Giorgio Armani and Zegna present flowing elegance for the next hot season as Milan Fashion Week comes to a close
MILAN (AP) — Milan Fashion Week opened and closed under a throbbing early summer sun.
Zegna concluded four days of shows on Monday with an outdoor event tucked between bales of raw linen behind Milan’s City Hall, allowing city workers to see out their windows. For the sizzling fashion crowd, Zegna fashion offered iced coffee and linen baseball caps to keep a cool head.
With temperatures rising, Milanese designers focused on flowing clothing, allowing the body to move without constrictions. With one notable dissident, catwalks offered thigh-revealing Bermuda shorts as an alternative to pants, even for urban wear. Gone are the long shorts of streetwear brands.
Some highlights from the last day of Milan Fashion Week with mainly previews of menswear for spring and summer:
ARMANI PRESENTS SIGNATURE ELEGANCE
Giorgio Armani’s signature collection aimed to show the fashion public how the urban man should dress even in the heat of summer.
“I didn’t do Bermudas,” Armani remarked after the runway show at his villa in central Milan. “Bermuda shorts imply you’re at the beach and going on vacation.”
Still, he admitted that a front-row influencer who wore Bermuda shorts on his morning show had done so gracefully.
The 88-year-old designer said his designs begin with a pencil and a blank piece of paper — a work process underlined by a large sharpened pencil that served as the backdrop for the runway show. His signature of Giorgio was cast on the back wall.
Coats completed most looks, hanging softly and loosely, which Armani said was a nod to Asian elegance. Prints on silk shirts, jackets and trousers, reminiscent of weaving, echoed in the espadrilles and fisherman’s sandals. Straw-brimmed Panama hats, intended for vacations, were worn more often than worn. The color palette evolved from washed-out cream, brown and sage to black and navy blue – sometimes offset by flashes of red.
Armani defused the formality of tailoring with linen, and by keeping jackets and blazers largely open, so a double-breasted jacket “is no longer a double-breasted jacket,” Armani said.
“It’s a way of dressing that is both elegant and comfortable,” he said. “That’s why the coats.”
The collection concluded with four boardroom looks: formal dark suits, white shirts and ties. “This is to remind everyone that a man dresses like this,” Armani said.
THE AWAKENING OF DHRUV KAPOOR
Indian designer Dhruv Kapoor’s collections are not just about style, they are about elevating the wearer’s emotions and helping them to dream bigger. It’s a lofty ambition, in keeping with Kapoor’s idea that clothing, with a little tweak here and there, can tap into the energy of the universe.
To point the finger, Kapoor showed the Spring-Summer 2024 runway collection in a blue room, intended to have a calming effect.
A red jacket arouses emotions. Prints are inspired by crop circles, “which I recently read by looking at that pattern, certain things in your head, that you’re going to use when the time is right for you,” Kapoor said backstage.
The mixed collection was modular with a loose, easy-to-wear silhouette. For him, a pleated kilt is worn over trousers, worn with a star-studded studded jacket. The same star burst appeared on a straight skirt for her, worn with a sci-fi print sweatshirt. Three bowling-style shirts are inspired by the covers of a 1970s science fiction book
“We want you to feel good when you put it on,” he said. “They won’t even know what happened. But we made a little adjustment from behind.
ZEGNA OFFERS MINIMALIST UNLOADING
Alessandro Sartori’s collection for Zegna was a meditative study of minimalist separations, in natural tones that are easy to combine.
Zegna’s new ‘basics’ include sleeveless tops and tunics, jackets with zippers and three-quarter sleeves, jackets with notches and rolled up sleeves to reveal the silk lining, boxy jerseys and jackets without lapels or collars. Occasionally styled with a wrap-around foulard, these tops were worn with sharply creased loose trousers or Bermuda shorts. Looks were completed with dark socks and rubber-soled shoes.
“There are new forms for a wardrobe with simple garments, but inside they are very technical,” said Sartori.
For the color palette, ivory faded to a fleeting mint; a faded rose contrasted with a bright flamingo, followed by Zegna pillars of ebony and khaki.
Linen is at the heart of the collection, as evidenced by the nearly 200 bales of raw linen transported from the fields of Normandy, destined to be transformed into Zegna’s Oasi Linen in the brand’s Italian factories. Zegna said in press releases that it is committed to making the origin and production pathway of all its linen traceable by next year.
