(Milan) The first collection of Gucci’s new artistic director, Sabato De Sarno, will be the center of attention at Milan Fashion Week, where Italian labels parade from Wednesday to Monday.
This women’s fashion week for spring-summer 2024, which offers no less than 67 shows, also marks the return of Tom Ford on the Milanese catwalks under the leadership of Peter Hawkings, the debut of Simone Bellotti as creative director of Bally and the 40th anniversary of Moschino, without forgetting the big houses Fendi, Prada, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Bottega Veneta and Giorgio Armani.
Fendi opened the ball on Wednesday with a collection designed by Kim Jones, the artistic director of the house, like a walk in Rome. “It’s not about being something, but about being someone,” writes the designer in the note that accompanies the show.
Both pragmatic and playful, masculine cuts and materials translate to a more fluid, feminine sensibility when combined with silks and knits. The traditional curtain belt of suit trousers is folded back to reveal its construction and often combined with sinuous knits, the washed silk of an evening dress slips into everyday life.
All in a palette of tangerine orange, icy brown, pale yellow and mouse gray colors that combine in Color block Malevich style.
Friday will take place the baptism of fire of Sabato De Sarno, who until now supervised the men’s and women’s collections at Valentino and succeeded in January the emblematic Alessandro Michele, who since 2015 had given the label a new lease of life with collections bold and often eclectic.
The beginnings of this Neapolitan designer at the service of the Florentine house, flagship brand of the French luxury group Kering, will be scrutinized with all the more attention as Gucci is in difficulty compared to other big names in the sector, whose sales are increasing much more quickly in a luxury sector which is operating at full speed.
Kering also announced this summer the departure of Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri, who is due to leave his post on Saturday and will be temporarily replaced by Jean-François Palus, deputy CEO of Kering and “right hand man” of the group’s CEO François-Henri Pinault.
Locomotive for export
Another highlight on Wednesday with Moncler: the Italian king of down jackets will unveil his new collection signed by American singer-musician-turned-fashion Pharrell Williams, who headlined men’s Fashion Week in June in Paris with his first event show for Louis Vuitton.
Also on Wednesday, Diesel will repeat its spectacular parade open to the general public, which was a great success last year. An initiative by Glenn Martens, the Belgian stylist of the famous jeans brand of the OTB group, to affirm democratic fashion: the places put online on September 6 on the house’s website were allocated within a few hours upon registration to fans who rushed to be in the front row of the parade.
The Italian fashion sector displays rather optimistic forecasts for 2023: the president of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion (CNMI) Carlo Capasa expects “an annual turnover to increase by 4.5% compared to to that of 2022, and therefore higher than 103 billion euros.”
Fashion, which employs more than half a million people on the peninsula, also remains a driving force for the peninsula’s foreign trade: in 2023, exports from the fashion sector Made in Italy are expected to post growth of 6%, notably fueled by strong demand in the Asian and BRICS markets.
The president of the Italian Agency for the Promotion of Businesses Abroad (ICE), Matteo Zoppas, quoted in a press release from the CNMI, underlines that “compared to general growth in Italian exports of 4.8% during of the first five months of 2023, fashion recorded an increase of “7.4% over the same period and, in particular, women’s fashion increased by 11.4%”.