Milan Fashion Week ready to restart in style
While the next fashion weeks in London and New York will be mostly digital affairs, the Milan Fashion Week is set to be the first major fashion event this autumn, making it possible to see a number of collections showing on actual catwalks. To mark the occasion, the Italian Fashion Chamber (CNMI) has planned a very busy, varied programme.
No fewer than 64 catwalk shows - 23 of them physical events, 41 virtual ones – are on the calendar of this fashion week dedicated to the womenswear and menswear collections for the Spring/Summer 2021, scheduled from September 22 to 28. But, as CNMI President Carlo Capasa said in an online news conference, “it's worth emphasising that our website will be constantly operational, showing [all the fashion week’s] physical and virtual events, 159 of them in total.”
In addition to the catwalk shows, there will be 61 presentations, 37 physical and 24 digital ones, as well as 12 invitation-only presentations and 22 special events, 13 of them physical and 9 virtual. Of course, existing health protection measures will be strictly observed at all events. Capasa indicated that a comprehensive document detailing the regulations to be complied with will be sent to fashion labels, buyers and the media.
Despite the much-publicised absence of Gucci, which decided to give this edition a miss, the Milan Fashion Week calendar is packed with highlights. The first will be the Valentino show on Sunday 27, marking the Italian luxury label’s return to Milan, after showing in Paris for many years.
Dolce & Gabbana too is back - for the first time in 20 years - on Milan’s official womenswear calendar, on the first day of shows, Wednesday 23. On the same day, Blumarine will be making a much-anticipated return, after skipping the February edition. The Italian label, which has been bought by Liu Jo, will unveil for the occasion the first collection designed by Nicola Brognano, its new creative director.
Among other names that are back on the Milan womenswear calendar, Francesca Liberatore with a catwalk show, and Shuting Qiu, Emilio Pucci, Elisabetta Franchi and Andrea Pompilio with virtual events.
Some shows will be staged behind closed doors, like Giorgio Armani’s on the evening of Saturday 26, to be broadcast live on TV for the first time, on Italian channel La7, at 9.15 pm CET. Prada has announced it will live-stream its show on the web, on Thursday 24.
Other leading labels will stage traditional catwalk shows again, notably Fendi, Alberta Ferretti with an outdoors show, and N°21, all on September 23. On September 24, it will be the turn of Max Mara and Etro, while Boss and Versace will show the following day, and Philosophy and Salvatore Ferragamo on September 26.
Five new names will debut on the Milan Fashion Week show calendar: Redemption, Sindiso Khumalo, MM6 Maison Margiela and Ji Won Choi, all presenting their collections virtually, as well as shi.RT by Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi, which will instead stage a physical show.
CNMI is also organising a plethora of parallel projects, chiefly in support of emerging designers - by showcasing for example the work of a selection of them in the shop windows of department store La Rinascente - as well as of emerging names who are struggling and also young stylists from outside Italy.
Among others, an initiative in aid of Lebanon, following the disastrous explosion in Beirut in August, called ‘Spotlight on Lebanese Designers - CNMI in support of the new generation of Lebanese Talent’, enabling seven designers from Lebanon to take part in the Milan Fashion Week with digital presentations. They are Azzi & Osta, Boyfriend the Brand, Emergency Room, Hussein Bazaza, L’Atelier Nawbar and Roni Helou.
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