, short-sleeved jackets. Oval sleeve shapes, glittering capes and twisted pleating also imbued an oriental semblance that made you believe the designer’s exotic hideaway was perched somewhere in the Far East as his models sauntered across a wood block runway in their cork two-tone platforms with matching technology pochettes swinging from their waists. The latter appeared to be the only bid to maintain touch with the outside world

Chanel: In these parts the tempo picks up for cocktail hour and Lagerfeld offered a plethora of ethereal tiered sheaths glittering with rhinestones and even eco-friendly wooden beads that would entice any modern bride to the altar. And that was even before Chanel’s actual betrothed exited the villa in a geometric lace column that was accompanied by a matching hooded jacket, complete with a robe-like train. Let’s call it haute leisure for a world where everyone is in possession of their very own sanctuary respite, complete with a lily pond off the kitchen

Schiaparelli: Bertrand Guyon’s second Schiaparelli offering was motivated by the recent Paris attacks with the designer deciding to base his collection around the idea of a good meal with friends as an act of resistance as well as joy. This uniting notion of a familiar feast was a tasty fit for a house that’s synonymous with perhaps the world’s most famous lobster (cooked up by Dali), which in turn brought forth a smorgasbord of new food motifs to the Schiaparelli table

Schiaparelli: The visual banquet continued with pieces of porcelain sewn into dress bibs and various croissant, prawn, sugar cube and turnip pins adorning ethereal chiffon gowns. Natural fabrics like raffia and wheat – the latter a Schiaparelli icon itself – were also mined for both construction and embellishment, while bold prints were fashioned from bone china table settings or aerial views of farmland offering another nod to nature. Not to say that there wasn’t an underlying Parisienne cheekiness to the offering, with a glace cherry nipple ring hanging from a woven raffia buster and a cracked egg standing in for a cape coat

Dior: The house of Dior may have lost its creative director in October’s shock Raf Simons departure, but in these parts the show must go on, and Dior certainly know how to put on a spectacle. Even before entering this season’s Bureau Betak-designed mirrored monument, guests (not taking Selfies) were offered a moment of reflection to contemplate the striking beauty of Paris’ Musée Rodin caught within its fractured panes. Photography: Adrien Dirand

Dior: Once inside, the show notes spoke of ‘couture’s new realism’ captured in the visual softening of dress volumes, more fluid incarnations of the Bar jacket and the modern patchworking of tactile embroideries. Led by Dior studio directors Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier, the pair dialled down the big dresses of Dior’s Galliano era and relaxed the slick tailoring of Simons’ three-year tenure, making ‘femininity in motion’ their m/o for spring.

Dior: Décolleté was a focal point with gowns slipping off the shoulders and tailoring de-collared to reveal the clavicles. Body chains were a bit of a trend this week in Paris – also seen at Valentino, Jean Paul Gaultier and Ulyana Sergeenko – and at Dior they carried good luck charms (perhaps for this time of transition?) that winked to the house’s founder who was notoriously superstitious.

Giambattista Valli: The Roman designer who has called Paris home for the past 18 years was also inspired by the beauty of the city that surrounds him and more specifically its four finest gardens: Bagatelle, Palais-Royal, Luxembourg and the Tuileries, which were captured in spring’s botanical-themed embroideries that finished swinging Sixties-style frocks

Giambattista Valli: Silhouette speaking, however, the Emma-esque empire lines of his puff sleeved cocktail confections and princess gowns were derived from ‘Les Soeurs de Napoléon’ - the 2013 exhibition at the Musée Marmottan Monet

Valentino: Creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli began their spring alchemy with a study of the body via diaphanous plissé layers fused with the work of 19th century Catalan painter Mariano Fortuny (who had a romantic fascination with military figures embarking on Oriental colonial expansion), and his designer son by the same name, who is best known for his pleating effects. The lustrous, light infused brush stokes of Fortuny senior’s canvases were directly captured in the design duo’s embroidered kimono dress of patchwork Fortuny motifs titled ‘Letter to the World’, while Fortuny junior’s plissé techniques were employed to angelic effort throughout the poetic offering

Valentino: The opulent collection had a precious Byzantine regality to it (and often 1,800 man hours of construction), as antiquated velvet tunic dresses were hand brush with gold border motifs to operatic effect, while Medallion body chains made by Alessandro Gaggio and Harumi Klossowska finished all weight of gowns from whisper light tulle to richly worked velvets. Primal snake headpieces framed each girl’s face, as their bare feet were shackled by more gleaming metal chains for the walk along a golden catwalk strewn with silk leaves, petals and blooms

Valentino: The allure of ancient civilizations was also evident in an ivory crepe plissé dress, for which the sleeves and side seams were finished with bronze studs, and in brocade tabard sheaths, which tied with simple bows at the sides. The show concluded with a finale of dream-like virginal gowns, their lightness alluding to the Fortuny dresses American dancer, and this season’s Valentino muse, Isadora Duncan, wore when she performed

Viktor & Rolf: For Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren this season began with a white piqué mesh polo shirt. Utilising its classic Airtex fabric, the pair then moulded a series of surreal sculptures, inspired by Cubist art, increasing in their degree of complexity as the show progressed. As for the total white-out? The pair explained the idea was to emulate plaster

Viktor & Rolf: ‘They’re very 3D, very sculptural, but still wearable,’ Snoeren explained before the show. ‘The fabric is the same all through-out the collection, but the way it has been handled is very different: sometimes there is a structure inside that’s like a crinoline or a corset, sometimes there is a volume built inside that’s covered in the technical fabric, other times the fabric itself is stiffened’

