On the evening of June 22, Milan men's Fashion Week was over. Despite severe restrictions in Italy, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and other top brands presented their new collections. And designers did their best to please fashionists. So, for his debut at Diesel, its creative director Glenn Martens shot a mini-film, Keane Etro moved the show to abandoned railway tracks, meanwhile Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons sent models on a journey through intricate labyrinths - the most interesting shows and future trends are in our review.
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The latest brand to redefine men’s clothing was Fendi, whose new collection made heads turn at Milan Men’s Fashion Week this year.The Italian luxury brand showcased pastel-hued statement crop tops for men, at its spring/summer’22 men’s runway show. The pastel blazers by menswear designer Silvia Venturini Fendi cover till below the chest, and are paired with relaxed, loose-fitting matching pants. Also seen on the ramp was a men’s crop top paired with a mint-green suit. The ensembles were paired with sandals in green, pink or soft neutral colours; some models wore anklet chains and even carried handbags.
Venturini Fendi reportedly drew inspiration from the sunsets and views from her office at Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, a historic building in Rome; the collection was showcased against the backdrop of the building’s ivory arches. “Our singular point of view in this period has modified our perception of the world—and mine has become so linked to what I see from the arches and the rooftop of our building,” she said in her show notes, as quoted by GQ.
“It is almost like a bird’s eye view of Rome from here. The colours and the perspective are always changing — the soft palette of the Roman sky across the day is so beautiful and I wanted it to be a focal point of this collection,” the designer added.
Walter Chiapponi, creative director of the brand, dedicated his new collection for Tod's, entitled “Under the Italian Sun,” to the traveler, artist and photographer Peter Beard, who died last April. “I’ve always been fascinated by his eccentric style,” said Chiapponi, pointing at a moodboard where famous Beard images of African landscapes were neatly plastered. “I was thinking about the idea of exploring,” said the designer. “Not only the faraway places that you’ve never visited. But also exploring anew places that you’ve always known and that you haven’t been able to go to because of the travel restrictions we’ve endured. You see familiar places with new eyes, as if they were new discoveries.” Canvas biker jackets, lean shirt-jacket and Bermuda combos in chambray, windbreakers in light parachute nylon and suede hoodies were updated with the designer’s sophisticated take on casual comfort. Colors were neutral and slightly faded as if sun-kissed, conveying a feel of leisurely time spent in the open air.
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”We are optimistic, confident and positive and, after long seasons of sports/homewear and activewear, we are reopening the stage to pure rediscovered elegance,”said Marco “The pleasure of a new freedom and the desire for selfcare brings the blazer back to the center of our wardrobe,” he added. For spring, the men’s wear staple was made ultra-light as intended to be worn even outside the office, for occasions such as summer weekends’ gateways or to go to the gym. Blazer jackets in lightweight seersucker fabric were layered over denim shirts and paired with chino pants or even comfy fleece shorts, while double-breasted options had a relaxed flair, ideal for returning to take an “aperitivo” in style.
Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring / Summer 2022 collection was titled “Light therapy”, symbol of the return to life and exuberance after a gray period marked by the pandemic. The invitation card, a multicolored luminous tablet, had set the tone.
The Sicilian duo presented a masculine collection all in light and eccentricity, faithful to its DNA of rhinestones, lamé and sequins, as if to chase away the depression after the dark months of the pandemic. The Metropol, a former cinema that has become the brand’s headquarters, has become a temple of light for the occasion, as transposed in the native Sicily of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the brand’s inexhaustible inspiration matrix.
Etro, a brand with a nomadic soul par excellence, which has made travel its primary inspiration from the very beginning, decided to escape. The models parade on the tracks of the Farini airport in Milan, soon part of the redesign of the spaces of the city. And they do it on the notes of The era of the white boar, song of Franco Battiato, who passed away on May 18 and with whom the designer Kean Etro had a strong friendship. Again one optimistic collection, made of color and accessories designed for those who are always on the move, like the water bottles, leggings and the saddlebags.
Miuccia Prada herself wrote it in the post-show press note: “A sense of utopia, of the ideal, of hope, of positivity. Being exposed to nature, going to the beach: it’s freedom. It is utopian. This is indeed a primary need, even intellectual“. Another sentimental fashion show for the duo formed by the stylist and designer Raf Simons, who have been at the helm of Prada for a year now. The one for the autumn/winter 2021/2022 still spoke of closure, of restrictions, even though the title – Possible Feelings.
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In the collection all of the denim cuts were taken from Martens’s newly established Denim Library, an evergreen fully sustainable offer that will in future represent 40%, at least, of the company’s jeans offer. “Although,” he noted with admirable transparency, “not all of the pieces in the film and collection are sustainable, as they have been treated with special coatings.” This opening section featured riffs on what Martens called “the clichés of denim”: high-waisted five-pocket pants with integrated shoes and big denim knickers (both tangibly Y/Project-y), as well as bleached patterned pieces and trompe l’oeil prints.
Once out on the street, running, our protagonist led us into a more experimental denim vista, featuring overdyed, smocked full looks of regal outerwear and Giro d’Italia kinky athleisure. A men’s look featured a bonded recycled paper pressed over undyed denim coat and pant, padded denim of a classical Parisian persuasion, and organza dresses and skirts draped to hang (just like Lola’s look and most of the forwardly feminine pieces here) from the hip.
The designer remains anchored to his idea of building fashion, defined even better by the positions taken in the months of emergency. Creating clothes that mark the time without indulging in detours: this is always the approach, collection after collection. A certain desire for freedom pervades the setting, in the headquarters in via Borgonuovo where it all began, with an enchanted garden as a backdrop. It is from here that Armani starts again, with few, very few guests unlike those that can contain the theater in via Bergognone.
But it is declined in clothes only through hints, imperceptible changes at first glance, which then become habit. THE bermuda light, the jackets of flax, the shoes removed in the final and the walkway with bare feet.
Several recent collections by MSGM creative director Massimo Giorgetti have been dedicated to one or another musical composition, and the latter is no exception. This time, DJ Lorenzo Senni and his track Canone Infinito managed to inspire the designer for creativity - hypnotic, but at the same time energetic. The general mood of the looks is also revealed by the place chosen for shooting the lookbook - a deserted beach of the Mediterranean Sea, which perfectly matches clothes that seem to be specially created in order to walk in them on the hot sand at sunset.