italian fashion – SARA DAL MONTE

MILAN FASHION WEEK, THE RUNWAYS GO DARK. WHAT REALLY REMAINS?

28 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged Confcommercio Milano, fashion industry, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, italian fashion, MADE IN ITALY, MFW, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Quarto Oggiaro, Spring Summer 2027, SS27, supply chain, SURECOM AMERICA, Vogue World, Vogue World MilanLeave a comment

Today, September 28, Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 officially comes to a close. The major shows are over, and the final day leaves room above all for digital. After seven days and 203 appointments — 61 shows, 88 presentations and 54 events — the question is no longer just what we saw on the runway, but what remains in Milan once the lights go out.

A first figure concerns the city’s power of attraction. Confcommercio Milano estimated almost 141,000 visitors, with a 22% rise in foreign visitors, and an economic impact of €219.5 million: €100.8 million in shopping, €85.4 million in hospitality and dining, and €32.9 million in transport. Significant numbers, even if 8% lower than in September 2025, showing how Fashion Week involves hotels, restaurants, shops, transport and services, well beyond the perimeter of the fashion houses.

Within this week, Vogue World: Milan was one of the moments of greatest international exposure. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II brought together fashion, entertainment, craftsmanship, technology, major maisons and international figures, turning the center of Milan into a global stage for one evening. An event of this scale strengthens the appeal of Fashion Week and the activity surrounding hospitality, dining, transport and shopping. But Vogue World also left something very concrete behind: the fundraising reached $3 million, about €2.65 million, earmarked for the renovation and expansion of the Quarto Oggiaro Library.

Then there are the contacts, the business relationships, the buyers, the international press, millions of images shared around the world and the orders that will continue to be finalized in the showrooms. As we already noted when discussing the positive sentiment expressed by buyers, approval is a first signal. The next step will be to understand how much of it will translate into purchases, and therefore into production.

And this is exactly where institutions should open a reflection. Not only celebrating attendance and visibility, but gathering and analyzing the results: hotel occupancy, dining, shopping, orders, buyers’ countries of origin and the impact on the supply chain. Understanding what worked and where to intervene can turn a week of enormous international exposure into an even more effective tool to support the sector.

Because behind the major fashion houses there is a supply chain made of weaving mills, garment makers, leather goods makers, shoe factories, workshops, artisans, pattern makers, logistics and thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises. This is where Made in Italy generates skills, employment and exports. Fashion Week can become even more of an opportunity to bring international buyers closer to production districts, to support the internationalization of SMEs, training and innovation, and to strengthen the link between runway, market and manufacturing.

Milan has shown once again that it can attract the world. The challenge now is to understand how to turn this attention into value that is ever more widely shared across the city and the entire Italian supply chain.

The runways go dark, but this is exactly when the most interesting work begins: measuring what this week has produced and turning it into growth. Because a Fashion Week is not measured only when it turns the lights on, but also by what it leaves behind when they go out.

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

MILAN FASHION WEEK, BUYERS APPROVE. NOW ALL EYES TURN TO ORDERS

28 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged BOTTEGA VENETA, buyers, Demna, FENDI, Francesco Murano, Giorgio Armani, GUCCI, italian fashion, Marco Rambaldi, Maria Grazia Chiuri, MAX MARA, MFW, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Miuccia Prada, Moschino, PRADA, Raf Simons, Spring Summer 2027, SS27, SURECOM AMERICALeave a comment

Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 closes with a positive sentiment. Buyers speak of more concrete, recognizable, product-focused collections, while attendance was particularly high. Carla Cereda of Biffi highlights how consistent the proposals were with their respective maisons; Luigi D’Aniello describes a Milan full of energy and people, so much so that it reminded him of Design Week. Signals confirming that attention around Milanese fashion remains strong.

What emerges above all from the statements gathered by the trade press is a return to the reality of the store. Beppe Nugnes puts the garment and the client at the center: creativity and emotion must generate desire once the product reaches the boutique. Michele Franzese looks at the same point from another angle: the image attracts, but it is fabric, fit, workmanship and value for money that convince the customer.

Among the most appreciated collections, Prada stands out. Daniela Kraler sees the skirt as one of the strongest messages of the season; Federico Giglio credits Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons with consistency and new ideas on product, while Nugnes underlines their ability to make a familiar garment desirable again. D’Aniello considers it the most successful proposal in terms of concept, character and direction.