Viktor & Rolf: As the show built, fragmented faces took over the archetypical shirt’s familiar features, while the last looks had a tribal African mask semblance to their statuesque portrait columns, which became a performance piece in themselves on the runway

Armani Privé: Mr Armani wrapped us up in a purple haze for his Privé show that rolled in with a collection dominated by fading mauve hues and undulating ruffles. The wave-like flounces finished the side seams of silken cocktail pants, just as sunray pleated jackets kept spring’s momentum of movement circling the body

Armani Privé: For evening, a particularly chic pleated skirt and trapeze-shaped strapless top kept the ball rolling, while gowns followed the curves of sea shells; their reflective surfaces tiled like mother of pearl. Jewelled, transparent socks completed the collection’s fantasy, dream-like quality

Roger Vivier: Thanks to the runaway success of Bruno Frisoni’s demi couture Rendez-Vous collection, the French fashion brand expended into daywear for spring with the introduction of the Sneaky Viv’ – a frills and spills sneaker that comes in a purist ruffled form, as well as studded with rivets, jewelled with crystals or festooned with fancy feathers

Dice Kayek: Turkish designer Ece Ege fused a fairytale narrative with a tailored precision that saw her explore exaggerated volumes such as inflated sleeve blouses, romantic cape coats and ruffled jacket peplums, which were articulated with a precise structure so as to appear effortless and almost sculptural on the surface, while concealing a web of technique trickery below.

Dice Kayek: The collection’s dominating silhouette made a pronounced trip south for spring, far from Ege’s somewhat signature abbreviated mini-crini dresses. That said, the departure was well received by her swinging three-quarter length skirts and ground-grazing woollen coats. The show’s fairytale finishes were brought to life via her Alice in Wonderful bow blouses, The Steadfast Tin Soldier’s military frocking (reimaged in crystal beading), and Little Red Riding Hood capes and capelets, before The Black Swan’s plumage sprouted from a strapless peplum tunic to striking effect.

Elie Saab: The Lebanese designer took us on a passage to India for spring, during a time when colonial dressing was shifting from the strict codes of the Victorian era to that of the softer Edwardian Belle Époque. The decadent collection was directly inspired by the photo journal of Anglo-Irish aristocrat Lilah Wingfield on tour during the height of the Raj in her featherweight French lace dresses, and featured plenty of palatial, local architectural references and nature motifs in Saab’s regal beading and embroideries

Elie Saab: The Orient’s influence was everywhere from Saab’s draped sari pants with billowing side panels to his cape or scallop-sleeved pageant dresses, some finished with trailing sashes. Tiers of French lace and elaborate bugle beading created movement, while the fact that much of the jewelled embellishments floated on a nude skin base, brought home a confident sensuality from this intoxicating foreign land

Atelier Versace: ‘This is a collection for all women who walk their own path,’ declared workout junkie Donatella Versace of her spring collection fittingly titled ’Athletic Couture’. Versace was off and racing with an arsenal of haute sportif finishes from silicon gel harness and boning on dresses and jumpsuits, to colourful hand-crocheted bomber jackets and jumpers, knitted with flocked chains and teamed with go-faster stirrup pants

Atelier Versace: The collection’s ‘racer-sharp’ tailoring was spliced with cut-outs and laced with Swarovski crystal rope, while Spiderman webbing was hand embroidered rather than printed onto silk gowns. The result paved the way for plenty of curves ahead and certainly brought the leisurewear explosion into the couture equation with a running jump

Ulyana Sergeenko: Another designer inspired by the merging of two eras was Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko who tapped the last decade of the Soviet Union as inspiration for her Eighties riot of couture weight ruffles, leg of mutton sleeves, jumpsuits and night porter caps, along with the corseted decadence of the end of the Russian Empire in 19th century Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Tiered, bra-cupped lace party dresses vied for attention with puffball skirts and stirrup pants tucked into wide-ankled, Christian Louboutin boots in metallic hues

Jean Paul Gaultier: Also beating down the door of the 1980s was Jean Paul Gaultier’s comical pastiche of the hedonistic characters that inhabited infamously fashionable Paris nightclub Le Palace: an establishment where even the staff came clad in gold tunics by Thierry Mugler. Presented in the style of dinner theatre, models sporting obnoxiously large hoop earrings with similarly enthusiastically teased perms or spiky Bowie mullets, chewed gum, sipped champagne or simply lit up as they made their way down the catwalk air kissing other club creatures mid runway.

Jean Paul Gaultier: Monsieur Gaultier refuses not to have fun with his ebullient shows and so we were all along for the ride (second hand smoke included). Robe-like jackets were drawn into the waist and cinched with Moroccan curtain tassels as blouson pants abounded in jazzy silks. Fabrics, generally speaking, came shot with glitter, lamé or sequins as all the archetype Eighties-era favourites got a nostalgic redux with the tongue-on-cheek realism that only Gautier can deliver. And, of course, the show’s soundtrack ran the same gauntlet from Talking Head’s Psycho Killer to Prince’s Controversy.

Mood board: The Versace show began with a boom as models frenetically ran down a pitch black runway with only strategic details of their sporty clothes left highlighted like plastic reams of glow-in-the-dark. It was the beginning of a collection that beautifully married technology with tradition, and moved the Versace menswear mark confidently forward.

Best in show: The collection was stuffed with clothes you could imagine a guy wearing - from normal mohair sweaters, white aviator jackets, and crisp white cotton hooded anoraks to metallic shearling coats and the best ‘regular guy’ suiting Versace has produced in years. But it was as interesting as it was normal, and most crucially (and newly) it also looked expensive, as if the fabrics had been carefully researched and custom produced.

