Where Are the Brands? Milan Men’s Fashion Week Calendar Offers Soft Start to 2025 Season
MILAN — It looks like the 2025 fashion season in Italy is off to a soft start.
After the dates unveiled earlier this year indicated a later start to the fall 2025 show season, which will see Pitti Uomo taking place Jan. 14 to 17 and Milan Men’s Fashion Week to closely follow and run through Jan. 21, the menswear marathon is shaping up to unfold at a relaxed pace, judging by the calendar Italy’s fashion chamber released Wednesday.
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Some key names are missing from the schedule, as they moved shows to February to mark milestones or for strategic purposes, from Fendi and Gucci to Dsquared2.
These vacancies not only shined a light on established names such as Prada, Giorgio Armani and Zegna, but also left room for new names.
For one, the opening show will be Pierre-Louis Mascia, who will make a runway debut on the Milan schedule after testing the format at Pitti Uomo last June. The coed show to be staged at 4 p.m. CET on Jan. 17 will be followed by the debut of indie label PDF designed by Domenico Formichetti, and Philipp Plein’s return to the catwalk.
Ditto for Pronounce, which decamped from London a few seasons ago and is returning to the runway on Jan. 18, after opting for a presentation last September. Jordan Luca and Emporio Armani will also stage fashion shows that day.
Jan. 19 will mark the turn of Magliano and Prada — retaining its 2 p.m. CET slot — to be followed by the 10th anniversary show of Dhruv Kapoor and the debut of British emerging brand Saul Nash. Closing the day, Dunhill confirmed its presence on the Milan schedule after moving from London last season, but other fellow names like Martine Rose and David Koma don’t appear on the calendar this time, after showing in Milan last June.
Giorgio Armani’s traditional double show on Jan. 20 morning will be followed by the Zegna one at 3 p.m. CET, with the publicly listed company unofficially capping off the fashion week. The following day will be dedicated to digital-only showcases of emerging brands.
Some key presentations will add substance to the thin schedule, including Brunello Cucinelli on Jan. 17 and Brioni the following day, when the likes of Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Pal Zileri, Corneliani, Kiton, Harmont & Blaine and Mordecai will also present their fall 2025 collections. MSGM will cap off the day opting for a party format.
Jan. 19 will mark the turn of Tod’s, Canali and Woolrich Black Label by Todd Snyder, while the following day Rubinacci will make its debut. Other brands staging presentations for the first time will include Federico Cina, Maragno, Qasimi, Rold Skov and Blauer’s collaboration with Pirelli.
Overall, the Milan event will feature 16 physical shows, four digital ones and 38 presentations.
As reported, Fendi will forgo its traditional, separate men’s show to go coed with a runway event in February, when it will officially kick off its centenary celebrations. Silvia Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and menswear collections, is for now leading the overall design effort for men’s and women’s after the exit of British designer Kim Jones, who stepped down after four years as Fendi’s artistic director of haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections for women.
Dsquared2, which has embraced the coed format for few seasons, will exceptionally switch the timing, moving from the city’s men’s schedule to the women’s one to mark its 30th anniversary.
Gucci will also sit out the fashion round next month to return with a coed show or, as the Kering-owned company prefers to describe it, a “unified” one, to be staged in February. As for Moschino, it unveiled its men’s fall 2025 collection along with the women’s pre-fall 2025 line earlier this month.
In releasing the schedule, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana’s chairman Carlo Capasa underscored the need to stay resilient amid challenging times. To be sure, he shared updated economic projections that forecast 2024 sales of the fashion and connected industries (including textiles, clothing, leather goods, footwear, jewelry, eyewear and cosmetics) down 5.3 percent to 96 billion euros compared to 2023.
Previous projections in September forecast a sales decrease of around 3.5 percent but Capasa noted that a negative third quarter impacted by weak internal demand, the slowdown of purchases from Chinese customers and overall geopolitical instability kept worsening the cautious scenario already registered in the first half of the year.
The slowdown also impacted exports. Although they continue to be a key driver for the Italian fashion industry, they are expected to grow only 2 percent to 90.6 billion euros versus 2023, while previous projections for this year saw exports of the overall sector up 5.5 percent to 93.7 billion euros compared to last year.
The updated forecast is based on the performance registered in the first eight months of 2024, when exports grew only 1.9 percent compared to the same period in 2023. This further widened the significant split between clusters of sectors: exports of the “core” categories — textiles, clothing, leather goods and footwear — were down 4.8 percent while those of companies operating in jewelry, eyewear and cosmetics were up 20.6 percent. As a result, for the first time jewelry, eyewear and cosmetics accounted for one-third of total exports of the Italian fashion industry.
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