Praise also for Bottega Veneta, where a more concrete element appears: Cereda states that she intends to buy a lot from the maison, while Nugnes highlights the balance between craftsmanship, texture and lightness. It is not yet data on orders, but here appreciation is already accompanied by a commercial intention.

On Gucci, buyers express favorable opinions. Giglio sees a vision that Demna is progressively defining, Nugnes names Gucci as his favorite show, and Cereda includes it among the proposals that struck her most. These are their assessments and should be recorded as such. I have already expressed my own position on the maison’s new course: exaggerated proportions, extreme oversize, layering and reinterpretations of elements that already belong to Gucci’s history. My question therefore remains the same: beyond exasperation and reinterpretation, where is the new?

Fendi by Maria Grazia Chiuri convinces with its nod to the Seventies, its femininity and its balance between image, craftsmanship and product. Armani is appreciated for elegance and consistency, while Moschino and Max Mara win praise for their ability to reaffirm their presence. Among emerging designers, Franzese points to Francesco Murano and Marco Rambaldi, while reminding us that for a retailer creativity and quality must go hand in hand with production capacity, reliability and on-time delivery.

The picture coming out of Milan is therefore positive: audiences, attention, engaged buyers and greater concreteness. But it is precisely from these assessments that the question the market cares about arises: will this appreciation also translate into growth in orders compared with previous seasons?

Because appreciating and buying are not the same thing. In the first case, you recognize a collection’s potential; in the second, you commit budgets, choose quantities and take on commercial risk. At the moment we do not yet have an overall picture of Spring/Summer 2027 orders, especially international ones, while sales campaigns continue in the showrooms.

Fashion is creativity, image and communication, but it remains an industry. Buyers approve of Milan. Now all eyes turn to orders, to understand how much of this consensus will translate into market.

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

DOLCE&GABBANA SS27, WHEN MADE IN ITALY BECOMES STORYTELLING

26 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged Dolce&Gabbana, Domenico Dolce, italian fashion, lace, MADE IN ITALY, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Spring Summer 2027, SS27, Stefano Gabbana, womenswearLeave a comment

In a Milan Fashion Week marked by changes of creative direction, repositionings and new grammars, Dolce&Gabbana keeps doing something more difficult: remaining recognizable without standing still. The Spring/Summer 2027 collection starts again from a precise aesthetic heritage made of lace, lingerie, black and white, animal prints, statement jewelry, embellished denim, sheer fabrics, embroidery and tailoring. Codes that have long belonged to the work of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, but that are constantly reworked, without chasing the new at all costs and without losing that stylistic signature which, over forty years, has become instantly recognizable.

SS27 works a great deal on contrasts. Denim is ripped, embroidered and studded with appliqués until it becomes almost couture; white lace meets black lingerie; gingham, seemingly innocent, is pushed toward an openly declared sensuality; jewels, crosses, stones, embroidery and precious workmanship transform the surfaces and take them far from any apparent simplicity. There is no minimalism, and there could not be. Dolce&Gabbana works through accumulation, contrast and decoration, but behind this richness the construction remains precise: the dress, the jacket, the corset, the embroidery, the jewel and the bag all belong to the same story.

And this is where fashion becomes something bigger. I believe few brands have told the world about Italy with the same force as Dolce&Gabbana. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have traveled across the country, bringing collections, Alta Moda and presentations to the cities and places that best represent our beauty. Sicily remains one of the cardinal points of their imagination, but their Italian story is much broader. Inside Dolce&Gabbana there is food, there are markets, flowers, homes, architecture, territories, design, popular religious devotion and craftsmanship. There are lace and embroidery, tailoring and jewelry, handwork and that Italian ability to turn a craft into aesthetic culture.

The images that accompanied this collection before the show also went exactly in that direction: flowers, tomatoes, lace, photographs, jewels, historic interiors. Not simple decorative references, but fragments of an Italy transformed into image, fashion and communication. And this is where the title finds its meaning: for Dolce&Gabbana, Made in Italy is not just a place of origin, nor merely a certification of quality. It becomes storytelling. The storytelling of territories, crafts, traditions, beauty, manufacturing skill and culture.

At a time when many brands seem busy constantly redefining themselves, Dolce&Gabbana instead continues to know exactly where it comes from. This does not mean repeating the past. It means possessing enough creative material to transform it without denying it. For years Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have been building a narrative of Made in Italy capable of uniting tradition, craft and spectacle. And perhaps this is one of the most important achievements of their work: having made fashion a tool through which to tell the story of Italy.

