Milan announces digital fashion week in July, Paris follows suit

By

Dominique Muret

Published
May 7, 2020

Following London, now it's Milan's turn to announce the organisation of a digital fashion week: Milano Digital Fashion Week – July Issue. Set to take place from 14 to 17 July, the event will be dedicated to menswear collections for Spring/Summer 2021 and men's and womenswear pre-collections for Spring 2021, as announced by the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) in a press release. 

The Milan-based organisation will set up a digital platform, which will be accessible through its website, cameramoda.it, as well as a range of social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Weibo and Youtube. The platform will feature "photographic and video content, interviews and backstages of creative moments and alternative and unique viewpoints, all organized in a calendar with slots for each brand, the aim being to create a rich and varied palimpsest of use to all operators in the industry," explained the Camera della Moda, emphasising that it will aid emerging brands with the creation of digital content as part of its ongoing support programme for young designers.

"The calendar will be further enriched by content such as webinars on themes of special interest to operators in the sector (accreditation required), live streaming of keynotes by important figures in the fashion system, and moments of entertainment/live performances," added the organisation. 

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In parallel to Milano Digital Fashion Week's collection presentations, one section of the platform will be dedicated solely to CNMI-accredited showrooms, which will be able to present their brands, as well as their contacts, through photos and videos, the objective being to support Italian businesses through this first post-Covid-19 campaign.

The event acts as a continuation of the "China, we are with you" campaign, which allowed more than 25 million Chinese fashion fans who could not travel to Milan this February to watch the Lombard capital's fashion week online. It also answers the various questions that major fashion industry players have been asking themselves since the cancellation of most menswear fashion weeks was announced in early April, along with that of the major June trade fairs.

On April 21, the British Fashion Council was the first national fashion organisation to announce the presentation of both its men's and womenswear runway shows through a single "genderless" digital platform. The event's first session is scheduled for June, when designers will be able to present their collections and brand identities under the banner of London Fashion Week. 

Some brands have begun exploring their own, alternative initiatives, including Ermenegildo Zegna, which has revealed that it will present its Spring/Summer 2021 collection via "an innovative, almost completely digital format" in July, probably as part of the CNMI's newly announced digital calendar. Saint Laurent, for its part, recently announced that it will be pulling out of Paris Fashion Week in order to follow its own timetable. 

France's Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode had previously announced that it too is in the process of developing a digital event for this June, "dedicated to image and communication." On 6 May, the institution revealed that it is also organising "Paris Fashion Week Online," which will present its usual calendar of runway shows via a digital platform. "Each House will be represented in the form of a creative film/video. Additional content will be included in an editorialized section of the platform. All of this will be widely shared on the main international media networks," explained the Fédération. 

And just this once, for this presentation of menswear collections for Spring/Summer 2021, Paris Fashion Week will take place before its Milanese counterpart, from 9 to 13 July.