Finishing touches: The extras here were slick and futuristic. Silver brocade backpacks were mounted on jackets of the same pattern, nerd glasses were worn with hoodlum knit hats, Star Trek pins capped off jackets, while tech gear and cameras were strapped onto their fronts like chest tripods.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Mood board: For spring, Donatella Versace brought her Versace tribe to the jungle. The collection opened with sassy soldier-like women in terrific clean khaki and olive canvas looks borrowed from the men - but shortened to vamp lengths - and climaxed with a series of bun-hugging sequined dresses that were worn on women with actual curves. Kudos to Donatella for dedicating her collection to ‘all women’ (as the soundtrack announced), and not just the gaunt ones that populate most designers’ runways.

Best in show: Those minimal opening looks in sturdy, plain fabrics were new territory for this glitz-loving designer and marked a fresh, well-tuned adjustment. We also loved the abstract camouflage motifs that Versace boldly worked in shades of bold yellow, grass green, grape and black in both flat prints or 3D embroideries on shorter-than-short shorts, micro miniskirts and matched cropped jackets.

Finishing touches: While every other designer might be advocating flats for every occasion (steamy eveningwear included), Ms Versace won’t budge on the issue. She showed a couple of tractor-soled flatforms, but the majority of her models towered over the runway on heels with enormous platform bases

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Prada: Miuccia Prada’s alluring S/S 2016 invitation comprised a trio of acetate sheets that created a lens effect when moved over each other. Ensuring their safe arrival was a black plastic envelope with a press effect

Dior Homme: M/M (Paris) quoted Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung – ‘in all disorder a secret order’ – on its illustrated poster-sized invitation

Paul Smith: Sir Paul Smith championed an ‘independent mind’ for S/S, with this mantra adorning a luxurious, black cashmere handkerchief

Yohji Yamamoto: The designer set the tone for his Paris show with a brown paper bag invitation. On one side, a sketch of a near-naked man clad in hot pants declared ‘I’m for rent’, with show details on the reverse

Louis Vuitton: Louis Vuitton delivered its spring/summer show details on a grey mountboard, debossed with its signature monogram pattern, and names elegantly scribed overleaf in navy blue ink. Kim Jones also enclosd a second invitation – letter-pressed with a blue rope motif and edged in blue - that summoned us to Paris boutique Colette to view the house’s A/W 2015  collection drop in store

Saint Laurent: The work of American artist and sculptor Billy Al Bengston was the latest to grace the next edition in Hedi Slimane’s sleek series of booklet invitations. The 81-year-old artist - best known for his soft-focus, geometric paintings and association with surfing subculture - offered up the perfect visual prelude to Slimane’s southern Californian soujourn

Wooyoungmi: Woo Youngmi and Katie Chung joined a number of designers looking upwards to the final frontier for inspiration this season. Their invitation, printed on textured card, depicted the moon in different phases

Kenzo: A mirror-effect duplex mountboard alluded to Carol Lim and Humberto Leon’s interplanetary space race. Housed in a taupe envelope with the house’s name printed in a pleasing, mint-green foil, the invitation was our one-way ticket to the cosmos. We have lift-off!

Alexander McQueen: The prologue to Alexander McQueen's S/S 2016 show was the vintage, black-and-white portrait of a tattooed man on the front of each invitation – later referenced on the runway through silk scarves in a tattoo print and complimenting cuffs. Printed on textured card with a UV-varnish, the invitation arrived in a ghostly tissue paper envelope

Coach: Stuart Vevers opted for a heavy, mountboard invitation, edged in purple, to announce his debut LC:M show. An abstract graphic – clouds billowing over a rocky texture – hinted at the psychedelic medley of textures and hues that were to come

Oliver Spencer: The London menswear brand has us seeing shapes – shapes drawn from the oeuvre of American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra to be precise. Its invitation riffed on Serra’s large-scale sheet metal works, featuring a medley of red, interlocking circles and triangles on off-white card

Richard James: Heralding the Savile Row tailor’s trek to Las Pozas – the pseudo 'ancient ruin' created by eccentric English poet and surrealist Edward James – was a triplex card, illustrating the silhouette of one of Las Pozas’ concrete structures emerging from the rainforest

Junya Watanabe Man: The Japanese designer’s theme this season was ‘Faraway’ – more specifically Africa. To wit, a poster invitation transported us there pre-show through an image featuring a figure standing tall over the lush, exotic landscape

Raf Simons: Mr Simons’ simply elegant invitation – a subtle, white card with names handwritten and the show details printed overleaf – gave nothing away. Who would have guessed he had a blitzing techno-rave in store for us this season?

Issey Miyake: This season, Issey Miyake’s menswear designer Yusuke Takahashi was enamored by photographer Yoshinori Mizutani’s series Tokyo Parrots. Alluding to the collection's theme of urban nature, the invitation featured one of Mizutani’s vibrant images

From the grandiosely impressive decors to quirky invitations, it's now a given that each meticulous detail of the seasonal show pilgrimage is carefully crafted to be entirely out-of-the-box. And the accompanying soundscape to this spring's men's season posed no exception.

Enchanting live performances (see Rhodes at Burberry Prorsum) and intoxicating DJ sets melodiously accompanied the S/S 2016 men's catwalk collections turning them into event spectaculars rather than just shows.

Jumping genres and eras we enjoyed Marylin Monroe's 'Boop Boop De Boop' at Dries Van Noten as much as Nile Rodgers' exclusive remix for Louis Vuitton's World Clique show. 'Nile is a hero of mine,' explained Louis Vuitton's Kim Jones. 'And he was perfect to work with this season as he is somebody that has crossed all boundaries with the many different artists he has collaborated with the world over,' he added of Chic's lead guitarist. 'Taking those global influences, mixing them together and making a new sound – Nile’s music is a metaphor for the collection.'

