Fashion
Gucci opens Milan Fashion Week in Castleton Green
Published
February 25, 2025
What a difference a different colour and an Oscar-winning composer can make to a fashion show, as Gucci showed in its first post-Sabato De Sarno collection in Milan on Tuesday.
The debut show of the six-day Milan Fashion Week, the show and set were useful reminders of Gucci brand power, something far too many people have forgotten lately.
Gone was the deep purple that obsessed the banished creative director. Instead, the green room, invitations, curtains, and banquette seating inside the huge show space were hearty Castleton green. Even the catwalks were done in two massive interlocking green Gs.
Presented inside Superstudio Maxi, a giant party club in south Milan, the show was blessed with a fantastic original soundtrack by Justin Hurwitz, who won two Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Original Score for La La Land. He energetically conducted a live chamber orchestra before a front row, where Kering CEO and Gucci patron François-Henri Pinault sat beside Julia Garner, Jessica Chastain, Parker Posey, Jannik Sinner, Yara Shahidi, Dev Patel, Xiao Zhan, and Wen Qi—not bad going for a house without a designer.
A rousing performance that drove forward this show and collection, a cautious yet snappy array of Gucci hits over several decades created by the in-house design team. Ranging from ’60s fur and deep mohair peacoats; to knee-length skirts slit up the side, big-button tunics, or some perfectly cut Donegal tweed business suits. Dolce Vita damsels out for a stroll, certain to make heads turn.
All the way to the 90s slip dresses, oversized coated blazers with peak collars, or bouclé wool mini cocktails. Best of all were the interlocking G-print velvet dresses and the semi-sheer skirts paired with velour leotards and worn with gold stirrup pendants, adding plenty of oomph. All this was worn with several new takes on the 1955 horse-bit bag that looked very commercial.
There was a time under Alessandro Michele, when the Gucci girl looked like she lived in Brooklyn. None of these girls looked like they ever took a subway.
Halfway through, the chamber orchestra changed rhythms and out came the menswear collection, featuring a sharp new double-breasted suit with an elongated jacket and slim pants, slashed at the back at the ankle and worn with natty leather slippers. Noting too awe-inspiring, but decent merch as were some great scrawny mohair cardigans. Though quite why there were six versions of the same coat, albeit in different materials was hard to comprehend.
“We wanted to make a brand statement,” said Gucci CEO Stefano Cantino. And the house most certainly did with an excellently staged show that ended with a score of young designers taking a joint bow at the bandstand. All dressed in Castleton green sweatshirts.
Despite it being one of those foggy days when clouds descend like lumpy porridge from the Alps and Milan looks very mournful, several thousand fans swarmed around outside, cheering each star as they exited. Gucci may have suffered several tricky years and seen revenues fall 20% in the most recent quarter, but judging by these fans; the label is still a major cult marque.
The house was mum about the eventual successor to De Sarno, though an announcement is expected in the next several weeks – with Hedi Slimane the designer with the shortest odds.
Business may have been weak but there is plenty of life in the house of Gucci.
Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Published
February 26, 2025
Swarovski’s recent Ariana Grande collab launch was huge deal for the company and garnered headlines globally. It was also a major move operationally with the company opening some department store pop-ups in key locations where it hasn’t previously had a presence. In the UK, it appeared in Harrods for the first time and FashionNetwork.com caught up with UK General Manager Craig Ash to find out how that has gone.
FashionNetwork.com: Why did you choose Harrods for the big UK Ariana Grande launch?
Craig Ash: When we brought together Ariana Grande, a global pop icon, and Swarovski, one of the world’s most iconic luxury jewellery brands to create a capsule collection, we knew we needed to find a special place to launch it in the UK. Harrods, as one of the most iconic department stores in the world, made total sense as this environment really represents the joyful extravagance that runs through our brand. The team at Harrods also saw a strong synergy and we worked together to create a truly remarkable space for customers to discover this unique collection.
FN: Given your first entry into Harrods, are you planning more collaborations with other department stores?
CA: Swarovski’s Luxury Brand positioning matches perfectly with high-end department stores so we will continue to explore future collaborations within this sector. We already work with several department stores such as Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Frasers and John Lewis and we look forward to further expansion moving forwards with both existing and new partners.
FN: How important do you think luxury department stores and generally wider distribution are to a brand like yours at present?