That is why I continue to consider them among the greatest ambassadors of Italian beauty in the world.

Chapeau to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

GALLERY

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

GUCCI SS27: WHEN EXASPERATION BECOMES LANGUAGE

25 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged Demna, GUCCI, italian fashion, luxury fashion, menswear, MILAN FASHION WEEK, runway review, Spring Summer 2027, SS27, womenswearLeave a comment

I swear I watched this show several times, because I wanted to understand where Demna wanted to take Gucci. In the end I found a key, and it is very clear: exasperation. Everything is pushed to the limit – proportions, volumes, the body, the very way an image is built. Knitwear becomes enormous and is worn by very thin boys; jackets either widen until they deform the figure or become tight, dry, almost constricting. In menswear especially, the body seems constantly corrected, shifted, diminished, as if the silhouette had to lose its balance in order to gain an identity.

And this is exactly where my problem with this collection begins. Because to exasperate means to bring something to a maximum level of tension, and after tension there necessarily comes a breaking point. Here, instead, I have the feeling that this tension has become the very language of the house, a grammar made of excess, deformation, citation, provocation, archive and constant contrasts, without it ever becoming fully clear what the point of arrival is.

Gucci comes from a different culture. It comes from precision, from construction, from an almost obsessive attention to detail, from leather, from accessories, from the ability to make a jacket, a bag or a shoe desirable without necessarily turning them into a statement. Demna takes this heritage and forces it, stretches it, shifts it, brings it into his own world. His signature is visible, very much so. But precisely because it is so visible, the question becomes inevitable: how much of Gucci remains, and how much are we simply watching Demna applied to Gucci?

In menswear the doubt is even stronger. I see a very young male figure, built almost on a single type of physique and attitude. Targeting that audience is fine – it would be absurd to deny it – but Gucci does not sell only to twenty-year-olds. It also sells to men of forty, fifty, sixty, to a client who may want to be contemporary without turning into a character. And here I struggle to understand where that man has gone.

Then comes the “family”: the boy, the girlfriend, the mother, the aunt, the older lady. I fully understand the desire to tell the story of a transversal brand, capable of crossing generations, but I keep asking myself what the story really is. Because if the common thread is simply taking different eras, different codes, archive pieces, Nineties sensuality, Seventies elements, Eighties volumes and putting them back together by deforming them, then we are not looking at a new vision: we are looking at a continuous reworking of what we have already seen.

I remain puzzled by the womenswear too. Sensuality is part of Gucci’s history and no one questions it, but there is sexy and sexy. There is a sensuality built on proportion, on cut, on a body that is suggested, and there is another that constantly needs to show itself. Here the second path is often chosen. It is a precise choice, but it does not always become elegance, at least not for me.

And so I return to the question I have been asking myself for some time: what are they trying to do with Gucci? Because this is not a small independent label that can afford to turn every collection into an act of protest or a conceptual exercise. This is Gucci. It is a global brand, with a history, a market, clients, investors and an evident problem of desirability to rebuild.

Destroying everything to see what happens next can also be a creative strategy. In fashion it has happened many times, and sometimes it has worked. But destruction alone is not a project. At some point you also have to build something the public wants to desire, wear, buy and recognize as new.

GALLERY

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

FENDI SPRING SUMMER 2027 BY MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI

23 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged Alessandro Sicuro, FENDI, italian fashion, Karl Lagerfeld, Kim Jones, luxury fashion, Maria Grazia Chiuri, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Spring Summer 2027, SS27, womenswearLeave a comment

Today’s show was one of the appointments I was most looking forward to at this Milan Fashion Week. I wanted to understand where Maria Grazia Chiuri is taking Fendi after her return to the house and her debut last February. Having seen the collection, my impression is quite clear: I see a Fendi very different from the one we have known over the past decades. I may be wrong, of course, and it is still too early to tell where this path will lead, but the distance from some of the house’s historic codes seems evident to me.

To me, Fendi has always been material, color, fur, irony, sensuality, Rome. Over more than half a century Karl Lagerfeld built an extraordinarily powerful language; after him, Silvia Venturini Fendi and Kim Jones interpreted it in different ways, while keeping that thread recognizable. With Maria Grazia Chiuri I sense something different. Not necessarily better or worse: simply another register. Her debut had already shown a greater focus on silhouette, on volume and on an overall more measured image. Today that direction appears even clearer.