Louis Vuitton
'Chic Cheer' by Chic; 'Why' by Carly Simon; 'Like A Virgin' by Madonna
Music production: Niles Rodgers

Burberry Prorsum
‘Vienna’, ‘Breathe’, ‘Close Your Eyes’ and ‘I Put A Spell On You’ performed live by Rhodes, accompanied by a 24-piece orchestra conducted by Joe Duddell

Calvin Klein Collection
‘Born Slippy’ by Underworld; ‘Tormentor’ by Skinny Puppy; ‘Nobody Knows’ by Nitzer Ebb; ‘N.W.O’ by Ministry (Repeated); ‘Slippy’ (Vocal part) by Underworld

Diesel Black Gold
‘Leaving Forever’ by Junto Club; ‘Watch your Back’ by Body of Light; 'Dirt + Hamburg' by Oil Thief; 'Still/ Current - Orange (texture)' by Mukul; ‘Leaving Forever’ by Junto Club

Dries Van Noten
‘Love Me Tender’ by Elvis Presley; ‘Pretty Vacant’ by Sex Pistols; ‘L’amour’ by Salvador Dali; ‘Dialogues’ by Marylin Monroe (from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot…); ‘This Is Not A Love Song’ by Public Image Ltd; ‘Pretty Vacant’ by Sex Pistols; ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’ by Marylin Monroe

Paul Smith
Congo Dick Dale; ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ by Ian Dury; ‘Set Phazers To Stun’ by The Time And Space Machine; ‘New Kind Of Kick’ by The Cramps; ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks; ‘Pretty Thing’ by  Bo Diddley; ‘I Want Candy’ by  Bow Wow Wow; ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes; ‘The Hardest Button To Button’ by The White Stripes; ‘Live Like An Animal’ by The Slaves; ‘Cavern Liquid’ by Liquid; ‘Badder Than The Rest’ by Beenie Man; ‘Have Love, Will Travel’ by The Sonics; ‘Tight Pants’ by Iggy Pop; ‘Day Tripper’ by  Shockabilly; ‘Voodoo Child’ by  Jimi Hendrix; ‘Master Of The Universe’ by Hawkweed; ‘Misty Mountain’ by The Silver Apples; ‘The Union Forever’ by The White Stripes; ‘Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt’ by Palais Schaumburg; ‘Sweet Like Candy’ by Winston Williams; ‘Johnny’ by Suicide; ‘Domino’ by The Cramps; ‘Young Ones’ by Formation

Raf Simons
‘Raised’ by IVVVO; ‘Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore’ by Mark Leckey; ‘The Realm (Acapella)’ by C'hantal; ‘Jupiter Acid (Skudge White)’ by Mono Junk

Rick Owens
Exclusive mix of Kat!e by Carnage (ft. Katie Got Bandz)

Sacai
‘Dance (Beats Mix)’ by Earth People; ‘Release Yourself (Dub Mix)’ by Aleem; ‘Tell You (Original 12 inch Instrumental)’ by Loose Joints; ‘Notice Me (Notice The House Mix)’ by Sandee; ‘Show Me Love (Acapella)’ by Robin S Happy; ‘Stick’ by Steve Pointdexter; ‘Stars’ by Carl Graig; ‘Are You Experienced’ - Jimi Hendrix; ‘Jack Your Body’ by Steve Hurley; ‘I feel love (Acapella)’ by Donna Summer; ‘Additional Beats And Sounds’ by Senjan Jansen

Versace
‘Ouverture’ by Maurice Jarre; ‘Oriented’ by Rikslyd; ‘The Curse’ and ‘Beat On The Drums’ by Craig Bratley; ‘Arabian Dance’ by Antares; ‘Let’s All Chant’ by Michael Zager Band

Dior: For A/W 2015-16, Raf Simons invited us into Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights reimagined by Bureau Betak. Referencing the Adam and Eve tale of innocence and temptation, Simons' fashion vision was executed through the gaze of the Flemish and French masters of both art and couture craft, and all housed within a geometrically paned greenhouse-cum-church-cum nightclub that was painted with pointillist dots

Dior: Juxtaposing themes of depth and light, richly draped Vermeer-esque cape coats and billowing, smock-like embroidered sheaths looked like they'd walked off an Old Master's canvas. This flowing chiffon silhouette was later chopped into hand painted baby doll dresses jewelled with 'cannage' gilets, offering a modern spin on archaic chain mail.

Dior: Under the illustrated panes, red carpet dressing took a similarly charmed approach, as side-less gowns - secured to the body with gilt gold chains - appeared as if an offering to king or master. 'I was intrigued by the idea of the forbidden fruit, and what that meant now,' Simons explained in his show notes, 'The idea of purity and innocence versus luxury and decadence and how that is encapsulated by the idea of Dior's garden - no longer a flower garden but a sexual one.' 

Fendi: Set against the imposing backdrop of one of Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico's most famous works, Karl Lagerfeld presented his first Haute Fourrure collection for the Roman furrier, courting quiet controversy at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées and marking the designer's 50th year at the house. The Art Deco building lent a particularly theatrical stage upon which to flex Fendi's masterful fur pedigree; the house even provided Fendi-issued opera glasses to offer a more intimate viewing of the collection's finer details (fur corsages included).

Fendi: With both the Arnault and Fendi families watching from the venue's boxes, sable, chinchilla, lynx and mink pelts were finessed into myriad graphic patterns and sumptuous swirling combinations. Each exit, some festooned with feathers, others spliced with transparent panels, was a testament to the furrier's unparalleled expertise and warranted arrival on the couture calendar.

