At Milan Fashion Week, the Clothes Are Nice. The Sets Are Amazing
Despite the best efforts of spicy upstarts like Sunnei and JW Anderson, Milan Fashion Week is often a relatively sleepy affair. Not that the clothes or shows are ever bad but Milan, despite being the second-biggest fashion week in the world, rarely thrills.
Sometimes, seeking a bigger splash, fashion houses turn to stunts. This season, all they had to do was highlight their sets.
Aside from Jil Sander, which hosted Luke and Lucie Meier's sober final runway show in front of a similarly sober black curtain, Milan's runway shows have been all about venue. Location, location, location! And a great deal of set design, too.
Things took off from the get-go at Gucci's Fall/Winter 2025 presentation.
The collection, designed by Gucci's in-house design team in lieu of a creative director, was nice.
But the interlocking "GG" runway custom-built for the presentation in celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Gucci monogram was sublime. Pure Italian opulence! The good stuff.
I'm no Dsquared enjoyer — no offense to the world's only Canadian-Italian luxury label — but I have to give it to them for their gargantuan factory-inspired set, an impressive façade worthy of the theater, let alone a runway show.
Having Doechii perform was a coup in itself but, still, shout out to the hardworking construction crews.
Diesel, a classic case of equally valuing set design and fashion design, transformed its show space into one of those "immersive art exhibits" that everyone from Da Vinci to Barbara Kruger is doing nowadays.
The difference is that Diesel crowdsourced original street art from international graffiti artists — the logistics of transporting this thing seem like a nightmare. But in person, the results were assuredly quite staggering.
And then, there was Marni, which was less about the set than the set-dressing, if you will.
Sure, it was pretty neat that Marni sent its models out between narrow rows of tiny café-style tables, each with a tablecloth painted in the style of Fall/Winter 2025's guest artists, Slawn and Soldier.
But the real eye candy came from the illustrative pieces that the two created with Marni creative director, Francesco Risso, during a monthlong studio session in 2024.
The resulting furnishings and works inspired the painterly prints and evocative hues of Marni's FW25 collection, and they'll also be on display to the public.
But why should only Marni be so lucky?
All these sets oughta be in a museum.