Chiuri brings much of her own way of thinking about fashion into Fendi: the relationship between body and garment, freedom of movement, less rigid constructions, the dialogue between masculine and feminine and, above all, the work of hands, of the atelier, of material. The clothes follow the body, sometimes revealing it, at other times wrapping it; volumes shift as the models walk, layering lightens the constructions and femininity is never declared too overtly. It is a collection seeking a balance between form and freedom.

But while watching the show I kept asking myself one question: is Maria Grazia Chiuri entering the world of Fendi, or is Fendi increasingly entering the world of Maria Grazia Chiuri? A creative director must leave their mark, otherwise there would be no point in entrusting them with a house. But Fendi has more than a hundred years of history and a very strong visual memory. It is not just a logo. It is a way of treating material, of using color, of shaping a woman, and even of playing with that particular Roman opulence that has always been part of its character.

Today’s collection has research, construction, craft and its own precise idea of a woman. That is not in question. Personally, though, in front of some looks, if I removed the Fendi name I would struggle to recognize the house right away. And this is exactly what makes Maria Grazia Chiuri’s journey interesting: seeing how far she will take this transformation, and how much of the codes we know will continue to live within the Fendi she is building.

Perhaps it is still too early to draw a conclusion. Today I clearly see Maria Grazia Chiuri’s hand. Now I want to see how that hand will manage to dialogue with Fendi’s identity.

GALLERY

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

VOGUE WORLD MILAN: THE FUTURE IS “MADE BY HAND”

23 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged BE Management, craftsmanship, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, handmade, italian fashion, MADE IN ITALY, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Vogue, Vogue World, Vogue World Milan 2026Leave a comment

Vogue World travels from one fashion capital to another. After New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles, it has arrived in Milan, in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. I have already written about the faces and encounters of the evening. Today I want to pause on the words chosen for this edition: Where The Future Is Made By The Hand. The future is made by hand.

To me it seems a simple and precise sentence. Because a garment begins with an idea, but it takes shape when someone chooses a fabric, draws a pattern, cuts, sews, fits, corrects. Sometimes unpicks the seams and starts again. The fashion we see on the runway is also born in those moments, far from the lights of the catwalk.

And it does not end in the workshop. Around a garment work seamstresses and tailors, pattern makers, embroiderers, textile companies and manufacturers. There are the designers who give it direction, the press that tells its story, the agents, the showrooms and the stores that bring it to the public. It is a network I also know through my work with B.E. Management. At the end of this journey there is a person who chooses to buy a garment: they often do not see all the hands that made it possible, but they are buying their work too.

For Italy, this supply chain has a value that goes beyond the beauty of the product. It keeps skills, businesses and industrial districts alive; it creates jobs and preserves a know-how that cannot be learned in a single season. That is why celebrating handmade craftsmanship in front of an international audience is an important gesture. The next step is to ensure that these crafts have continuity: workshops where people can learn, companies able to pass on experience, young people who can imagine their future there. You cannot ask children to carry on a craft if that craft offers them no prospects.

Last night Milan showed the world one of the most beautiful images of its fashion. The title chosen by Vogue stays with me because of what it asks us to do after the show: to look closely at those who build that future, one garment at a time.

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

PRADA, THE LAND OF WOMEN IN SKIRTS

23 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged FASHION, femininity, italian fashion, luxury fashion, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Miuccia Prada, PRADA, Raf Simons, runway review, skirts, Spring Summer 2027, womenswearLeave a comment

Looking at Prada’s new collection, one image came straight to mind: the land of women in skirts. Different women, different skirts, different ways of being feminine. And maybe that’s what struck me most about Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ collection.

For quite some time, I had the impression that in their work together femininity had been cooled down, at times almost played down, leaving plenty of room for research, for concept, and for that intellectual provocation that belongs so deeply to Prada. This time, though, I have to change my mind. Women are back at the center, and they return through a garment that seemed to have almost lost its place: the skirt.

They’re everywhere. Long, short, straight, full, sheer, embroidered, pleated, with deep slits, light or structured. It’s like truly stepping into this imaginary land of women in skirts, where there is no single way of being a woman. That’s where the collection gets interesting, because Prada doesn’t bring back the skirt to take us backward, nor to offer a predictable femininity. It uses the skirt to tell the stories of different women.

