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Italian menswear label Mulish mulls S Korea expansion, sister label Bharnaba growing fast

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Nicola Mira

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January 16, 2026

Italian menswear label Mulish is thriving. Owned by the eponymous company and based in Campania, Mulish staged an event during the Pitti Uomo 109 show in Piazza degli Strozzi in Florence, to assert its premier role in the contemporary menswear scene.

Mulish, Fall/Winter 2026-27

“We’re a company that has been in business for nearly 30 years, we’re well established in Italy, and we have a know-how deriving from years of experience in garment-making and men’s tailoring. We grew significantly in 2025, in Italy and especially abroad,” said Diego Di Flora, speaking to FashionNetwork.com at the Florentine event.

Di Flora is the creative director of Mulish and now also of the company’s other label, Bharnaba. “We’re very well-known on several foreign markets, thanks also to campaigns featuring VIP brand ambassadors like [football manager] Luciano Spalletti and [actor] Raul Bova. Retail-wise, we don’t operate monobrand stores, working instead with wholesale distributors. Mulish currently has over 100 wholesale clients, in Italy and abroad. We recorded double-digit revenue growth in 2025, and we’d managed to grow even during the Covid period. At that time, we launched a women’s line for a season, an experiment that was a great success,” said Di Flora.

Mulish now produces menswear only, and the hero product of its Fall/Winter 2026-27 collection is the Field Jacket. “We began with men’s outerwear, our main expertise is in that category. Womenswear requires a more varied, extensive range of garments, so we decided to refocus on our primary know-how,” said Di Flora.

Mulish, Fall/Winter 2026-27
Mulish, Fall/Winter 2026-27

Mulish still generates 70% of its revenue in Italy (“40% in Northern Italy, where, weirdly, we’re selling more than in the South,” said Di Flora). The company, whose labels are positioned in the ‘affordable quiet luxury’ segment, is now keen to export a larger volume of its Italy-produced, Neapolitan-style men’s tailoring collections overseas. “We’re already present throughout Europe, and we’re considering entering South Korea within a couple of years,” said Di Flora.
 
Mulish has expanded its occasionwear range, a segment “that is selling very well, especially [outfits] for bridegrooms,” according to Di Flora.

Bharnaba, Fall/Winter 2026-27
Bharnaba, Fall/Winter 2026-27

Mulish has 30 direct employees and a network of 400 collaborators. The company runs another label, Bharnaba, which exhibited at Pitti Uomo for the first time in the show’s January 2026 edition.
 
“It’s a Mulish-style label, but with a younger vibe,” said Di Flora. “Prominent in [Bharnaba’s] Fall/Winter 2026-27 collection are deconstructed jackets, tailored coats and double-breasted jackets. At the show, we launched the Bharnaba safari jacket, while the trousers, previously styled with a classic drainpipe cut, now feature darts and softer, more generous lines,” he added.

Bharnaba, Fall/Winter 2026-27
Bharnaba, Fall/Winter 2026-27

“[Bharnaba] was created in 2021, and is growing much faster than Mulish, thanks to a young audience that appreciates its style. The label’s signature garments are constantly reinterpreted with well-balanced volumes, new sartorial constructions and painstaking attention to detail. For example, we lightened up the structure of double-breasted jackets, giving them a more fluid fit, while Bharnaba coats are distinctive for their clean lines, refined materials and a perfect balance between meticulous design and a contemporary mood,” concluded Di Flora.

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West End visitor traffic gets festive boost

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January 16, 2026

One key part of London’s West End saw big uplift in visitors during December with new figures from the Heart of London Business Alliance (HOLBA) saying footfall was up 19% year on year last month.

Photo: Pexels/Public domain

The area HOLBA covers includes Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Haymarket, which don’t account for the main shopping district but are just a stone’s throw from Regent Street, Bond Street and Covent Garden.

HOLBA’s figures also show that dwell time increased by 42 minutes per day compared to a year ago.

Overall, footfall was 20% above the average seem from 2022-24, and between 15 and 29 December, visits were up 35%, all of which HOLBA said underlines the area’s recovery from the pandemic.

Deputy chief executive, Mark Williams, said the figures “show that London’s West End continues to outperform national trends, with visitor numbers on the rise. This underscores its appeal as a global destination and the power of the experience economy in attracting people to the area”.

The New West End Company (NWEC), which represents businesses across the wider West End, hasn’t yet released its own figures for December. But it had earlier said that the area bucked the national trend over the Black Friday period. West End footfall was up 9% in the previous week, up 4.1% in Black Friday week itself and 6.2% the week after.

That further underlines how well the West End has bounced back after several years in which its status as one of Europe’s top tourist shopping districts was at risk. From 2020 onwards, the large number of store closures, the proliferation of so-called American candy stores and the (still-ongoing) absence of tax-free shopping for tourists meant central London was slow to recover. ‘Rival’ shopping cities such as Paris and Milan meanwhile have taken less time to get back to pre-pandemic footfall levels and London Mayor Sadiq Khan this week revealed that he’s lobbied the government to get the decision on cancelling the tax-free shopping perk reversed.

