A model wears a creation that appears in "The Tiger," a short film directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, as people arrive for Gucci's exclusive screening of the movie during Milan Fashion Week on Tuesday.Yara Nardi/Reuters
Great expectations, great loss, great risks and even greater stakes – that summed up the mood in Milan on the first day of fashion week. The passing yesterday of Claudia Cardinale, Italy’s beloved cinema and style icon, along with the death of Giorgio Armani earlier this month, has put a damper on what is poised to be one of the city’s most exciting slates of runway shows in recent history. Nevertheless, the city came together to honour them both.
Half-century chic
Giorgio Armani Privé 2005–2025 highlights the designer’s couture line.Delfino Sisto Legnani/courtesy of Armani/Silos
Armani – who was approaching his label’s 50th anniversary – leaves behind more than a legacy; he leaves an unmistakable shift in the industry. A number of tributes to his creative vitality, planned before his death, have now evolved into two retrospectives.
The first exhibition, Giorgio Armani Privé: 2005-2025, Twenty Years of Haute Couture, highlights the allure of the designer’s couture line. Held in the 48,000-square-foot Armani/Silos museum space, the show features gowns worn by Demi Moore and Michelle Yeoh.
Meanwhile, at the Pinacoteca di Brera, a sprawling multimedia showcase titled Giorgio Armani: Milano, Per Amore, chronicles five decades of the Piacenza-born talent’s global influence.
Catwalk presentations for both the classic Giorgio Armani collection and its younger counterpart, Emporio Armani, are still to come and counted among the week’s most anticipated shows.
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As the industry reckons with the weight of Armani’s departure, another shift reverberates: Donatella Versace’s decision to step down as the label’s creative lead and move into the role of brand ambassador, after more than three decades safeguarding her brother Gianni’s Greek god- and rock and roll-inspired vision. Her exit, paired with the loss of Armani, has left legacy brands in a state of flux. Followers are watching closely as new hands prepare to reshape houses known for distinct motifs and aesthetics, setting the stage for a week defined by reinvention.
Fantastic four debuts
Four newly appointed creative directors are unveiling their first collections this week. Gucci under Balenciaga’s boundary-pushing Demna Gvasalia debuted last night; Jil Sander under Simone Bellotti has its moment today; Versace under former Miu Miu talent Dario Vitale takes the stage on Thursday; and Bottega Veneta under Louise Trotter is slated for Saturday.
This infusion of fresh blood has highlighted a generational shift in buyers and fashion admirers who are excited and engaged after several seasons of voluminous cuts, all-too-quiet luxury and nondescript normcore.
Gucci personified
At Gucci, throngs of teens and twentysomethings pressed against barricades at the Palazzo Mezzanotte, cellphones flashing like they were at a Sabrina Carpenter concert, for a glimpse of the new collection from Demna Gvasalia, or Demna as he is known. Yet there was no runway. Instead, the designer teased his vision with a short film titled The Tiger, which featured a Gucci lookbook that dropped online hours before.
Achol Kuir attends the Gucci Spring Summer 2026 event during Milan Fashion Week on Tuesday.Victor Boyko/Supplied
Called La Famiglia, the lookbook contains 36 personality-driven characters. Some of its standout pieces appeared on famous attendees, including Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow. Each look has an archetypal name, such as La Prima Donna, La Diva, La Drama Queen and La Contessa – this particular quartet paying homage to past Gucci-wearing icons such as Maria Callas and Sophia Loren. Some seemed like nods to former Gucci creative leads (a look called La Principessa recalls former Gucci designer Frida Giannini’s hyper-feminine, feathery frocks).
Looks such as Miss Aperitivo and La Bomba highlighted Demna’s knack for overhauling the notion of short, sexy party dresses. The same sense of rebellious pageantry is evoked in the film, directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn and starring Elliot Page, Edward Norton and Demi Moore. Moore donned the collection’s La Mecenate look – a floor-length, gold sequin and crystal dress – in the movie, as well as in the film’s poster and at the premiere.
The lookbook’s vintage framed-images recall a family photo album and the idea of lineage, right down to the re-emergence of signature Gucci accessories such as pointed shoes and bamboo handle bags. The sexy nods to Tom Ford’s reign at the house in the late 1990s and early 2000s are easy to spot: Ford’s sharp, tailored suits and fur-and-fringe trim jackets are modernized by Demna.
Ford’s stab at logo belts were also revived, as were his low-rise swim briefs. The cleverest reference from Gucci’s archive, however, was the resurrection of floral motifs by artist Vittorio Accornero de Testa from Gucci’s 1960s collections, which appeared on tailored black and white gowns. These florals for spring are actually groundbreaking.
Elliot Page arrives for the premiere of the short film "The Tiger" in Milan on Tuesday.Luca Bruno/The Associated Press
Versace versus Versace
The next debut is Vitale at Versace on Thursday, and the designer is already hinting at his own brand of disruption. The former Miu Miu design and image director has been leaking fragments of his mood board online. Images shared so far include a pared-down, sketch-like illustration by American artist Collier Schorr and a black-and-white photograph by Parisian sharp-shooter and filmmaker Camille Vivier. The analog-style photography is a departure from the label’s typical high-gloss aesthetic, evoking instead the spirit of Versace’s ultra-hip Versus line (founded in 1989 as a gift from Gianni to Donatella).
Vitale’s new aesthetic has already popped up at Venice Film Festival, where Julia Roberts and Amanda Seyfried turned up days apart in identical Vitale-designed Versace ensembles: blue wool jackets, striped shirts and denim trousers. The move split opinion but announced the designer’s presence with virality.
The appointment itself underscores the tension at play: Miu Miu’s bookish ethos colliding with Versace’s unapologetic, sensual glamour.
At both Versace and Gucci, clashes between old-world and next-gen, past and present, and sexy and cerebral are cueing up this season in Milan to be both unpredictable and provocative.