I also like the way the boyfriend element enters this universe, that masculine touch that deliberately interrupts the narrative: a looser shirt, a jacket, a proportion almost borrowed from his wardrobe. The result doesn’t cool the woman down. Quite the opposite. The contrast makes the skirt stand out even more, and with it the body, the movement, the sensuality.

Slits, sheer fabrics, and embroidery do the rest, without turning everything into a loud statement. The body appears, disappears, is left to be glimpsed. There is sensuality, but it doesn’t need to prove itself at every turn. And this may be where this collection convinces me more than others I’ve seen in recent years.

Of course, it’s still Prada, with its very own way of putting together things that seemingly shouldn’t go together. Colors, materials, proportions, deliberately odd details. Miuccia Prada has always had this talent: slipping in something that disturbs just when everything risks becoming too beautiful, too perfect, too predictable. Raf Simons brings his own vision into this language, and the result remains instantly recognizable.

But this time, walking through this land of women in skirts, I had a different feeling. I saw less distance and more body, less coldness and more femininity. Without nostalgia, and above all without going back to an outdated idea of women.

Perhaps this was exactly the shift I’d been waiting for from Prada.

The skirt is back. But above all, the woman who wears it is back.

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

VOGUE WORLD MILAN 2026: TONIGHT I SAW AN IMAGE I HAD IMAGINED COME TO LIFE

22 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged Fashion Show, Fashion Week 2026, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, italian fashion, MILAN, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Vogue, Vogue World, Vogue World Milan 2026Leave a comment

On September 4, while writing about Milan Fashion Week, I imagined a major fashion show taking place inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. I did so for a very simple reason: I believe it is one of Milan’s most powerful images, perhaps one of the locations that best embodies Italian fashion. The Galleria has beauty, history, architecture and a natural sense of theatre. It is Milan in one of its most recognizable forms.

That is why I created exactly that scene for the cover of the article. Tonight, watching Vogue World transform the Galleria into a spectacular stage for fashion, I immediately thought back to what I had written on September 4.

Of course, Vogue World had been conceived, planned and organized long before then. There is no connection between the two things. But seeing that same vision of Milan I had imagined a few weeks ago come to life — on an entirely different scale and at another level — was quite something.

And after seeing the Galleria tonight, I am even more convinced of one thing: this is one of the places in Milan where fashion should take to the runway.

Then the show began, and what moved me most was not simply seeing top models, actresses, actors, singers, dancers and athletes walk through one of Milan’s most beautiful landmarks. It was seeing alongside them the artisans, workers and people who represent that long and complex supply chain without which fashion simply could not exist. Behind every garment there are hands, skills, fabrics, workshops, pattern makers, seamstresses, technicians and companies.

There is an enormous world that normally remains behind the scenes, working every day so that this industry can continue to create beauty, culture, employment and value. Vogue World Milan had the merit of bringing that world into the spotlight as well, telling the story of Made in Italy through the relationship between human craftsmanship, industry, creativity and innovation.

Fashion is often described as superficial, even frivolous. Part of it certainly can be, but stopping there means failing to understand its language. The way we dress is also a way of communicating something about ourselves, of showing others how we choose to present ourselves and, sometimes, simply of making ourselves feel better. Clothes do not define who we are, but they can contribute to the way we choose to express it.

And then there is beauty — perhaps the word that has stayed with me more than any other tonight: the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the music, the dance, the models, the artists and, above all, the human work that makes all of this possible.

Yet perhaps never more than now should we remind ourselves just how precious and fragile all of this is. We are living through days in which words we thought belonged to history books have returned: war, borders, missiles, rearmament. Images reach us every day from every corner of the world, and we even risk becoming accustomed to them. Then, for one evening, beneath the glass vaults of Milan’s Galleria, something completely different passes before our eyes: people who have built, sewn, designed, sung, danced and performed.

People who have devoted time, intelligence and talent to creating something beautiful. It has taken generations to build culture, craftsmanship, knowledge, cities like Milan and industries such as Italian fashion.

Losing all of it, however, could take far less.

Perhaps that is also why the Galleria looked even more beautiful to me tonight.

