Apart from Del Core’s live show, the entire Milan season followed a digital format. Applause to the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana for its new daily newsletter announcing all the shows and helping all desktop bound writers to stay up to date. There is still no clear digital presentation format coming to the fore but most big shows like Fendi, Prada or Giorgio Armani follow a runway template. So the de rigueur live stream of a few season’s past is the new normal for all brands. Only difference we used to miss the live stream and sat in the audience. Now we stream like everyone else. Miuccia Prada thinks this challenge has actually elevated the relevance of fashion and is pushing her and Raf Simons to new creative heights. We disagree with Prada for once. Her show is loosing in fashion directional oomph, setting the agenda a bit less than before. But oh well, here is what stood out to us.

Fendi

Kim Jones has made it clear that he wants the Fendi collection to be the everyday wardrobe for his friends. With friends like Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell who are the most photographed women in the world, this can be a clever way to get things off the ground or his new looks in front of the eyes of a fashion hungry shopper. It was somewhat awkward when Demi Moore opened his Haute Couture show and wore a dress that looked more like overdressed Beverly Hills wife than cool gal. For his ready to wear debut Jones landed a hit. Mostly beige and brown super tailoring in oversize jackets, loungy pants and cut off sweaters looked super fresh and new to often-complicated Fendi women’s construction.

Prada

What we noticed most about this show was that women’s and men’s seem to be aligned at Prada now. If this is Raf Simons first major contribution, we are not sure we are in favor. It used to be so good that Prada men’s could be a biology teacher in corduroys and the women’s collection shortly after for a Rammstein concert groupie. Now the same oversize bombers, multiprint onesies or double-breasted coats with cut-off lapels made it from the men’s to the women’s. Needless to say that Miuccia’s wicked humor shone through in Belle de Jour patent leather, over knees.

Tod’s

To make a rich marbled Palazzo look cool in a fashion film is no easy feat. But Walter Chiapponi managed to show off his slightly bourgeois leather looks and soft tailoring on the right crew of models by framing the camera through models’ arms or handbag straps. Using quilting and padding excessively gives this collection a strong signature and helps Chiapponi on his quest to imbue his good taste on old school Italian luxury at Tod’s.

Marni

Francesco Risso just had his contract renewed at Marni and rightfully so. In fact, we deem him as the ringleader of the credible sustainable movement in fashion. Not the marketing department is speaking here but the designer. Using old fabric stock is normal chez Marni and this collection developed nearly all by hand, was Risso’s clever take on what lockdown loungewear clothes look like through a real dressmaking lens.