The Trouble With Milan

The Trouble With Milan

This season the road from the airport lounge to the fashion runway has been particularly short. After the “36 Hour Race” through the London shows, we survived a hectic and hysterical “Fashion Weekend” in Milan, where the calendar of presentations had been collapsed into three days of overlapping shows, impossible delays and events that went way into the night without any breaks for lunch or a sit-down dinner.

“Heritage” was the key word of the weekend — or “maturity” as Suzy Menkes put it in a slightly positive light. It all started with a strong show by Miuccia Prada who shopped deep into her closet and came out with the contemporary version of all her favorite clothes but with new proportions and lots of new fabrics. It continued successfully though the weekend with motorcycle leathers and color at Versace, tailoring and Sicilian lace at Dolce & Gabbana, heavy patchwork and jacquard knitwear at Missoni, sexy animal prints at Cavalli and military camel coats at MaxMara. Not a revolution, but for sure a reasonable evolution toward a more mature understanding of what women need.

Alberto Pellaschiar/AP; Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters; Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images Max Mara coats, Cavalli prints and Misson knits.

But the question remains: Did the condensed calendar help or damage the Italian fashion system?

For sure it did not help the few young or small designers who ended up showing at weird times, and who were forced to scramble to get good models, hair and makeup. A few independent designers with solid businesses and codified style, like Ermanno Scervino and Antonio Marras, are managing to hang in there, but there was not much new talent on display and the scene was not international at all. Francesco Scognamiglio, Marco De Vincenzo, Gabriele Colangelo — all winners of the Vogue New Talent Contest — were some exceptions, but usually in Milan young designers are all at work already for the big companies and they remain assistants for a very long time, before running abroad to spread their wings in Paris (think Stefano Pilati and Riccardo Tisci).

I should say that Milan felt more active and upbeat then usual — maybe because the traffic was stopped for a day in an effort to control the pollution. A few exhibitions, on view in the city’s public galleries, were worth more than a quick drive-by, like the Edo Period show at the Palazzo Reale and the Garbo show at the Triennale. Still, after more than 20 years of dominating the fashion scene with humongous budgets for advertising and individual designers’ events, Milan has not been able to build a fashion museum with a real program or a contemporary art museum worthy of international attention. The life of the city remains provincial, and not in a good sense! I often wonder why tourists and business people like today’s Milan when the Milanese escape their hometown as often as possible!

Does Milan deserve more than a long weekend? Probably. But a lot has to change with or without a different fashion calendar.

The problem with international fashion weeks and their legitimacy is a larger one now that fashion moves so fast and is a full-on entertainment machine. Are biannual fashion shows really the way to present fashion when stores need new merchandise every week? When there are so many collections presented throughout the year, when fragrances and other accessories and products are so important to the life of the brand, what does it mean to run across the planet to see similar collections over and over again every six months?

Shouldn’t we rethink the whole system and have fewer fashion weeks and instead more showroom meetings with buyers and fashion market editors? Shouldn’t designers take more time to really work on ideas and to research new fabrics and shapes and show only when they are ready and have something new to say? Shouldn’t their marketing teams make better use of the budgets for what really is significant to the life of the brand?

This is not just a Milan problem but an international one. It is a good problem because it indicates that we are part of a growing process. Fashion has become more and more important in our culture, and it has to play a more significant role in shaping the future of it. But it does take time. Surely more than a weekend.