Milan Fashion Week Preview: 5 Things EIC Noreen Flanagan Is Looking Forward To

by Noreen Flanagan February 20, 2018

It’s Day 1 of Milan Fashion Week Fall 2018 and these are the five game-changing shows and game-changing disrupters I’ll be watching. Plus, the chic fast food that will fuel me.

1. Fashion Genius
Moncler is the latest house to experiment/disrupt how it approaches fashion week. In fact, CEO Remo Ruffini declared that this season marks “the end of the fashion show.” Instead of unveiling collections every Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer, the Milan-based knitwear and luxury coat maker will release capsule collections monthly from a dream team of multiple designers. The eight lines will be grouped under a project entitled #MonclerGenius”: Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director for Valentino, will design line 1. The in-house design team will be responsible for Line 2 (a.k.a. “1952”—Moncler’s main line). Sandro Mandrino will helm line 3 (a.k.a. “Grenoble”), which is the house’s technical skiwear. British womenswear designer Simone Rocha will design line 4, and fellow Brit menswear designer Craig Green will be responsible for line 5. Japanese designer Kei Ninomiya, of Noir Kei Ninomiya, will create line 6, while Fragment’s Hiroshi Fujiwara will do line 7. Line 8 will be the responsibility of Francesco Ragazzi, who is Moncler’s artistic director and the founder of the L.A. skate-culture-inspired line Palm Angels. All the collections will be previewed tonight at Milan Fashion Week Fall 2018. As the year unfolds, each collection will be sold exclusively by one of a group of partner online retailers for five days before it appears in Moncler’s other stores and wholesalers.

Paul Andrew, Ferragamo’s womenswear creative director. Photography courtesy of Ferragamo.

2. It’s shoe time at Ferragamo!
Everyone likes a fashion debut—especially if there are big shoes to fill. In this case, it’s not a proverbial reference. Paul Andrew, Ferragamo’s new womenswear creative director, will be unveiling his first-ever clothing collection at Milan Fashion Week Fall 2018. Until now, the British designer was most known for his shoes—including the ones he designed for Ferragamo when he was named design director in September 2016. For Spring 2018, his column-like heels framed in gold surrounded by clear plastic trumped the clothing from womenswear design director Fulvio Rigoni. Shortly thereafter, Rigoni got the boot, so to speak. Andrew isn’t the first accessories designer to take on the ready-to-wear task. Gucci’s Alessandro Michele comes to mind, and we all know how that turned out.

TommyXGigi Spring 2018 capsule collection to be showing at Milan Fashion Week 2018 — Gigi Hadid wearing a look from the TommyXGigi moto-race inspired capsule collection.

3. Tommy x Gigi: On your mark, get set, go!
For the first time, Tommy Hilfiger is bringing his TommyNow co-ed fashion show to Milan Fashion Week. He’ll also be showing the TommyXGigi Spring 2018 capsule collection, the fourth and final collab with the millennial model superstar. He describes TommyNow as an “experiential runway event” with a see-now-buy-now format. His previous TommyNow shows in New York, LA and London reportedly generated record traffic spikes and billions—yes, billions—of social media impressions for the brand. Oh, and the collections with Gigi sell out almost immediately. Ka-ching!

Dsquared2 Fall/winter 2018. Photography via Imaxtree

4. Disco cowboys and cowgirls
For a touch of Canadiana, I’ll check out Dsquared2’s latest western-wear-inspired collection. Dan and Dean Caten put on a co-ed show in January at the men’s shows, so for Milan Fashion Week Fall 2018 they’re only presenting it in their show room. (An aperitivo in their Ceresio 7 resto on the top floor of their fashionable headquarters is also on my MFW fashion bucket list.) The twins aren’t the only designers smitten with stylish hoedowns and saloon-inspired garb. Cowboy boots, bolo ties and prairie patchwork were seen for Spring 2018 at Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Loewe, Vetements and Versace. This trend clearly isn’t riding into the Fall 2018 sunset just yet.

Vegan Flower Burger. — Vegan fast food from Flower Burger. Milan’s idea of healthy chic food.

5. Chic fast food
One of the main reasons to get officially accredited for MFW Fall 2018 is so you have access to the food in the media lounge. #beyond My other culinary wishes are high/low. At the pricey end, there’s Giacomo Bistrot—the Milanese beau monde bistro—and the charming Cantina Piemontese. Then there’s Flower Burger, a fast-food joint that creates delish vegan burgers on pink buns: props to the Italians for transforming a North American staple into something healthy and chic.

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