MSGM, Brioni, Setchu, David Koma and Yohji Yamamoto

In a hectic 24 hours in Milan, MSGM paid homage to the Med; Brioni unveiled some wow-factor fabrications; Setchu celebrated Samurais in Egypt; David Koma debuted men; and Corso Como feted Yohji Yamamoto.
 

MSGM: Mediterranean mode

No Italian designer does joie de vivre better than Massimo Giorgetti, whose latest collection for his brand MSGM was an ode to the sea.

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Specifically, the Mediterranean, on whose coast Massimo owns a beautiful seaside home. That Ligurian villa featuring in several great Photoshop print shorts for guys and windcheaters for gals in this co-ed show.
 
Remarkably, even though this is Milano Moda Uomo, all three opening shows this season have featured men’s and women’s looks.

Presented inside an east Milan warehouse, where extras threw buckles of paint onto white screens to create abstract expressionist daubs – in the same palette as the collection.
 
Floral and fauna print shorts; hibiscus pattern shirts; clinging knits embroidered with huge crabs or sweatshirts that read Not A Tourist. Upbeat and optimistic, and completely in synch with the MSGM DNA.
 
“The sea is where I grew up. There are lots of memories of my childhood in this collection – stripes, colors, waves, dolphins and even my house in Liguria. So it’s a reflection on what I want to see in the future, happiness, positivity and energy,” Massimo explained backstage.
 
In among the beach gear there was a neat selection of tailoring, with the iconic MSGM big pant and wide blazer suit in evidence. In this collection, Giorgetti also hooked up with Luke Edward Hall, the insouciant English illustrator to create some super youths-on-a-beach drawings seen in tank tops and cocktail party shirts.
 
Backed up by the classic dance track, ‘Kids’ by MGMT the whole show won huge applause for Giorgetti — one of Milan fashion’s most popular figures.
 

Brioni: Gents couture in a maze

It is hard to imagine a better high-end resource for modern gentlemanly tailoring than Brioni, where designer Norbert Stumpfl has become the most forward-thinking fabric inventor in menswear.

On Saturday, as drops of rain fell, he unveiled his startling new concepts inside a central city garden, wowing with most every look.
 
Other designers play with seersucker, Norbert takes that material somewhere very new, composing it in Japan, and over laying plaids and dark tartans, to supremely lightweight blazers and jerkins.
 
He cuts long trenches in silk crepes and composes languid suits in iridescent beige and rose silk, while silk membrane shirts looked almost made of liquid, as they slink underneath crocodile gilets.
 
For evening, he dreamed up almost completely transparent white dinner jackets with a plaid pattern woven in, while his mono-color tuxedo and matching shirt and bow tie in pale gray blue looked born for an Oscar winner’s red carpet. 
 
Though the knockout blow was a black silk shantung tuxedo from which sprouted hand finished bugle beads and whisps of silk thread. Men’s couture at its best.
 
A brilliant collection presented inside a green maze, and the only caveat. Brioni really needs to be seen on life models, not just on wooden mannequins.
 

David Koma: An edgy debut

David Koma, London’s king of bodycon sexy dressing, unveiled his first menswear collection Saturday, and it turned out to be a far edgier vision than his women’s wear.

Staged in a basement, kitted out with exercise machines, the collection felt very much like “me training my creative muscle. And helping my mental health,” Koma explained.
 
Distressed leather workerist double-breasted cabans; knits that looked deliberately moth eaten; or faded plaid shirts trimmed with feathers. Plumes flourished on leather biker jackets, wool blazers and military shirts. 
 
“Designing in a different way, as it’s the first time I could myself in my own clothes. And I was able to think of a circle of friends that I have and I realized I am really surrounded by quite artistic men,” added Koma, who teased in elements of his women’s collection from crystals to tech fabrics.
 
The Georgia-born, but London-based designer also riffed on his last woman’s collection was inspired by Pina Bausch and Candela Capitan, with clothes suggesting athleticism, movement and dance. Or on stage and off-stage pieces – like shaggy denim blousons and pants that rippled when you shook them.
 
“Women’s is for me pure fantasy. But menswear is super real for my friends. I kept asking myself how can I balance super high end with super normality. They are very different languages, but I think I nailed the balance,” concluded Koma, not a designer noted for self doubt.
 

Setchu: Satoshi’s subtle sartorial

No trip to Milan is complete without checking out Setchu, the coolest of cerebral brands and the brainchild of the 2023 LVMH Prize winner, Satoshi Kuwata.
 

“I can’t stand mood boards. They are just like decoration. I like to begin with an idea,” beamed Kuwata, who gently ripped a Milan taxi receipt to explain this season’s concept. Ripping to unfold, reveal and surprise in a great series of skillfully deconstructed coats and garments.
 
Though based in Milan, the Japanese born Kuwata often concentrates on Japanese fabrics, dimpled cottons, samurai stripes. Even whipping up some great new prints, riffing on images of Samurais standing before the Sphinx at Giza back in the 1860s.
 
“I was not born to make western clothes,” insisted Satoshi, politely gesturing at an editor’s double-breasted jacket.
 
Largely unisex – except for a few dresses – the collection was presented amid a lookbook shoot inside an exhibition space featuring artwork by Gio Marconi. It included one giant felt cockade, like that worn by Napoleon in his Egyptian campaign.
 
The ideal setting for this highly inventive designer, whose collections sell in the best of boutiques – from Dover Street Market to Antonia in Milan.
 
Above all, it was Satoshi’s astute modular ideas, where slits and drop shoulders can be reassembled that made this collection cool, commercial and flattering. Like the perfectly judged white linen suit with adjustable trousers worn by his LVMH mentor, Patou CEO, Sophie Bocart. The best dressed luxe executive in Milan this season.  

Yohji Yamamoto: Cool couture in Corso Como

In a major surprise Yohji Yamamoto agreed to an exhibition of his work in Corso Como this summer.
 
Like certain designers, Karl Lagerfeld for instance, Yohji never likes to look back. But he did in this installation of 25 brilliant creations, entitled

‘.
“I’m not afraid of time. I don’t care if it makes me old… I’m missing my rivals though. I lost them all over time, they were also friends, it feels lonely, but actually, the best rival you can have is yourself,” says Yohji in words written on a white wall.
 
Technically, Yamamoto is a ready-to-wear designer, but this mini retrospection makes clear to anyone with an eye in their head that Yohji is one of fashion’s half-dozen best couturiers these past 25 years.
 
Yamamoto is probably best known for avant-garde draping, which swaddles and protects women, which makes this exhibition such a revelation.
 
His defiant deconstruction; exquisite sense of unexpected proportion and crazy ability to twist materials make for looks of great gutsy romanticism.
 
Curated with smart understatement by Alessio de’ Navasques, the exhibition marks a new moment in the life of Corso Como after its acquisition by Tiziana Fausti, the noted Bergamo boutique owner.
 
Ranging a geometric felt origami coat dress dating from Fall/Winter 1996 to a series from his most recent show staged inside Paris’ City Hall, this is a must-see fashion statement, by a designer from fashion’s pantheon, who made his Paris runway debut four decades ago.
 
“The first looks date back to the mid-nineties, because before then there is not a huge archive. Yohji would literally burn old clothes. Talk about not looking back,” marvelled the curator.