MILAN (AP) — Milan Fashion Week opened and closed in the beating sun of early summer.
Zegna wrapped up four days of performances on Monday with an outdoor event among bales of raw flax behind Milan’s city hall, allowing city workers to see through their windows. For the stuffy fashion crowd, Zegna Fashion offered iced coffee and linen baseball caps to keep things cool.
With rising temperatures, Milanese designers focused on the fluidity of clothing, allowing the body to move without constraints. With a notable dissenter, the runways offered thigh-revealing Bermuda shorts as an alternative to trousers, even for dressing in town. No more long shorts from streetwear brands.
Some highlights from the last day of Milan Fashion Week with mainly male previews for next spring and summer:
ARMANI PRESENTS SIGNATURE ELEGANCE
Giorgio Armani’s signature collection was meant to show the fashion audience how the urban man should dress, even in the heat of summer.
“I didn’t wear bermuda shorts,” Armani noted after the show at his villa in central Milan. “Bermuda means being at the beach and going on vacation.”
Still, he admitted that a front-row influencer wearing Bermuda shorts on his morning show did it in style.
The 88-year-old designer said his designs began with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper – a working process underscored by a large, sharpened pencil that served as the backdrop for the show. His signature Giorgio was cast on the back wall.
Jackets finished most looks, soft and floaty, which Armani said was a nod to Asian elegance. The prints on the silk shirts, jackets and trousers echoed weaving, echoing in the espadrilles and fisherman’s sandals. Panama hats with straw edges, intended for holidays, were more often worn than worn. The color palette shifted from washed-out cream, tan, and sage to black and navy, sometimes offset by pops of red.
Armani defused the formality of tailoring with linen and keeping jackets and blazers mostly unbuttoned, so a double-breasted jacket “is no longer a double-breasted jacket,” Armani said.
“It’s a stylish and comfortable way to dress,” he said. “That’s why the jackets.”
The collection ended with four boardroom looks: formal dark suits, white shirts and ties. “It’s to remind everyone that this is how a man dresses,” Armani said.
THE AWAKENING OF DHRUV KAPOOR
Indian designer Dhruv Kapoor’s collections are not just about style, they aim to elevate the emotions of the wearer, helping them to dream bigger. It’s a lofty ambition, in line with Kapoor’s notion that clothes, with a fit here and there, can harness the energy of the universe.
To emphasize, Kapoor showed off the runway’s Spring/Summer 2024 collection in a blue piece, which was meant to have a calming effect.
A red jacket arouses emotions. The prints are inspired by crop circles, “which I read recently just by looking at this pattern will imprint certain things in your head, which you will use when the time is right for you,” Kapoor said backstage.
The unisex collection was modular with a loose, easy-to-wear silhouette. For him, a pleated kilt is worn over trousers, worn with a beaded star studded jacket. The same starburst appeared on a pencil skirt for her, worn with a sci-fi print sweatshirt. Three bowling style shirts inspired by 1970s science fiction book covers
“We want you to feel good when you put it on,” he said. “They won’t even know what happened. But we made a small adjustment at the rear.
ZEGNA OFFERS MINIMALIST SEPARATES
Alessandro Sartori’s collection for Zegna was a meditative study of minimalist pieces, in natural hues that blend easily.
Zegna’s new “basics” included sleeveless tops and tunics, zip-neck jackets with three-quarter length sleeves, notch lapel jackets with sleeves rolled up to show silk lining, boxy singlets as well as jackets without lapels or collars. Sometimes worn with a wraparound scarf, these tops were worn with loose trousers with sharp pleats or Bermuda shorts. The looks were finished with dark socks and rubber-soled shoes.
“There are new shapes for a wardrobe of simple clothes, but inside they are very technical,” Sartori said.
For the color palette, ivory faded into a fleeting mint; a faded rose contrasting with a bright pink flamingo, followed by ebony and khaki Zegna pillars.
Linen is at the heart of the collection, as evidenced by the nearly 200 bales of raw linen transported from the fields of Normandy, and which are intended to be transformed into Oasi Linen by Zegna in the Italian factories of the brand. Zegna said in press notes that it is committed to ensuring that the origin and production path of all its linen is traceable by next year.