Gucci's 'casual grandeur' dominates the Milan Fashion Week runway | Milan Fashion Week

A year after taking on one of the biggest jobs in fashion, designer Sabato De Sarno has a formula for his new Gucci: “casual grandeur.”

De Sarno needed a bang for this show. The reaction to his first collections could be summed up as: beautiful clothes, but not enough personality. Figures released in July showed that Gucci's sales in the second quarter of 2024 had fallen by 20% compared to the previous year. Gucci is a big name in Italian culture. People expect not only style, but also charisma.

In front of the eyes of the front row, which included Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner (polo shirt under a suit) and singer Debbie Harry (red leather jacket and matching loafers), the show began quietly in a dark grey bomber jacket zipped up to the neck and matching trousers over white sneakers.

But the fashion soon took off. A pair of black and white maxi dresses with side slits and gold metal details recalled Tom Ford's 1990s Gucci era. Silk headscarves and oversized sunglasses, worn with mock-neck knitwear and short skirts, recalled Jackie Kennedy Onassis – an icon of the house, the namesake of the brand's most famous handbag – on holiday in Capri. The former First Lady of the USA's holiday wardrobe, with a dash of Tom Ford slinky for summer nights, represents casual grandeur.

De Sarno and his team wore T-shirts with the slogan “Family, Friends, Teams, Partners, Lovers.” The show ended with an Italian pop classic by Fiordaliso – “the music I grew up with,” De Sarno explained backstage, after heading straight for a hug from his parents.

The designer said he was “obsessed” with creating a mood that was “perfect and sophisticated… but always with an irreverent attitude.” Casual grandeur, he said, was found in “tailoring, lingerie, leather, '60s silhouettes… and the moment when the sun dips into the sea at the end of an August day.”

De Sarno turns up the volume on Gucci's flag colors of red, green and white. The classic poppy red has already been replaced by a dark oxblood that has become De Sarno's signature color, and this season the traditional racing green is replaced by neon green – bright on lace party dresses and bold on a car coat trimmed with olive leather piping.

Timeless appeal of Armani aesthetics

Giorgio Armani turned 90 in July, which you wouldn't expect given his busy schedule. In the space of two months, he's staging fashion shows on two continents. In October, he's traveling to New York, where he's planning a runway extravaganza to celebrate a new flagship on Madison Avenue with two boutiques and a restaurant.

At Milan Fashion Week, an oversized collection of 114 Emporio Armani looks was followed by a party to celebrate a larger store opening this week in his hometown. “A physical store offers customers the opportunity to touch things, to try things out… it complements the digital world and can never be replaced by it,” he said before his Milan show.

An enlarged black-and-white portrait dominated the exhibition space: a woman with her hair neatly parted and slicked back, wearing a suit and tie, dark-colored lips and long eyelashes shading her cheekbones. The image, by Tom Munro, embodied the boyish, androgynous chic on which Armani built his empire. The fact that the photo was from a 2000 advertising campaign was a reminder of the timeless appeal of this aesthetic.

Models wore smart blazers and wide trousers. They coolly gazed at the audience over their sunglasses and strolled casually in their loafers; no walking around in high heels here. Clutches were carried casually in one hand, like a newspaper or a file folder. There were the occasional slip dress or short skirt, but the stars of an Armani show are always the suits. The brand's core code is a suit without stuffiness. For this spring collection, some of these were lightweight cotton beach throws with pajama stripes.

There was a surprise at the end of the show: Armani, who usually bows alone, was accompanied by four senior members of the design team, including his niece Silvana, the head of the women's fashion studio. This nod to succession planning was a rare reference to Armani's age.