Sunday witnessed two striking runway debuts – Domenico Orefice and Victor Hart, a touching display by Qasimi and two very fine presentations by key Italian marques, Santoni and Tod’s.
 

Domenico Orefice: Italy has a new fashion cult

Domenico Orefice is a Neapolitan designer who hangs out in Tuscany but just staged his first runway show in Milan.

Even before the debut, Orefice had built a cool cult following and Italian fashionistas fascinated by the dark glory of his clothes.
 
Targeted at clubbers and night-owls, this autumn 2026 collection bristled with attitude. Opening this display with a rockstar blouson paired with a mega-high shaggy collar worn with leggings and piratical boots. The first of many bold jackets – furnished with funnel necks.  His dark green flight jacket had such a huge collar when it splayed open it became like a cape.

For gals, he whipped up trompe l’oeil white cotton shirts featuring pearl necklaces and ties; or cotton piqué dresses shirts completed by shearling cummerbunds. Best of all, a rust-hued distressed leather jacket that looked like it had been unearthed somewhere, so bold was the attitude.

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Judging from this, no wonder that Dover Street marketed its first big order of Domenico Orefice last year.
 
All presented in the nerve-center of the next generation in Italian fashion, the Carla Sozzani Foundation in north Milan, where the rhythmic art of her partner Kris Rus provided the perfect backdrop to Orefice’s edgy fashion art. Because that is what it is.
 

Victor Hart: Denim dandies

On a chilly Sunday, a select few gathered to enjoy the debut runway on the official calendar of Victor Hart. 

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It’s a novel, denim-driven brand founded by Victor Reginald Bob Abbey-Hart, a Ghanaian designer who has made his home in Paris. A graduate of the city’s Haute Future Fashion Academy, Victor has a very definite point of view when it comes to denim.
 
His big idea was developing some bold denim jacquards coats and cloaks, several of them worn proudly by members like Carlo Capasa, the president of the Camera della Moda, Italian fashion’s governing body, which controls all runway seasons in Milan.
 
Staged by some 200 people in a redeveloped south Milan factory, with even more people crowding around the entrance outside, the show had considerable charm. Inside, a little bit amateur hour, as the show music stopped and started twice, before the first model finally appeared.

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Using a great casting, Victor sent out all manner of denim treatments – mock muddy, streaky or blotched – in a collection of hipster, hybrid workwear. Oversized safari; ballooning carpenters’ pants; slit at the side warehouse coats; priestly soutanes.
 
All word by models, brilliantly made-up with vertical black stripes down their faces, or silver smears on jowls or necks.  And topped with a mix of fedoras or electric blue woollen beanies with gold pins, worn at a jaunty tilt Simon Adebisi-style. Which is how Victor wore his when he took his bow to a very warm ovation.
 

Qasimi: Mode as memories

Sunday morning opened with the latest collection from Qasimi, a brand that marries Gulf inspirations with Western designs.

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Though often evoking architectural, offset loops, spirals and overhanging fabric made the clothes fluid and full of motion. Many looks fluttered as the models marched by in this autumn/winter 2026 collection, staged in a former factory on Via Tortona in south central Milan.
 
Asymmetric layering was the key to the collection, where lapels varied in length, shoulders sprouted single scarves and sleeves often seemed to have a life of their own.
 
It could have been a mess, but in designer Hoor Al Qasimi’s capable hands, it became an evocative time capsule, where the clothes conjured up distant reminiscences. All staged underneath Lebanese artist Dala Nasser’s undulating natural dyed hangings.

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The collection, Hoor explained, “reflects on how memory lives within clothing. Each garment becomes a vessel – carrying fragments of the past, acts of repair, and the quiet way we protect what we hold onto.”
 
A touching reference to this brand’s own particular history, seeing as its founder Khalid bin Sultan died so tragically early, aged 39. Though his gentle legacy lived on elegantly in this show today in Milan.
 

Santoni: Patina with rugged 

Santoni has always made very classy shoes, notable for their unique Velatura patina. This season, it combined all that with a dash of more rugged chic.

Like its superb new Karl Ice mountain boot. Finished on top with mountain hooks and chunky laces; underneath with a remarkable Cervino sole, where an orange frame can be flipped from a smooth surface to a steel pointed version. Perfect for navigating icy conditions.
 
The house employed the same technique on the very smart Carlo Boot where loafer meets upper in a happy marriage. 
 
Santoni’s sense of sheer excellence always impresses. As some remarkable work by artisans moulding a skin for scores of hours managed to develop a remarkable new lace-up whose upper has no side stitches. Unheard of before in footwear. Underneath their colleagues then hand nailed tiny brass nails on the perimeter of the sole. Think – footwear as an objet d’art.
 
The house even laid on a swish cocktail bar, where one could celebrate the best boots of the season: glistening brown, custom-made, bespoke crocodile lace-up gentlemanly hiker boots. Don’t expect much change out of $15,000 if you want to order a pair.
 

Tod’s: Expect the Winter Gommino to rule the coming Winter Olympics

Few boots seem more right for this season than the Winter Gommino, Tod’s chunky bootie, presented in multiple shades this Sunday.

 
They were the keynote to a swish presentation inside Villa Necchi, Milan’s most famous modernist villa, whose entrance featured a team of four artisans making pairs by hand in suede, antiqued leather or even cashmere.
 
“We wanted to underline the meticulous attention to detail needed to make a pair of Winter Gommino and highlight the excellence of the leather we used,” explained Tod’s patron and CEO, Diego Della Valle.
 
With excitement building daily in northern Italy for next month’s games, the Winter Gommino seems like an ideal companion for cold winter days in the mountains.
 

While in terms of ready-to-wear, the focus was on Tod’s Pashmy, a soft rare leather that evokes the famed fine wool of the Himalayas. Used with aplomb in the latest Coach Jacket or in a blazer with patch pockets dubbed, the Castello Jacket. 
 
Not a bad look for some après ski.