Milano Moda Uomo is more about the ladies than ever

The Milan season menswear may continue to shrink, yet the city seems set for a particularly busy weekend of fashion, though as much co-ed as masculine.

The four-day menswear season – known officially as Milano Moda Uomo – kicks off on June 15 with a whole series of women’s collections.

In fact, the season’s first professional show on Friday evening is a women’s spring 2019 collection, Alberta Ferretti. Its location: Scalone Arengario, meaning inside the former royal palace in the city’s main square – Piazza Duomo. And Milan Moda Uomo climaxes with a Monday evening event by Britain’s Stella McCartney.

“The interesting point is that the barrier between men and women has completely disappeared. Completely! We have this season three full collections – Alberta Ferretti, Stella McCartney and the Finnish brand Aalto – that are showing in Milan during men's shows. Together with all the co-ed shows, from the new generation and classic brands showing men and women together. That’s a major change,” argues Carlo Capasa, president of the Camera della Moda, Italian fashion’s governing body.

Notably brand as diverse as Daks, Dsquared2, Frankie Morello, Hunting World, Isabel Benenato, M1992, Marcelo Burlon County of Milan, Neil Barrett, Palm Angels, Sartorial Monk and Sunnei will all unveil co-ed shows. And, word has just reached us of the latest Dolce & Gabbana stealth show on Saturday night. Of late always a mixed show staged as a cocktail party catwalk fete inside their famed Corso Venezia palazzo.

Admittedly, right after Ferretti there is a major menswear show, Ermenegildo Zegna. This season the top line of the giant haute gamme men’s brand will present its top collection in a legendary location.

Designer Alessandro Sartori is taking Zegna to Mondadori Segrate and the city’s most famous, though least visited, important building of the 20th century. A magnificent undulating office building designed by Oscar Niemeyer for publishing house Mondadori that opened in 1975.

“The building looks like the fluttering pages of a book, and the models will march before this huge lake in an urban park. Let’s pray for a great sunset,” says Sartori, whose collections are frequently inspired by architecture.

Also on Friday, as part of this Camera’s commitment to the young talent, the first runway menswear catwalk action will be a joint runway show called Milano Moda Graduate, featuring students from various Italian fashion schools. With the new government’s fresh Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli tipped to attend.

The season will also feature several Italian debuts like Besfxxk; a brand founded by two London fashion school graduates Dona Kim and Jae Lim that blends military functionality and classic tailoring. And also Vien, a local label by designer Vincenzo Palazzo, who was born in the Deep South – Taranto in Puglia, in the heel of the Italian peninsula.

Also presenting in Milan for the first time: Korean brand Spyder, French brand Ih Nom Uh Nit, along with Italian labels Doucal’s and Triple RRR, a marque founded by Robert Cavalli, younger son of the legendary Roberto.

Other new developments include Diesel Red Tag, which debuted a women’s capsule collection in March in Paris with a “commercial commemorative event” designed by Shayne Oliver. This season, however, the Belgian designer Glenn Martens from the Y/Project label is designing the second Diesel Red Tag collection. Martens, who scooped the 2017 ANDAM Grand Prize is very much a name to watch.

Concludes Capasa: “Some brands do fashion shows, others do exhibitions and presentations. There is no a great difference between these two anymore. Which is why we have one full calendar, where we no longer make a difference between shows and presentations. We have nearly 70 stories going on over four days. So I think everyone will be pretty busy.”

Milano Moda Uomo is more about the ladies than ever

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