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This year, Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) championed a new approach to its annual Milan graduate fashion show — showcasing creative collaboration at its core.
During Milan Fashion Week this September, students from the Milan campus of the fashion, arts and design school presented their fashion show, “Unstage”, at Galleria Lia Rumma contemporary art gallery. Among the guests were artist and entrepreneur Michèle Lamy — business partner, wife and longtime muse of Rick Owens — as well as professionals from across the broader fashion industry.
Lamy’s daughter, multimedia artist Scarlett Rouge, opened the show with a live performance that underscored the event’s immersive and multi-sensory experience.
Thirteen newly graduated IED Milano students then presented 50 looks as a collective body, instead of showcasing their collections consecutively, as is the traditional format at graduate runways. This approach was intended to eliminate competition between designers, instead promoting creative collaboration between students across courses and school departments.
Since opening in Milan in 1966, IED has been a leading hub for creativity, nurturing many of the fashion industry’s most influential talents. The institution’s alumni network includes Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Balenciaga, Maria Grazia Chiuri, chief creative officer of Fendi and former creative director of Dior, as well as luxury shoe designer Amina Muaddi.
IED now welcomes around 10,000 students on average per year to 11 campuses across Italy, Spain and Brazil. The school offers courses in multiple artistic disciplines, including fashion design, fashion marketing and communications, cinema and visual arts, and product and interior design.
To learn more about the school’s approach to creative collaboration and the creative vision behind the graduate fashion week show, BoF sits down with Danilo Venturi — director of IED Milano.
What inspired you to reimagine a graduate fashion show as a collective art performance rather than a traditional runway?
At IED, we believe that fashion is not just about aesthetics but about ethics — culture, ideas and relationships. In a graduate fashion show, there can often be a sense of rivalry between students, but we wanted to move beyond that and foster a collective vision through our fashion show.
We aimed for something more fluid, inclusive, collaborative and artistic. We wanted our students to work together on something that involved everyone in creating meaning and building a bridge.
How did you foster collaboration among students who might normally compete for individual recognition?
We select the students beforehand, considering compatibility and creative balance. Even when their ideas seem different at first, those differences often spark something unexpected that elevates the collections and brings energy to the stage.
There’s always a margin of uncertainty because we can’t predict how well the pairings will work. Although we try to group students who are likely to collaborate well, we also include those whose ideas might not seem to match at first. That contrast can bring a sense of surprise or “error”, which we actually welcome, because errors bring novelty. We don’t want the process — or the final result — to feel predictable or boring.
The show mirrors the school’s mission, which is to cultivate thoughtful, ethical and innovative designers capable of shaping the future of fashion.
Our goal is to accept and combine their diverse ideas while maintaining a sense of consistency. In the end, it has to look and feel like a collection. That requires negotiation and shared responsibility, because making a collection is not easy — and often requires long nights of consistent work.
What challenges did the students face in merging individual work into a collective body?
The challenges were the usual ones that come with working closely with others: someone working more than another, or someone showing up late — and the full range of behaviours that happen in any collaborative process.
In this case, the collaborative process reached beyond teamwork. As fashion shows are about aesthetics and identity, each student had to navigate their own creative vision while contributing to a shared one, which is an additional dimension of complexity.
Fortunately, from their time studying at IED, our students are well used to working collaboratively. They share a collective identity as IED students, which helps them understand how to align personal ambitions with a group vision. This is important because it mirrors what happens in the real world when they eventually join a brand and learn to create within its identity.
How did ‘Unstage’ reflect IED Milano’s teaching philosophy?
The show embodies the school’s approach to research and creativity. Our philosophy emphasises building bridges — between oneself and others, between different cultures, between past, present and imagined futures.
This approach also highlights the school’s emphasis on a worldly, forward-thinking perspective. Our students are the future leaders of fashion and the key themes they focus on reflect that. Diversity and the freedom to be diverse are central, alongside creativity, which only has value when placed in context.
Essentially, the show mirrors the school’s mission, which is to cultivate thoughtful, ethical and innovative designers capable of shaping the future of fashion.
How do you see presentations for graduate work evolving, to provide new opportunities to reach wider audiences?
I think graduate presentations are evolving with the new generation — and with the broader evolution of fashion itself. Today, experiences are far more hybrid, blending the physical and digital, the personal and collective, the depth of research and the surface of display. Instead of merely presenting garments, each experience now reflects the complexity of contemporary culture.
In our school, we see the graduate show less as an exam and more as a form of cultural production. The traditional exam format implies competition and evaluation, which we want to move beyond. What matters more is showing where students have arrived — their research, their growth, their personality and their creative voice.
Graduation, to me, isn’t about passing a test but about presenting an achievement, a body of work that marks a moment of transition. As educators, we can comment on technical aspects — yes, a seam could be better stitched — but we can’t truly judge the person behind the work. And fashion, at its core, is deeply personal.
What did the live art performance add to the staging of the show? How did that set the tone for the event?
The performer, Scarlett Rouge, brought emotion and a multi-sensory layer that went beyond what one would normally expect of a fashion show. She moved through the stage and engaged directly with the audience, which made the experience more alive and immersive — creating a bridge between art and fashion, body and space, identity and interaction.
The graduate show moves beyond rivalry and fosters a collective vision through a fashion show.
The setting itself also played an important role, particularly as an art gallery is not a space typically designed for fashion shows. When the performer was upstairs, we kept the lower floor empty. The audience could hear her voice from a distance, creating a sense of anticipation and curiosity.
In the end, that was the real point: to move beyond the predictability of a traditional runway. Instead of a show with a clear beginning and end, it became something more dynamic and alive, where anything might happen.
For the year ahead, what are the key industry themes your fashion students are focused on? How do you envision this shaping future events and activations?
Themes of freedom, community and creative longevity are what I believe will shape future fashion events. Such themes are already embedded in the students’ approach to design at IED. I also see new dimensions influencing fashion: art, AI and values from outside the industry entering the creative process, allowing fashion to express itself in multiple ways.
During the pandemic, I asked students to create collections using technology, including AI. They chose instead to wait until they could work by hand, reflecting a balance between new tools and traditional craft. This dual approach — embracing both innovation and tangible, hands-on work — will continue to define how students engage with their projects and future events.
I believe the role of a school is to cultivate consciousness, not just to train professionals. Schools shouldn’t just supply the industry with trained talent — they should challenge it. By fostering creativity, value and critical thinking from Gen Z, we can encourage the industry to evolve, introducing new perspectives and pushing it towards more meaningful, forward-thinking directions.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Istituto Europeo di Design as part of a BoF partnership.