Chanel: Karl Lagerfeld transported his A/W Chanel couture show to a private casino within the Grand Palais, complete with a live high-rollers blackjack mise en scène (decorated with celebrity friends of the house), roulette tables and even Chanel branded slot machines. As chips changed hands, Lagerfeld's 'neo tomboys', parading about the card tables in 3D printed skirt suits, debuted the house's new high-tech 'selective laser sintering' technique, utilised in unison with Chanel's petites mains to fashion the collection.

Chanel: Also circumnavigating tradition was Lagerfeld's 2015 couture bride, resplendent in an off-white silk tuxedo and finished with a simple tulle veil, which spoke more of a Vegas-style elopement than the current trend for gala weddings that are littering our Instagram feeds

Viktor & Rolf: With their models donning gilt framed canvases, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren reprised their very first 1998 haute couture show's Living Art concept, taking to the stage for a performance piece that saw the designers undressing and hanging their works live within the Palais de Tokyo.

Viktor & Rolf: Titled Wearable Art, the morphing collection, grounded by blue smocks, blurred the baroque with action painting techniques, resulting in a fittingly unhinged presentation that was surreal to behold. Just as art imitates life, a piece from the collection is soon to be hung within long-standing Viktor & Rolf collector Han Nefkens' Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Schiaparelli: New creative director Bertrand Guyon (an alumnus of Valentino and Givenchy) looked to Elsa Schiaparelli's early years for his debut collection, which saw its founder's iconic motifs liberally lavished throughout. Schiaparelli's ES initials were monogrammed onto a frilled ivory blouse, just as her preferred iris bloom was patchworked into hyper-hued fur coats. The founder's Dali telephone powder compact was furthermore reinvented as a clutch bag

Schiaparelli: Jewelled brocade made up much of the show's strong tailoring offering, while Elsa Schiaparelli's riding culottes were re-cut in fringed plaid as Guyon's eveningwear ranged from a jewel strapped black plunging velvet column to a suitably 'shocking' pink diaphanous gown that will no doubt be swiftly snapped up for future red carpets.

Giambattista Valli: The Roman designer only conceives dresses that make an entrance, from his ruffled tulle gowns with two-metre-plus trains (this season in electric orange) to his baby doll minis patchworked with jewelled, laser-cut lace. This season was no different.

Giambattista Valli: That said, it was A/W's quieter tunic and Capri pant looks - one fringed in feathers from the knee, others entirely jewelled - that offered an intriguing break from the season's hyper sweetened, fairytale flou, which saw experimentations with volume via puffball hems and Regency-era trailing gowns. 

Jean Paul Gaultier: The French designer tripped back to his marinière striped signature and the sandy shores of Brittany for A/W - no doubt in response to the retrospective exhibition that has finally arrived back in Paris after a four year world tour. Gold thread embroidery emboldened velvet admiral's jackets, as Breton striped hosiery and knitwear anchored the season's particularly theatrical collection, that concluded with a bagpipe salute.

Dice Kayek: Turkish designer Ece Ege presented a 1970s spin on tuxedo dressing - from her show's opening Le Smoking tail coat to a backless bib top and bow-tie mini skirt - before rainbow hued crystals covered a disco's worth of mini crini dresses, which epitomised the collection's hedonistic theme.

Dice Kayek: Winter's nocturnal rhapsody recalled scenes from Paris' late night Warholian den Le Palace, as Ege revived the eras stroboscopic spirit - all the way down to the models' 1970s issue platforms and a show backdrop that saw a giant mirror ball hanging from the ceiling of Les Arts Décoratifs.

Elie Saab: Nirvana's Come As You Are is as far from an obvious choice for a couture show soundtrack as it gets, especially for a designer overwhelmingly known for high voltage glamour and femininity. That said, Cobain's strained lyrics made for a satisfying contrast to Saab's regal, gold dipped A/W collection, that saw his models crowned with molten Byzantium headpieces as their waists were nipped into glittering goddess dresses. The show was actually a personal nod to the gold wedding dress that Saab had himself designed for his wife Claudine, 25 years ago to the day, which made for a poetic quarter-century love letter.

Armani Privé: This season, Mr Armani was thinking pink - Schiaparelli's shocking pink, even - with a collection that, in addition to colour, was dominated by a exploration of texture; tinsel-like filaments electrified cocktail dresses, while bugle beaded fringes finished bustiers, gowns and tassel belts, reinforcing the rebellious theme.

Ulyana Sergeenko: The Russian designer loves to weave a story from her homeland into her collections' narrative and this season that meant a tale of post-Revolution Soviet communal living, which saw multiple families sharing rooms within the once-grand subdivided apartments of Saint Petersburg. The lawn of her A/W presentation space, Paris' Mona Bismarck American Center, was decorated to loosely reflect this eclectic union of mismatched tastes and levels of society.

Ulyana Sergeenko: Here, the designer's A/W muse found herself awake and listless in the early hours of New Years Day 1937 - the only celebratory day in the Communist calendar that didn't mark a victory or the glory of work. In general, there is something innately nostalgic in Sergeenko's designs, and this collection built upon boudoir-inspired, albeit slightly unhinged, tea dresses and busty sheaths, accompanied by three-quarter-length sleeved furs that could of come from a great aunt's closet. Best in show was a Yelets bobbin lace dress (named after the Russian town where it was made) that took a village of local artisans four months to fashion.

