Fashion’s Age of Uncertainty

Dear BoF Community,

There’s no easy way to say it. Italian fashion leaders are down in the dumps. The sharp downturn in luxury demand has hit hard — and there is little cause for optimism in the near term.

One by one, at a private breakfast organised by the Camera Nazionale Della Moda on Wednesday during Milan Fashion Week they listed out their worries to me.

“There is no more traffic in the stores.”

“The business is down in every market.”

“This is the worst I have seen since 2008 and we don’t know when it will end.”

Then, after the formal proceedings began with a welcome address by President Carlo Capasa, business leaders including OTB Group’s Renzo Rosso, Zegna Group’s Gildo Zegna and Max Mara’s Luigi Maramotti, implored the attending members of the press — I counted about 30 journalists — to be more positive in our coverage of Italy’s fashion sector. With the prospect that the Armani empire could be acquired by a French conglomerate, they wanted to be clear that Italian manufacturing, in particular, remains critical not just to Italian fashion, but to the sector globally.

It’s a fair point. “Made in Italy” labels are sewn into everything from Dior handbags to Ralph Lauren Purple Label cashmere sweaters, accounting for roughly half of global luxury goods production. But the prestige of Italian manufacturing has been seriously tested by a Milanese probe that’s found evidence of worker’s rights abuses in the supply chains of major fashion labels, including Armani, Dior, Valentino and Loro Piana.

Capasa and his colleagues insisted that these incidents reflect issues in only a tiny fraction of Italy’s fashion manufacturing base, but that hasn’t stopped the press and commentators on social media from taking the sector to task, presenting a serious challenge to the image of artisanal craftsmanship that the industry has so carefully constructed. And quite rightly.

It’s not the job of the media to sugarcoat what Milanese prosecutors have described as a system of exploitation “so entrenched and proven [that it could] be considered part of a broader business policy exclusively aimed at increasing profit.”

What organisers insisted was never intended to be a press conference, turned into an Q&A between industry leaders and journalists, and one of the most honest exchanges in fashion I have been a part of in a long time because it wasn’t scripted and PR-managed. We need more, not less of these kinds of conversations.

Luckily, there was still plenty to be positive about in Milan this past week:

1. Despite the heavy scepticism heaped upon the mononymous designer Demna when he was named creative director of Gucci earlier this year after a decade at Kering stablemate Balenciaga, the subversive Georgian succeeded in putting the troubled brand back in the fashion conversation — and bought himself some time — with a buzzy presentation-cum-film premiere in Milan on Tuesday night. For more on this and what Demna plans to do next, don’t miss Tim Blanks’ write-up of his two-hour lunch with the designer.

2. Simone Bellotti, who developed a cult following among top fashion editors during his short tenure at Bally, showed a reincarnation of pure minimalism at Jil Sander. Bellotti is shy and reserved, but backstage after the show, he seemed to be getting a bit more comfortable with all the attention. This will be a brand to watch — but let’s hope they can do something about the sky-high pricing that makes Jil Sander far too inaccessible for everyone who would like to wear it. Get to know the designer in this perceptive profile by Tim Blanks.

3. Prada staged a pulsating women’s show that was bursting with colour. After the show I caught up with Andrea Guerra, chief executive of Prada group, to talk through our upcoming conversation at BoF VOICES 2025, and he was feeling positively ebullient after the show, in spite of the challenging industry context. There was energy in the collection, he said, and there was also a new Prada logo! Did any of you spot it? You can read Angelo Flaccavento’s show report here and watch Susanna Lau’s backstage video with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons here.

Below, we have more coverage from an action-packed calendar in Milan on Friday, including:

1. A scoop about the innovative Milanese fashion brand Sunnei whose founders did a mock auction of their brand and then revealed exclusively to BoF that they are leaving the business.

2. Robert Williams was on the ground at Versace to take the pulse of how things are shaping up under new designer Dario Vitale just as Prada Group is readying to take over the brand.

3. Angelo Flaccavento’s take on Day Four of Milan Fashion Week, including Dario Vitale’s first outing for Versace, Tod’s and rising star Galib Gassanoff’s Institution.