milanofashionweek22

Milano Fashion Week 22

The return of physical events

Milano Fashion Week 22, with the return of physical events, was supposed to represent the relaunch for the economy and creativity.

Was it so? And what were the main topics?

Fall/Winter 22 trends

90’s
The nineties were the common thread seen almost everywhere.
As an expression of society, fashion – like history – repeats itself.

“Balenciagitis”
While the pandemic seems under control, another highly infectious virus spread among designers.
This virus is called “Balenciagitis.” When designers are affected, they create tons of exaggerated shoulders and extremized silhouettes. Of which you do not understand the point.

Raf Simons has been strongly infected, indeed you could see it in the Prada fashion show. Since the co-designing collaboration has started, Prada stopped dictating trends, as always did, and now follows the others.

Even Dolce and Gabbana were infected, we hope someone will soon find a cure for it.

Co-branding
Collab with sports brands. Or flea market outfits with the plus of co-branding, that’s what Gucci did with Adidas. Right, nothing new in the end. Just branding.

Milano Fashion Week 22


Genderless
In January 2020, Stefano Pilati presented at Pitti his independent brand, Random Identities. The collection showed a few tailored pieces in a genderless key. About two years later, the creatives who create when something is already created, discovered the trend. Hey, all brands went genderless!

Sustainability
Round tables, talks, shows. Every single brand is sustainable! And the more they talk about it, the less they offer value. Moreover, “sustainable designers” and those who have hands in that industry offer something unattainable. Just smoke in the eye, generating a big misleading business.

Inclusion
What is the line between inclusivity and bad taste? This point is not clear to us. In fact, in many shows which focused on this topic, bad taste stood out.

Milano Fashion Week 22 most-liked

Our favourites
Jil Sander was one of the few fashion shows we enjoyed. We didn’t see much of Jil Sander in that, but, at least, we saw beautiful, well-made clothes developed in a coherent collection.

Bottega Veneta: iconic accessories, clean lines clothing with a high-end impact. Beautiful design, but no logo shown, no sensationalism. The essence of modern elegance and luxury. Bravo, Matthieu Blazy!

This is not a good time for creativity nor the economy. And so, a cultured audience has to dig a lot to find value. Because worthwhile designers, rather than being part of that inconsistent game, avoid communicating at all.

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‘Rewiring fashion’ they said?

News from Milano Fashion Week 22

Rewiring fashion seemed to be the new purpose in the fashion field. But there was no trace of it during the Milano Fashion Week 22.

Back to back, physical fashion shows, digital presentations. Both, in some cases. All perfectly aligned with the pre-pandemic world. You can smell the status quo. And not for fear or lack of courage, rather because that’s the way to make money.

More than anything else, the urgent brands’ intent seemed the will to connect with the Chinese market. This quest reverberated like a scream or a cry for help in the majority of the presentations.

The only new element (in case we still want to consider it so) is the calling of a diverse flood of models. Now different silhouettes or ethnicities are well represented in fashion events, and it is clearly positive. Although it’s lovely that anyone can identify with the models and see how dresses fit on various body shapes, the problem is that many of these new generations of boys and girls have no sense of elegance. So the image of these fashion shows looks poorly.

The Roof Milano
Milano Fashion Week
The Roof Milano

Spring-Summer 22: rewiring fashion?

It is not that now the trend is more sporty, it is the comment we heard during a fashion show. It’s that elegance is dead. Culturally dead, in wearing, speaking, or living.

Most importantly, there is no shift in terms of communication. Indeed, what emerged is the same way of spreading the work. Perhaps with a further decrease of the overall perceived value. The Instagram way seemed still relevant, with all the related circus. Which, by the way, we found boring. If not annoying.
We are fed up with it, aren’t you?

The official press, or what remains of it, can only be condescending or applauding. Budgets for advertising are already cut to the bones, better avoid any further reduction.

Designers are creatives, and creatives are supposed to have views about style, life, and the future.

But what is the vision?
What kind of woman do they want to promote?
What kind of future do they want to see?

And what about the rewiring fashion idea? Apart from the empty marketing slogans, which want to represent the (fake) change, what are we talking about?

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