Atelier Versace: This season, Donatella Versace interlaced the house's insatiable air of sexuality with a more romantic, free spirited approach. The designer played with volume and deconstruction, primarily patchworking jewelled lace and hand frayed chiffon sheaths held together with vines of beaded flowers or metal couture 'staples'. From the girls' floral headpieces to their pleated and teased apart gowns, there was an unravelled 'festival' freedom felt throughout. But being a Versace show, there was also an abundance of chain and crystal mesh bustier dresses mingling with her encrusted fil coupé sheaths, floating from their velvet boned corsets and bell sleeves.

Scene setting: A harem is not what you expect to see at the very Italian house of Versace. But the Middle Eastern mood struck a cool cord this season, helped along by huge printed scarves hanging like billowing sails throughout the show space and topless models drawing up the curtains like glamorous attendants.

Best in show: Though the dhoti pants were a cool move (however tricky with a double breasted jacket), the best pieces in this show were the suits, shirts and hooded jackets crafted from fluttering silk fabric covered in graphic micro tie prints. It was a cool new territory we wanted to see more of.

Finishing touches: No proper Sultan would ever leave the house with a turban and Versace's men's heads were all wrapped up in twisted scarves with long tails trailing down their back.

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

Loewe: Spanish leather goods house Loewe presented a limited edition collection of leather vessels inspired by Austrian potter Lucie Rie and produced by Spanish artisan José Luis Bazán

Loewe: Creative director Jonathan Anderson designed three sets of 50 different leather bowls, sculpting each one with his hands for a collection of one-of-a-kind creations 

Marni: Marni's successful fruit bazaar at last year's Milan fashion week morphed into a fruit market at the brand's Milan Headquarters during the Salone del Mobile

Marni: Baskets brimming with exotic fruit from Colombia were all put on display with woven PVC, wire furniture and tabletop designs from a group of female Colombian artisans

Brioni: The master tailors and Wallpaper* joined forces once again this Salone. Paying tribute to the Viennese elegance that inspired Creative Director Brendan Mullane's latest collection, the fashion brand teamed up with Vienna-based glassmakers Lobmeyr to create a specially oversized version of its legendary Oswald Haerdtl-designed Candy Dish, which in turn takes centre stage for a city of glass for Brioni’s mini heroes, all immaculately dressed in miniature replicas from the collection

COS: Visitors to Spazio Erbe in Brera wandered through an enormous all-white, cave-like structure created expressly for the COS clothing brand

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COS: Designed by New York-based studio Snarkitecture, the space was showered in translucent white textile strips that looked like icicles dripping from the roof of a grotto

Clarks: In honour of the 65th anniversary of its Desert Boot, British shoe brand Clarks partnered with the Halo Trust to present new versions of the boot created by 14 different UK-based artists and designers including Marc Quinn, Lee Broom and Faye Toogoode. The painting featured is entitled 'Urban Nomad' 

Giorgio Armani: In addition to a new Armani Casa collection that featured the limited edition 'Justin' desk in sea-green leather and red lacquer chairs among other items, Giorgio Armani also transformed his Armani Teatro space into an interior design studio

Alexander McQueen: Studio Wieki Somers and Kvadrat took up residence at McQueen's Via Verri home through a unique, bespoke installation. Inspired by the Spring/Summer 2015 collection, 'Blossom Rain' featured three geisha warriors holding a series of lamps against a blossom haze backdrop of laser cut textile from Kvadrat

Giorgio Armani: A retrospective of the company's top design projects over the last decade were on display in honour of the designer's 40th anniversary that is coming to a culmination next month with the debut of his new museum Armani/Silos

Giorgio Armani: Mr Armani also opened a brand new flagship store at Via Montenapoleone 2, which is dominated by sweeping curves. 

Fendi: The Roman brand has been dangling its Bag Bug fur charms from its handbags for a few seasons now, but it took the Campana Brothers to throw 100 of the playful furry creatures all together on a single seat. Entitled 'The Armchair of a Thousand Eyes,' the chair is a riot of colour, pattern and mixed tufts of kidassia, mongolia, shearling and rabbit furs

Tory Burch: Celebrating the launch of their new Lettuce Ware in collaboration with legendary Palm Beach ceramicist Dodie Thayer, the American lifestyle brand and Wallpaper* commissioned Bethan Laura Wood to create a unique installation. Inspired by retro party nibbles, Wood created a equally bright and cheerful installation of super-sized canapés. Following their Milan debut, they will next tour around Tory Burch stores in London, Munich and New York

Fendi: The house also showed a new Casa collection with the 'Blixen' lounge chair by Toan Nguyen taking our fancy

Antonio Marras: The Italian's long-running collaboration with boutique creative design agency, Segno Italiano, yields increasingly satisfying results. This year, the team created a giant bird cage featuring a series of hand-made wooden nests swinging from the ceiling and trailing with Marras' own textiles, while 50 tiny birds happily chirped and fluttered about. The same artisan who made the nests was also commissioned to weave river cane rods with strips of Marras' fabric to create a series of vases and baskets

Missoni: Apart from its latest home collection featuring graphic black and white upholstered furniture, Missoni also created a lounging experience for weary Salone visitors in its Via Solferino Showroom

Missoni: Entitled 'Missoni Mirroring,' the setup included suspended mirrors, peep-holes featuring endless reflections of ceramic vases. Walls were covered with mirrors and tapestries, and floors were strewn with carpets and poufs for guests to lounge on

BassamFellows: As part of its five-designer series to recreate the classic shoes worn by Marcello Mastroianni in the 1960s, traditional Italian footwear designer Sutor Mantellassi collaborated with Connecticut-based furniture designers Scott Fellows and Craig Bassam. BassamFellows, already intimately fond of finely crafted materials, choose strips of eel skin on a sleek, slip on loafer, and sturdy leather for their chelsea boot