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Bikkembergs sees 2025 revenue steady at €30 million, plans two openings in Tbilisi

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January 16, 2026

Bikkembergs returns to Milan Fashion Week and, for the first time, opens the doors of its headquarters on Via Stendhal (Solari). “Pitti is a wonderful platform, but we made a strategic choice to be more consumer-driven,” Dario Predonzan, the brand’s CEO, tells FashionNetwork.com.

Dario Predonzan at the entrance to Bikkembergs’ HQ in Milan

The more than 500-square-metre space, which opened around 10 years ago, brings together the design studio, offices, and B2B sales across two floors, and was set up for the occasion with an oversized inflatable soccer ball positioned at the entrance, the result of a collaboration with a Turin-based creative.

The soccer sneaker is at the heart of the brand’s strategy. Founded by Dirk Bikkembergs, the label is now owned by China’s Modern Avenue. “It is our signature piece, the item consumers associate most strongly with the Bikkembergs name. It’s also on trend right now thanks to its low-profile aesthetic,” Predonzan notes.

Last June’s collaboration with Gosha Rubchinskiy marked a step-change in this direction. “We phased out all the old models across the various markets, a move similar to what Adidas did with the Stan Smith. We will put a strong focus on the brand’s heritage,” says the CEO.

The collaboration with the Russian designer was a limited edition of about 2,000 pairs. “We sold almost all of them. Spring-Summer ’26 was the first season of the sales campaign and we nearly doubled the footwear category’s figures,” Predonzan continues.

A total look from Bikkembergs' FW26 collection.
A total look from Bikkembergs’ FW26 collection.

The company closed 2025 with turnover of 30 million, in line with last year. “We are satisfied because, despite the difficulties, the company is on a solid financial footing. We have worked hard to streamline processes. It is crucial to be a healthy business in such an uncertain market phase,” the CEO adds.

Driving Bikkembergs’ sales are Germany and Northern Europe, which are once again important markets. The US and Russia account for much of the remainder. “The opening plan through 2027 is proceeding, with two new openings coming in Tbilisi, Georgia, between March 2026 and next autumn-winter. Today we have nine mono-brand stores, but we are always looking for partners for new openings,” says the manager.

In Milan next March, the brand will celebrate its founder with a special event, coinciding with the launch of the first exhibition at MoMu in Antwerp dedicated to the Antwerp Six (which includes designer Dirk Bikkembergs himself). “We want to tie in with this important event to pay homage to our origins,” Predonzan concludes.

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Milan Fashion Week opens menswear season with Zegna

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January 16, 2026

Milan Fashion Week’s menswear season kicked off Friday afternoon with a grand show and ground-breaking collection from a powerhouse brand- Zegna. Presented inside Palazzo del Ghiaccio, a giant, all-white ice-skating rink in east Milan, redesigned like a giant gentleman’s dressing room, where the cast walked out of huge closet doors.

Creative director Alessandro Sartori’s take on Zegna’s brand heritage – FashionNetwork.com

 
Creative director Alessandro Sartori played with the house’s codes of refined elegance, even as he subverted them- with tailoring innovations and novel materials. Like his brilliant new Horizontal Three jacket, a snug double-breasted blazer, with a hidden third button that can be used to expand the garment into a far looser silhouette.
 
In terms of fabrics, Alessandro dreamed up a new blend of cashmere and paper- seen in check cardigan jackets. Devoid of interior pockets and with an unexpected hand, they hung perfectly.

The show invitation was a playing card, revealing the collection’s title- Memorie. A riff on the deep history of the brand, which has just named brothers from its fourth generation– Edoardo and Angelo– as new co-CEOs, 115 years after the label was founded in Trivero, Italy. This also referenced Alessandro Sartori’s own memories of his father, who died when he was a young boy.

Monochrome layers at Zegna
Monochrome layers at Zegna – FashionNetwork.com

 
“One of my strongest emotions was my dad putting on a suit or jacket. When I later found photos of him, I rediscovered my father through his clothes,” explained a wistful Sartori. 
 
The show was also the latest example of smart storytelling by this designer, who presented an early 1930s suit made for founder Ermenegildo Zegna in an Australian wool fabric woven at his own mill. Encased in a museum glass box at the entrance to the show, with a sign that read: Abito 1– or ‘First Suit.’
 
Staged on a classically cloudy January in Lombardy when a chill humidity seeps down from the nearby Alps, the collection looked ideal for the conditions. Notably, a beautiful series of Donegal tweed style speckled beige and brown suits. Worn with fine wool shirts finished with leather buttons. 
 
No other major Italian tailoring brand has been as courageous as Zegna in pivoting an historically business suits-driven business into the new era of casual luxury. A key reason it could do so is the talent of its creative director Alessandro Sartori.

Zegna's latest suits
Zegna’s latest suits – FashionNetwork.com

 
That said, he produced multiple modernist suits in wide yet subtle stripes, cut with large, notched lapels. And showed multiple great coats with forgivingly softer shoulders. Natty yet always noble and worn on a cast of multiple generations, parading around the carpeted floor.
 
Backed up by a soundtrack that blended Nick Cave’s Into My Arms with Max Richter’s In The Garden, this was as polished a fashion statement as one could imagine. As Sartori kept stretching the Zegna DNA without ever snapping it.
 
“I am the custodian of the Zegna family wardrobe,” smiled Alessandro post-show. Before- for his next trick- trying on a Horizontal Three to show how the technique worked to much applause.

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