The scene only lasted a few seconds.
On Wednesday afternoon, via Solari in Milan,
Fendi
's fall-winter 2024-2025 fashion show has just started.
In a decor hung with pastel taffeta curtains, the first models, wearing macaroon buns low at the nape of the neck, in shouldered suits and cinched waists, follow one another, hieratic.
Everything is calm, luxury and pleasure... when a Peta activist appears on the podium.
“
Animals are not clothes
,” says his sign.
But, few of the stars (including Jessica Biel aka Ms. Justin Timberlake), influencers and journalists in the front row have the time to see her, a big security arm exfiltrates her manu militari.
End of incident.
Especially since, if fur is of course a question at Fendi (it is the core business of this Roman house), that day, the majority of coats are made of shearling.
Underground luxury Fendi
A few minutes earlier backstage, Kim Jones, the artistic director, is a thousand miles from these considerations.
“I
immersed myself in the Fendi archives from 1984
,” he explains in the preamble.
These drawings from the collection
(at the time signed Karl Lagerfeld who has worked for the furrier since 1964, Editor's note)
reminded me of the London of this period: the Blitz Kids and all these groups from the New Wave scene, this aristocratic style with Asian influences which had invaded British underground culture.
Furthermore, the elegance of the English, who are indifferent to the gaze of others, fits perfectly with the Roman style.
» And indeed, this meeting of the 3rd type between lady so British and signora de la Citta Eterna, far from being unnatural, works wonderfully.
Fendi’s fall-winter 2024-2025 collection Fendi
When you think about it, these two female figures share the same sense of display without overdoing it, the same bourgeois radicality tinged with second-degree kitsch.
Like these double coats in tweed and shearling (so) belted like a bathrobe, these cable knit sweaters, cut and twisted around the body, these sets of grained or glossy leather, light like a second skin.
Stunning chic shaken up by irreverent details such as this sock knit bodysuit left open at the crotch, and this strange pacifier necklace, produced in collaboration with Chupa Chups.
“
I want there to always be a fun element in my collections, something that doesn't take itself seriously.
There, this funny accessory is Delfina’s idea
,” the designer tells us.
Delfina Delettrez Fendi, who designs the jewelry, and daughter of Silvia Venturi Fendi, herself in charge of the men's collections and accessories that this minimalist color-block wardrobe particularly highlights.
Since his appointment in 2020, Kim Jones has had the good taste to pay tribute, whenever possible, to the two descendants of the brand, who have been in the fold of LVMH since 2001.
Beauty under pressure at Prada
It's raining in Milan and fortunately because the Lombard capital, located in a basin, has been ultra-polluted in recent days.
But it's less pleasant when you're queuing to get into the
Prada
show , whose overcrowded entrance is worthy of the Baftas.
It must be said that Miuccia Prada is today a national treasure.
With her accomplice and co-creative director, Raf Simons, each season she questions her obsessions such as femininity, culture, the past which have nourished her aesthetic since her first ready-to-wear fashion show in 1988. Here too, we Prada is known in each look, in each color combination, even if Simons' intervention tends towards more radicality and futurism.
At the center of this winter collection, masculine/feminine.
If others in their time like Yves Saint Laurent played on this diversion, at Prada, this tension between serious and futile, robust and fragile, borders on heartbreak.
Like these silhouettes which highlight elements of men's clothing (Prince of Wales jacket, wide cuffs of pants on the skirts) and behind the silk satin lining inserts, lingerie pants , peach-colored nighties, small bows that the two designers consider without aggressiveness as a cliché of a necessarily regressive feminine style.
The models wear military ceremonial caps draped in velvet like a turban, riding boots, half-moon bags printed with flowers, large trucker sweaters with faux diamond brooches and opera coats treated like officer's coats, unless it's the other way around.
Prada's fall-winter 2024-2025 collection GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP
Some have wedged the handle of their minaudière in the crook of the elbow, the arm bent, the closed hand placed on the sternum in a very “old” haute couture posture.
The fitted black silk crepe dresses closed in the back with a row of small braided buttons are of infinite vintage delicacy.
Particularly desirable and well made, the little leather jackets hug the bust like a top.
“
The history of women
,” summarizes Ms. Prada in a deafeningly noisy backstage – discomfort is part of the house cult.
I always use, and Raf too, elements of history in all areas, from politics to fashion, to art... Some criticize this look towards the past as a form of conservatism, but I believe the opposite.
I don't know which thinker said that 'taking an element from the past is freeing it from its cage'.
» For Raf Simons, “
these fragments of history, of beauty, do not mean that we are nostalgic.
It is also a testimony to our love of fashion.
» In the soundtrack, The Moody Blues say no better: “
Nights in white satin / Never reaching the end / Letters I've written / Never meaning to send / Beauty I've always missed / With these eyes before / Just what the truth is / I can't say anymore / 'Cause I love you / Yes, I love you.
»
See and be seen at Diesel
Earlier, everyone had met at
Diesel
on the outskirts of town.
Each season, since his arrival in 2020, Glenn Martens renews the format of the show and tries to open its doors to as many guests as possible.
And in particular, to young people who are once again choosing the denim brand.
In the streets of Milan, the best-selling 1DR bag (at €250 in the XS version!) is on everyone's
arm
!
After the outdoor electro festival which took place in the rain last season, the Belgian designer preferred to operate indoors but still invited 1000 people (who had registered on the site) to watch from their computer and their smartphone, the parade live.
In the room, giant screens resembling videoconferencing broadcast these mirrored faces of the public... See and be seen literally and figuratively.
Because beyond the desire to involve its community, Martens is interested in the voyeuristic dimension of social networks but also of fashion, working on what the clothing hides.
If he has always explored treatments devouring silk chiffons, unraveling knitwear, shredding denim, this time, he lets the weft of the fabrics, the foam of the down jackets, the skin clearly appear through the jeans.
Unfortunately, the movement of models between the screen walls and the guests is not optimized to clearly see the silhouette.
Finally, we understand the locker room better in the photos of the show.
Otherwise, no big news in this collection for next winter, but still, a strong signature making each piece Diesel by Glenn Martens, and no other.
Which is unfortunately rare on the catwalks where too many designers follow trends without launching them and “pay homage” to their peers without naming them.
The fall-winter 2024-2025 collection by Diesel Filippo Fior
Sober elegance at Max Mara
False start at
Max Mara
.
The first model arrives in front of the photographers while the last guests have not yet finished settling in.
The poor young lady is forced to turn back.
Let's start again.
This time, it's good, but the music weighs down the show.
Looks like Richard Clayderman.
It's actually a piano and electro remix by Johnny Dynell, a New York DJ.
A woman in a long blue double-faced cashmere overcoat worn over small wool shorts and tights opens the ball.
Very Max Mara.
However, projected onto this (very) long podium, the harsh light does not do justice to the luxury of the materials, blurs the details and erases the predominantly marine chromatic palette.
It is only when the girls with slicked back hair come within reach and the clothing within sight that we say to ourselves that despite everything, there will be many women next winter who want to slip into these overcoats. men in wool, in the iconic Teddy Bear coat (which is celebrating its tenth anniversary) in an ultra-desirable XXL version, in pea coats and other belted bathrobes.
And that’s the main thing.
Max Mara's fall-winter 2024-2025 collection Photo: Filippo Fior / Gorunway.com