Bottega Veneta: The house secured a superb location for its first free-standing home collection boutique. Located discreetly on Milan's Via Borgospesso, the store unfolds like a series of grand rooms in a renaissance palazzo with magnificent wall frescoes and double-height wooden ceilings

Bottega Veneta: This was the first time the brand properly showed off its full home offering in a single dedicated space

Versace: The latest Versace home collection comes revved up with the usual sparkle, flash and oversized shapes that drives its signature excess. The new 'Coupe des Dieux' chair, however, is cut in slim lines and covered entirely in leather (either dark grey, white, red or turquoise) and is an antidote to the usual extravagance

Bulgari: To celebrate its latest Serpenti jewellery collection, Bulgari worked with Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid to create a snake-inspired installation in the garden of the Bulgari Hotel

Bulgari: Hadid's enormous white metal structure slithered across the grass like a tunnel featuring an open mosaic of reptilian scales

Valextra: The Italian luxury handbag label teamed up with furniture designer Martino Gamper for the design of several new handbags featuring his signature intarsia work as well as a special installation at the Via Manzoni store

Valextra: Gamper lined the shop in magnetic sheets. He covered the walls with rich Kvadrat wool and then affixed handbags directly to the walls using magnets. This created a floating sea of accessories

Emilio Pucci: The Italian house partnered with industrial designer Philippe Starck on the design of a new chair produced by Kartell and presented in Pucci's new Via Montenapoleone boutique

Emilio Pucci: Entitled 'Madame,' the new chair features Kartell's signature plastic clear legs, while Pucci's 'Cities of the World' scarf prints (offered in four city graphics, including New York, Paris, Shanghai and Rome) provided a printed outer wrap to the solid silk seats

Ermenegildo Zegna: The house tapped Milan-based Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola to create a series of seating elements from recycled wine barrel wood

Ermenegildo Zegna: Entitled 'Baco,' Urquiola's concept included two forms: a tunnel shaped stool and a three-petal seat, both of which were displayed in the brand's boutique. The project was conceived by San Patrignano Design Label who has worked with over 45 designers to create modern pieces from antique casks

Adidas: In conjunction with their Body Building Design collection, which graces the cover of this month's issue (W* 194), Milan-based duo Alberto Biagetti and Laura Baldessari have also designed a pair of shoes produced by Adidas. Featuring muscle-men graphics, the shoe was presented at INNER, a boutique in Via Pasquale Paoli 4, Milan

Paula Cademartori: Atelier Biagetti has had a busy Salone. In addition to their Body Building Design exhibit and the Adidas shoe, they also created a totem shaped book shelf for Paula Cademartori, the Brazilian-born Milan based accessories designer who launched her new 'Lotus' sandal at Corso Como 10

Marcelo Burlon: Fashion designer Marcelo Burlon has quickly made strides with his eponymous sportswear label. Now the young entrepreneur is growing his brand with a collection of three graphic carpets, all hand-knot in Nepal that he designed for Italian rug company Illulian

Lawrence Steele: Marble manufacturer, Marsotto, partners with different industrial designers every year, but they've never teamed up with a fashion designer until now. The marriage with Aspesi designer, Lawrence Steel, was a happy one, thanks to Steele's three collections of tables and consoles featuring sharp lines and graphic black and white intarsia patterns

Tod's: What would the ideal bag for a male architect look like? This was the task set forth by Japanese design studio, Nendo, in its second collaboration with leather goods company Tod's. Crafted from super soft calfskin, the resulting bag features multiple pockets both inside and outside for documents and pens, while its form can morph from a carry-all tote, and a fold-over man-bag, to a strapless clutch with just a few quick snaps

Roberto Cavalli: More continues to be more in the home world of Roberto Cavalli, where the designer offers all manner of exotic pattern for every interior surface. This season's collection came brimming with lush florals and his beloved leopard print crawling on plates as well as floral intarsia rugs and upholstered dining room chairs

La Rinascente: Milan's most famous department store collaborated for the second year in a row with the Serpentine Galleries for a special commission on eight store front windows. Entitled 'Pasted' and curated by Libby Sellers, the window display featured a preview exhibition of a soon-to-be-launched collection of Serpentine Gallery wallpapers. These wallpapers were designed by various artists and architects. They also featured three specially commissioned and filmed dances choreographed by Malgorzata Dzierzon that screened against site-specific installations by emerging set designers and paper sculptors including Lydia Shirreff, Anna Lomax and Carrie Louise

Bertoni 1949: Classic Italian trunk maker Bertoni 1949 partnered for the second Salone in a row with Hangar Design Group on a 'Game Trunk'.  A traditional oak casket, covered in Bertoni’s leather parchment and alligator trim, is set on elegant steel legs and features drawers stocked with a chess set, a set of poker playing cards, a mahjong game and dominoes, all of which can be played on the pull-out table

One of Milan's most beautiful landmarks is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a soaring glass and cast iron arcade that sits adjacent to the city's majestic Duomo. Built in 1865 in honor of Italy's last King, the gallery signalled Italy's newly brokered unity and is frequently dubbed the world's first shopping mall.

Though it is one of the city's top draws (90 percent of the people who visit Milan pass through the gallery), a dismal lack of government funds have prevented this marble floored monument from receiving the upkeep it needs. As is becoming somewhat of a new trend throughout Italy, fashion labels Prada and Versace have stepped up and opened their wallets to underwrite a year-long cultural restoration that is very close to completion.

Prada's history with the Galleria began in 1913 (30 years prior to the monument being pummeled during a major World War II bombing) when the Milan-based fashion company opened a boutique for its genteel travel gear. In 2013, Prada opened a menswear shop directly opposite its still-open historic shop, followed by Versace's opening last September under the same central octagon.