CA: Department stores such as Harrods that allow us to create unique luxury experiences for our customers are very important to our brand. Our distribution strategy is to deliver Luxury@Scale and this means not only having our own stores in great locations but also collaborating with department stores and independent retailers to make the brand accessible. We don’t believe that luxury is about having a super small distribution footprint or charging excessively high prices. Luxury is ultimately providing true value to the customer and creating a feeling of joy, so luxury department stores provide a great environment to do this.
FN: Where else are you running pop-ups? I notice that you’ve opened one at Heathrow Airport — is this a key strategy for travel retail or just a one-off?
CA: Our teams worldwide have launched pop-ups in iconic Luxury location’s in Paris, Dubai, NYC, Mexico City, Toronto and Buenos Aires to celebrate the collection launch. Heathrow was selected as the only travel retail location worldwide, and we have partnered with Avolta to create an immersive shopping experience here for travellers.
FN: What has been the response to the Ariana Grande collab? I notice you’ve had a lot of publicity around it. Has this translated into sales? And are we likely to see further collabs with Grande (or any other celebs) in the near future?
CA: The reaction to Ariana Grande’s Capsule collection has been nothing short of sensational and the timing of this has coincided with Valentine’s Day and also now Mother’s Day, which has allowed us to offer our gift buyers truly unique product for their loved ones alongside our self-purchasing customers. We have seen the quickest rates of sale on this product that I can remember, which is no surprise given the combination of savoir-faire with contemporary coolness that the collection brings. Swarovski has always been intertwined with pop culture and we have worked with a wide breadth of incredible designers, actresses, models, singers and individuals who shape the zeitgeist, which we will continue to do moving forwards.
FN: Of course, all this talk of pop-ups doesn’t minimise the importance of your own standalone stores. How has the Regent Street store that opened in late 2024 been faring?
CA: The Regent Street store has been trading especially strongly since opening. We were delighted to secure this new location last year as Regent Street was an obvious gap in our London store portfolio. Now alongside our Swarovski boutiques in Oxford Street, Covent Garden, White City and Stratford we have great coverage in our key city, alongside new stores in Canary Wharf & Battersea which we also opened last year.
Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Published
February 26, 2025
If, as most people believe, the designers of Jil Sander, Luke and Lucie Meier, are about to be replaced, they certainly have left Germany’s most famous fashion label on a high note.
A bold blend of sharp tailoring, punchy effects, unusual material mixes, and urban chic was an admirable final collection in their tenure at Jil Sander, a house founded in Hamburg in 1973.
Staged in funeral black, with two narrow runways beneath black-curtained walls, in dim undertaker’s light, the mood and the collection were somber as one entered from a sunny Wednesday morning at Milan Fashion Week.
That said, the clothes often dazzled, from pink shard dresses to metallic silver plissé cocktails. The design duo’s big idea was plastic shard skirt dresses—cut like techy Pacific Island chic.
In a co-ed show, the guys appeared in Edwardian coats and blazers bristling with cock feathers and biker leather suits in electric blue, while a series of coats for men and women featured ingenious degradé coloring, beginning in black and fading into bronze, then white at their high funnel necks.
Considering that Jil Sander was once dubbed “the Queen of Less,” this felt like a very distant “More is More”—especially the shoes: hyper-studded and spiked winklepickers and brothel creepers. There was nothing minimal about them.
In truth, the house of Jil Sander has had an erratic history since the founder departed in 2004 after repeated clashes with then-owner Patrizio Bertelli of Prada. Ownership changed hands several times, including to a vulture fund, before being acquired by OTB and its chairman, Renzo Rosso, the Italian billionaire founder of Diesel, in 2021.
However, for several seasons now, Renzo Rosso has been openly expressing his desire to make Jil Sander into an Italian Hermès with an edge. This collection was far from that. Indeed, if one could fault Luke and Lucie Meier for anything, it was that the collection, with its sharp lines and exaggerated finishes, felt more targeted at critics than clients.
Three weeks ago, Rosso named Serge Brunschwig from Fendi as Jil Sander’s new CEO, underlining that change is on the way.
That said, the Meiers can leave Jil Sander with their heads held high, even if they took a long, rather mournful tour of the catwalk to some well-earned applause. Their seven-year tenure featured several excellent collections that were among the half-dozen best in fashion in certain seasons—no easy feat to achieve, rest assured.
For the future, the current favorite to replace them at Jil Sander is Daniel Lee of Burberry. Stay tuned as the career carousel that high fashion has become takes another turn.
Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
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