MILAN – As fashion’s game of musical chairs slows down, Milan’s newest creative directors are loosening up the codes at some of Italy's most storied brands.
Maria Grazia Chiuri freed the body at Fendi, Simone Bellotti relaxed the uniform at Jil Sander and Meryll Rogge embraced generations at Marni.
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If first seasons are when new designers demonstrate their brand knowledge, then second and third are when designers start to blaze their own paths while evolving the fashion house.
“I don’t think we have to be nostalgic. The brand has fantastic recognizable codes. We want to cherish that," Rogge said backstage after the Marni Spring Summer 2027 co-ed runway preview on Thursday. "I have to find my own way to honor the brand, to honor the values and to hopefully make young people dream, and other generations dream.”
Meryll Rogge seeks intergenerational acceptance at Marni
Rogge said Marni's sweet spot is intergenerational appeal and that the brand hit that target with their new bag: Its first customer was a 17-year-old girl and its second an 80-year-old woman.
The runway collection in general hewed more toward the younger crowd with pedal pushers and mini-shifts that many 80-year-olds would have worn in their youths. Older Marni dressers may feel more at home today in the collection's short-haired goat fur coats, which could appeal to any age, if not every pocketbook.
Rogge is in full command of Marni's heritage quirkiness. Men's knit vests were styled like halters and worn over button-down shirts and thin long johns peeked out of baggy boxers. For women, a plaid dress featured a keyhole detail set off by a shoe buckle — shoes being an unlikely inspiration for the collection.
The looks were modern and easy to wear, with an element of gorpcore, or mountain looks made for the city, in a series of anorak dresses and tops.
Fendi frees the body
Chiuri enveloped the runway for her highly anticipated second show at Fendi inside glass walls, allowing the audience to see their images reflected on the models while perhaps obscuring some of the detail. With a soundtrack of Italian dance classics, Chiuri said she was trying to recreate the freedom and frenzy of the dance floor.
“This was meant to be a hall of mirrors, where we actually reflect ourselves in other people’s bodies,’’ Chiuri, 62, said backstage after Wednesday's show. “I believe that for a generation like mine, which believed in the nightclub as a place of freedom, meeting people and dancing and watching other bodies was a way of connecting with others.”
Chiuri returned to Fendi, where she started as an accessories designer, after turns as co-creative director at Valentino and creative director at Dior.
Her co-ed sophomore collection started with undergarments, making bare skin integral to the look and leaning into brand heritage traits of fluidity and layered textures. Think silken slips and deeply scooped tanks that contrasted with tailored military jackets, cape-like trenches and patchwork fur coats.
Arrivals at the show were hindered by a combination of fans waiting to catch a glimpse of front-row guests like Monica Bellucci and Italian singer Jovanotti, and an anti-fur protest. Fendi was born as a furrier, and the brand is sticking with the legacy but putting the emphasis on upcycled pieces.
Jil Sander softens the minimalist uniform
Simone Bellotti’s third collection for Jil Sander brimmed with confidence, as he softened the minimalist uniform with inventive tailoring.
The silhouette was heavily elongated, with three-quarter-length jackets and argyle knitwear that covered the bum. But it also bubbled and billowed, with pleats and built-in capes that allowed air to flow through the garments and around the body.
Bellotti hit his stride with tailoring that gave structure and lightness to the jackets, dresses and skirts in all the right places. Coats featured a single, off-skew pressed fold, which played off the tiny notched collars. Shirts were punctuated by knife pleats that ballooned in the back, while cascading pleats fluttered down the side of skirts.
The color palette was mostly neutrals of black, gray and blue, to keep the focus on the architecture of the looks.
“There is always something that I really like about this idea to distort the precision a little bit. I think it is more honest,” he said after the show on Wednesday.
A particularly striking pair of coats featured an exaggerated cutaway saddle flap of a royal riding jacket, a shape achieved through hand sewing and not a mere styling trick.
“It is very beautiful to see the result of this manipulation, made by hands,” Bellotti said.