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Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle

SEPTEMBER, FASHION RETURNS TO THE RUNWAY. BUT THE MARKET DEMANDS ANSWERS

4 September 20265 October 2026Posted in FashionTagged italian fashion, luxury fashion, MILAN FASHION WEEK, Spring Summer 2027, SS27Leave a comment

September has never been just about Fashion Week. It’s the moment when international fashion returns to the spotlight. More importantly, it’s when the gap between storytelling and actual sales gets measured.

The image I created for the cover is no accident. It’s deliberately descriptive. It illustrates this article, but also a personal wish: to finally see a real runway show in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, transformed into a space entirely dedicated to fashion.

New York, London, Milan and Paris will present their Spring/Summer 2027 collections. This reopens the long season of shows, presentations and events that captures the entire industry’s attention for weeks. But this time, the real interest won’t just be about what we’ll wear in six months. It will be about which brands still have a clear direction. And which ones are still trying to find it.

Because fashion, before being communication, remains product, business, distribution, margins and the ability to create desire. The runway can amplify all of this. But it cannot invent it. And that’s exactly where September gets interesting.

In recent years, we’ve seen constant changes in creative directions. Relaunches. Repositionings. High-visibility campaigns. An almost relentless production of images. Everything moves faster. But the market keeps reminding us of a simple rule: being visible doesn’t necessarily mean being desirable. And being desirable doesn’t automatically mean selling.

A collection’s success isn’t measured only by image impact or the volume of content it generates. It’s measured by its ability to restore coherence to the brand. Today’s consumer sees everything. Compares everything. Has access to information that didn’t exist just a few years ago. They figure out quickly when a brand’s story aligns with the product. And when communication is just compensating for a lack of identity.

That’s also why Fashion Weeks are changing function. They remain spectacle, image, relationship-building. But they’ve also become a public test of brand strategy. A new creative direction, a repositioning, an attempted relaunch—all are observed simultaneously by buyers, press, investors, clients and the public.

Milan, in this sense, remains one of the most interesting observatories. Its strength continues to lie in the intersection of creativity and industry. Behind the Italian runway exists a structure made of companies, supply chains, manufacturing, distribution and expertise. That’s why the question can’t just be whether a collection is beautiful. It must be whether it strengthens brand identity, generates a credible product and builds value over time.

Gucci will inevitably be one of the most watched. Demna’s arrival has opened a new chapter. The point won’t just be seeing what aesthetic he brings to the brand. It will be understanding whether this new identity can turn into desirability—and then into results. But Gucci is just the most visible case of a much broader phenomenon.

The constant movement of creative directors in recent years tells the story of a system seeking new balance. The designer remains central. But today that role operates within a much more complex structure. Creativity, product, market and management must work together. Changing a brand’s creative face is no longer enough to automatically change its destiny.

New York, London, Milan and Paris will naturally continue to represent four different fashion cultures. New York retains its ability to merge fashion, business and pop culture. London remains a laboratory where new languages often emerge. Milan continues to express the relationship between style and industry most clearly. Paris maintains the great symbolic and commercial power of international luxury.

But perhaps this year, it will be even more interesting to observe what they have in common.

All must confront the same problem: staying relevant in a market saturated with images and constantly bombarded by new messages. Communication has increased enormously. But precisely for this reason, attention has become more fragile. A show can dominate social media for twenty-four hours and disappear the next day. A collaboration can go viral without actually building value. A new creative director can generate plenty of curiosity. But curiosity is not yet brand loyalty.

Branding, ultimately, is measured afterward. When the show’s effect has faded. When the campaign is no longer new. When what remains is understanding what the consumer actually retained about the brand. That’s where identity, recognition and perceived value matter.

It’s also the principle I try to apply in my work. When I work with a brand, I’m not simply interested in increasing visibility. I focus on elevating the narrative. Enriching it. Imprinting it with personality and identity. Because storytelling, when intelligent, sophisticated and aligned with positioning, becomes one of the most effective forms of branding. It’s not just about getting people to talk about a brand. It’s about deciding how it enters the mind of those who observe it.

And perhaps that’s the most interesting point about September. Not so much what we’ll see on the runways. But what we’ll understand by watching them. Who is truly building a new phase. Who is just changing image. And who can still transform creativity and product into real desire.

Because today, a Fashion Week tells us much more than a season. It reveals the health of brands. And in some ways, the direction the entire fashion system is taking.

Discover more of Sara’s World

Sara Dal Monte

Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director

Los Angeles • Sure-Com America

saradalmontestyle.com
@saradalmontestyle