Funds pledged by both houses have gone towards a 13-month restoration of the 14,000 sq m space. Every morning, 13 white gloved workers from Gasparoli, an esteemed Italian restoration firm founded 150 years ago, are hoisted onto scaffolding that climbs the structure's four storey edifice where they brush away dust and soot using small paintbrush-sized brushes and a vacuum cleaner-like suction machine. Caked on dirt is removed from the Pietra di Vicenza façade and its intricate cariati figure statues using a neutral detergent and gentle water hose that allows for cleaning to occur without erasing the Galleria's historic patina. Meanwhile, stucco is painted into fine cracks and tiny holes.

Every three weeks the scaffolding inches forward by three windows; while a night shift of four other workers is allowing the work to be completed by the end of March 2015, just in time for Milan's expo. The next step is to repair its dirty and leaking glass roof, a project slated for 2016.

ADDRESS

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Piazza Duomo
20123 Milano MI, Italy

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Mood board: Macho men in mannish overcoats and thick sole shoes dabbled in a few cross-dressing tendencies at Versace. Case in point? The elongated cardigan sweaters that looked like knit tube skirts over leggings.

Best in show: Cool outerwear like chinchilla-lined knitted sweaters or Ikat-esque printed coats that brought these boys back to the land of manhood.

Finishing touches: Borrowing right from the girls, Versace’s man bags were covered in fluffy Mongolian fur or compressed into clutches, while briefcases were shaped like women's handbags.

Photography: Mitchell Sams

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

Donatella Versace pulled a 180 on her runway for spring, delivering the most modern and up-to-date fashion collection we've seen from the house of the medusa in years. Starting with dramatic black tailoring, Versace ripped right out of the gate with confidence. Bronzed abs and gazelle legs flashed under crop tops and the deep slits on floor-length black column skirts that were shot with thick graphic white lines. The best news here, and later, was that Versace dramatically changed the silhouettes of her clothes, moving into sharp, short, more compact shapes that were light years away from the house's signature, but somewhat overplayed, floor-grazing chiffon gowns. The lines now were clean, square and modern, allowing a saturated palette of coral red, pink, and turquoise to sizzle with new electricity. Despite the shift in gears, there was still plenty of the good old fashion Versace va va voom - especially in the boxy black leather cages, hole-punched layers and swinging chain mail dresses that were crafted from sparkling mini Swarovski crystals. Brava Donatella, we're looking forward to seeing where you go from here.

One of Milan's most important landmark buildings - which also happens to be the world's very first shopping mall - is getting a facelift thanks to Versace. 14,000 square metres of the towering Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, originally built 150 years ago, will be restored over the next 13 months by the Milan-based fashion label. The public work links with the renovation completed inside Versace's brand new boutique inside the Galleria, which features ornate 19th century plasterwork that was uncovered during construction as well as the refurbishment of original cast iron columns, plaster capitals and friezes.

Designed by architect Jamie Fobert, the two storey men's and women's accessories shop makes light of its fancy surroundings. Fobert has designed a brass metal chandelier whose curly edges mimic the historic arabesques dancing over walls, while curved edged shelving has been constructed from transparent plexiglass.

ADDRESS

Versace
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II 33/35
Milan

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As New York's resident sex-pot designer, Anthony Vaccarello was a sensible choice to head up Versace's younger, second label Versus.  Fusing Donatella Versace's knack for a slick, properly produced, over-the-top-in-all-the-right-ways 'show', and Vaccarello's minimal take on drop-dead sexiness, this was a marriage that got off to a great start. Versace wrangled her legions of loyal followers to the west side of Manhattan including Naomi Campbell, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, unfurled a black and white runway paved with Greek fret motifs and set the show ablaze in a million kilowatts of expensive lighting. With that perfect setting and the crowd giddy with expectation, Vaccarello rolled out a series of minuscule black dresses held together with gold lion's head hardware, bondage straps and gold safety pins straight from the closet of Elizabeth Hurley. Vaccarello has never met a high hemline and a deep dress slit he didn't want to hike even higher, and these ambitions sat well on his gazelle-legged A-lister models. How they will sit on regular women is a moot point during a fashion debut such as this. But the freshest looks, to be honest, were the tailored pieces including a perfectly cut, slouchy at the waist, narrow-leg pant paired with a chic black jacket.

In comparison to the last several seasons that we've seen from this Milanese designer, A/W was tame by Versace standards. The mistress of maximalism began her show with an almost sober long sleeve, bias-cut dress with asymmetrical hems. Sure, the knee-length skirt had some kick to it, but the clean wool jersey material - later worked in brilliant shades of turquoise, jade and cinnamon - created a calming canvas that felt newly tranquil. Boxy jackets and trapeze shaped coats, especially in deeply hued couture duchesse silk satin, also gave the collection an altered - and welcomed - calibration. That is not to say however that the Versace girls lost their va va voom. Hemlines were still scant, hips were still hugged, and accessories were still generously embraced. In fact, gold metal sprouted liberally along studded trims, on coin bracelets, across embellished bags, and even on gold embroidered sashes that wrapped around figure-hugging gowns, not unlike a beauty pageant queen. Donatella used a military compass to guide the rigorous tailoring of her latest collection and also used the opportunity to shower mini dresses in officer's button, and snug jackets with gold frogging or corporal-like epaulettes. Suede fringe, meanwhile, found its way onto mini skirts and draping off intarsia mink coats. That, coupled with the saucy suede lace-up high boots featuring intricate beading and embroidery, seemed like an irresistible move to sexpot territory.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans