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Fashion Weeks, it is known, are highly anticipated annual recurrences of Milan’s major events calendar, during which the city becomes the absolute star of the international fashion scene.
After witnessing in July 2020 the first Digital Fashion Week in Milan, the this time phygital edition in September 2020 was the fashion industry ‘s first attempt to restart between in-person fashion shows and virtual events. The “hybrid” formula has also been reconfirmed for the two Weeks of 2021: the recent Men’s Fashion Week in January (punctuated by digital events and three live fashion shows, but strictly behind closed doors) and Milan Fashion Week Womens’s 2021 – MFW21, to be held from February 23 to March 1, 2021.
61 fashion shows and 57 presentations will enliven the calendar of the week-long presentation of the new Fall – Winter 2021/2022 Women’s Fashion Collections, among the events of the most internationally renowned designers and young emerging talents. The fashion shows and in-person events, however, will be only 15, with quota participation for insiders, journalists and buyers.
Much downsized compared to past years will, of necessity, also be the hustle and bustle that traditionally transforms the streets of Milan into a fashion catwalk, among models, stylists and actors from the fashion industry; designers, bloggers, fashion addicts, influencers and celebrities, who arrive in large numbers in the Italian Fashion Capital to participate in fashion shows, launch new trends and showcase the most eccentric looks. Similarly, the city will also have to forgo the usual myriad of glamorous events related to Fashion Week that enliven Milanese evenings, from exclusive after parties for insiders only, to collateral events put on by Milan’s coolest clubs, restaurants and event venues.
Milan Fashion Capital, between fashion shows and business events
Milan, along with Paris, London, and New York, is part of the so-called “Big Four,” or the four cities that have been recognized worldwide as international fashion capitals for decades, in which Fashion Weeks are held twice a year, featuring the world’s most famous fashion brands and during which fashion houses and designers present their collections to the public and dictate the season’s trends.
Indeed, Milan has always played a prominent role in the fashion world and is considered the fashion capital because of the number of Italian fashion houses it hosts, known worldwide for the highest quality of fabrics and products, design and Made in Italy. As well as standing out for its luxury shopping streets, fashion and design schools and academies, and influential fashion industry magazines.
Milan Fashion Week was founded in 1958 by the Chamber of Commerce, catapulting the Lombard capital among the fashion capitals of the world, and is now managed by the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, a nonprofit organization that regulates, coordinates and promotes the development of Italian fashion and is responsible for organizing fashion-related events in Milan.
For decades, Milan Fashion Week took place at the Fiera Milano headquarters on Via Gattamelata. Starting in 2010, the Fashion Hub was hosted by the Spazio Cavallerizze of the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology. In addition to the Spazio Cavallerizze, two other main venues have since been added: the Sala delle Cariatidi of the Palazzo Reale and the Visconti Pavilion of the Ansaldo Laboratories of the Teatro alla Scala in via Tortona.
In recent years, Fashion Week has increasingly become a widespread event, involving fashion venues scattered throughout the city (from Corso Venezia, to theArmani Silos in Via Tortona, to the Prada Foundation, to the Isola District, to Piazza Gae Aulenti) and beyond: in addition to the fashion shows, many other events, both public and private, are organized throughout Milan, including shows, night parties, exhibitions and corporate events.
In particular, for brands and companies in the fashion industry, Fashion Week is an indispensable moment to increase their notoriety, including through formats that abandon the traditional model of the fashion show in favor of a unique and distinctive presentation of their collections, in the context of unique locations rented to create temporary showrooms, sets for shootings, reviews, alternative fashion shows, exclusive events, business meetings and networking events.
Unique experiences among Milan’s shopping streets and fashion venues
If Fashion Weeks are the two moments of the year during which the international fashion spotlight is shone on Milan, the internationality and glamorous aura of the Milanese fashion system can be breathed all year round, and the combination of Milan and Fashion is an intrinsic distinctive character of the Lombard capital’s identity: everyone knows and loves Milan for its iconic prêt-à-porter shopping streets, from the world-famous Fashion Quadrilateral to Corso Buenos Aires, from Via Torino to beyond the Columns of San Lorenzo.
The Fashion Quadrilateral is the luxury shopping district par excellence, so named because it is bounded by four prestigious streets: via Montenapoleone, via Manzoni, via della Spiga and Corso Venezia. Not only international designer labels, but also culture and tradition: strolling through the elegant streets of the Quadrilatero, one encounters both new trendy spaces that house the most famous and well-known brands of haute couture and Made in Italy, and iconic historical palaces that are custodians of Milan’s history, such as the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum and Palazzo Morando, home of the Costume Moda Immagine Museum.
And for those who wish to delve deep into the beating heart behind the glitter of the shop windows, it is also possible to have the exclusive experience of visiting the showrooms, the historic workshops and the hidden ateliers scattered around the city, welcomed by the owners themselves or by the protagonists of the fashion industry who define styles and trends every year. In these places of fashion worship, one can indulge in a personal shopping experience guided by industry professionals, or witness live the making of a garment or a model trial session.
During Fashion Week,not only fashion and shopping, but also culture
Fashion Week is an event with a strong international appeal and represents a unique opportunity to appreciate Milan also as a city of art, culture and leisure tourism. Perhaps starting right from the most representative places of Milan’s fashion culture, such as Armani Silos, the temple of elegance and style of one of the absolute artists who brought Italian fashion to the world, or the aforementioned Palazzo Morando in the heart of the Fashion Quadrilateral: a visit to its elegant halls, amidst costumes of yesteryear and glimpses of the nineteenth-century city, is like strolling through the Milan of yesteryear.
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