This is a pertinent question for retailers and e-tailers that have long divided their floors and websites according to binary gender. They are already re-evaluating. As we walked into Gucci’s show on the outskirts of Milan on Saturday, I asked Linda Fargo — fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman and something of a cult leader when it comes to luxury women’s fashion in America — how the retailer is approaching gender-fluid looks.
“Well, we have a men’s store and a women’s store,” Fargo replied. “So we’re figuring it out because it’s very important to us.”
Beyond the gender fluidity, Milan delivered on the by-now-expected social media moments — from Diesel’s condom mountain to Sunnei’s crowd-surfing models.
But on the whole, the Autumn/Winter 2023 collections in Milan were an exercise in sombre apparel punctuated by explosions of colour. It might have been the year of war in Europe that crept into Italian designers’ minds while they were creating. Or perhaps their CEOs, after a difficult year, were whispering requests for sellable clothes.
Fendi set the tone early in the week when creative director Kim Jones dropped his sexy streetwear vibe for wearable, commercial clothing, much of it in finely tailored grey. Jones said he was inspired by what Fendi scion Delfina Delettrez wore to the office. The result is that there may be more non-Fendi-logo clothes available to people who can afford Fendi, where the tailoring has long been sublime.
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