Milan Fashion Week: Designers tackle global issues and project optimism

MILAN (AP) Without making an open statement, Milanese designers expressed their concern about global turbulence through their collections.

Miuccia Prada said she wanted to project optimism.

Because even if times are bad, I think it was the right thing to do,” she said backstage at the Prada show. She does not favor escapism. “Finally, I propose something positive, but I don't like escapism.

Not using the platform to comment on the state of the world would be “irresponsible”, said the creators of the Simon Cracker brand, born 14 years ago to contrast the dominant fashion system with upcycled collections.

They dedicated their collection, entitled “A Question of Principle”, to “child victims of questions of principle”.

Some highlights from the third day on Sunday of predominantly male previews for spring-summer 2025:

Prada projects optimism

The Prada men's collection plays with the idea of ​​imperfection. But nothing is as it seems.

Tops, jackets and hoodies appear shrunken, more than shortened. The overcoats have three-quarter sleeves. It’s a sort of inherited wardrobe, already lived in. Pleats are part of construction, as technical as a ply. Pointed shirt collars are held in the air by threads. The pants feature fake belts, low and below the waist. Belts are also present as decoration on bags, as if to close them.

Miuccia Prada, the brand's co-creative director with Raf Simons, said playing with the idea of ​​real versus fake “is very contemporary,” calling such details “an invitation to look more closely at the clothes.”

The neutral color palette is punctuated by feminine shades: a bright green cardigan, a floral blouse, a turquoise coat, which, according to the designers, suggest the wardrobe of a mother or grandmother. The pieces can be aligned with inverted triangle cutouts, to be superimposed.

“We wanted (the collection) to already feel alive, like the clothes you're already living with,” Simons said backstage.

Prada models emerged from a simple white cabin and descended into the showroom along a runway flanked by a white fence. The designers describe the setting as essential, utopian and youthful all at once.

“Here, youth is the hope, it is the future,” Prada said. “At this moment, we thought it was also relevant to encourage young people to think about our world.”

A world in knots at Simon Cracker

So many knots to untie in the world, so many knots holding together Simon Cracker's latest collection of mostly recycled clothing.

For Spring/Summer 2025, designers Filippo Biraghi and Simone Botte assembled their collection of recycled clothing scraps using laces and drawstrings to create skirts from tennis shirt inserts, dresses from knitwear and restructured jackets. Each piece is unique.

The “edgy” color palette of black, purple, sea blue and acid green was achieved through dyeing, with each material reacting differently to the process.

“It’s a way of telling what’s happening in the world, without being too explicit,” Biraghi said backstage. “It would be irresponsible not to be political right now.”

The name of the brand, created 14 years ago, means that something is broken and cracked in the fashion system. They embrace imperfection as part of the beauty of their designs, made from forgotten or discarded clothing and deadstock fabrics, this time including textiles from Italian sportswear brand Australian.

Australian, which is gaining ground with club audiences, has also created a capsule collection of neon black and technical clothing for Simon Cracker, its first production line. Doc Martens supplied the shoes, which the designers personalized with pins, badges and costume jewelry.

The Real Sleep of JW Anderson

JW Anderson's warm-weather men's and women's collection wraps the form in soft, spongy outerwear, a counterintuitive choice on a warming planet. The collection's motto, which appears on jackets, sweaters and T-shirts, Real Sleep, could be read as a recipe for coping with the real world.

The humorous collection played “with this idea of ​​miniature scale and maximum scale,” the Northern Irish designer said after the show. It opened with oversized quilted jackets and morphed into large balls of cashmere wool, each in triplicate.

On the miniature side, Anderson has recreated Georgian terraced houses and cottages on knit fronts, with intarsia doors and windows.

The soft sweatshirts seemed structural enough to cushion a fall. Large, colorful silk balloons like structures on mantles were deflated, as if to say that the world is too much. And if so, reassure yourself with a smiling pint of Guinness, the Irish stout is presented in a capsule collection with whimsical images from a last century knitwear advertising campaign.

Anderson said he was exploring “the idea of ​​permissiveness with clothing. This idea of ​​what we do best is storytelling.”