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Our features editor spends 24 hours in the Italian fashion capital for Milan Fashion Week.
As we pulled off the runway at Linate Airport, the heavens opened. Great, I thought to myself, every time I come to Milan it rains! The northern Italian city has a reputation for two things: bad weather (fog in winter, rain in summer) and fashion. It seemed like I’d be experiencing both during my 24 hours here.
Fortunately, by the time I’d found a taxi outside the terminal, the rain had stopped. “You’re very lucky,” the taxi driver told me, thinking he meant about the sun breaking out from behind the rain clouds. “It’s impossible to get a taxi today.” Turns out the metro drivers were on strike and suddenly everyone in Milan was in need of a taxi.
Then, we got onto the topic of Milan Fashion Week. He asked me if I was here for it, to which I replied by asking how he knew. “Ah, everyone is here for fashion week!” he laughed. The taxi driver said it was causing chaos for him, because several roads in the Italian fashion capital had been closed off for the week, so the traffic through the city centre was especially bad.
But apart from the logistical headache, he seemed genuinely thrilled his hometown was hosting designers, editors and celebrities from across the world. Whilst we waited at a traffic light, he opened the cab’s glove compartment and proudly produced a copy of Vogue Italia. It’s a theme I would encounter a lot during my time here – people telling me how excited they are about fashion week. It’s not something that I’d necessarily felt in London the day before.
Once I’d checked into my hotel, Palazzo Viridis, which my taxi driver described as a “palace”, it was time for pizza. I’m sure there’s a magazine editor at fashion week that doesn’t eat carbs stereotype, but I was more than happy to dispel it. What’s more, I hadn’t come all the way to Milan to not eat pizza. Armed with an umbrella, the skies still looked unpredictable, I marched out of the hotel and settled into a chair of a nearby pizzeria. None of the waiters spoke English and I was surprised by how much Italian came back to me (and how much I’m yet to learn). I’m sure it was like a scene out of Emily in Paris, but they indulged me nonetheless.
A busy afternoon of shows awaited me, so after lunch I stopped at the newsstand on the piazza near the hotel, in search of the September issue of Vogue that everyone seemed to be carrying around the city with them. It was the kind of newsstand that is covered in magazines. The guy running the stall popped his head out of a small opening between a copy of Vogue and Vanity Fair. With my copy of Vogue, which felt almost as heavy as a phonebook, safely dropped off at the hotel, I had a brief walk down to the location of the shows.
We’d been invited to Milan Fashion Week by the Global Fashion Collective, an organisation that helps bring together designers from across the world to showcase their collections at fashion weeks in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and, of course, Milan. This afternoon’s shows were taking place in the cloisters of a 15th century convent, which had been converted into an event space and restaurant. We waited in one of the courtyards, before being let into what looked like could have been a chapel, where the shows were held.
The first show included collections from Tess Man Atelier, Kimono Dress Atelier Midori, KUBO SAN MADE and Lenifro x Fab Morvan. I had a couple of hours to spare before the evening’s show, so I walked down to the Duomo to take a picture of Milan’s most iconic landmark. Then I retreated back to the hotel for a bit of a sit down and a Google translate assisted read through Vogue Italia.
The second show was taking place at the same venue, showcasing the work of NOE BERNACELLI, TRIPLEROOT X Yun SongA, and SAGABOI. As well as the audience being captured by the work of these designers, an audience member bringing his cat to the show caught the attention of photographers and Instagramers alike. But the second show was perhaps equally memorable when a model had their white shirt covered in yellow, blue and red paint by another model.
I got talking to someone I was seated next to – a Canadian designer who had studied in Italy – and we went for a drink after the second show. Meeting new people is one of the things that I enjoy the most about fashion week. We asked the waiter three times if he was going to put some music on in the bar, to which he replied he was working on it. After three hours, the musical accompaniment never materialised, but the company more than made up for it.
Before I knew it, I was back at the airport the following morning and waiting for my flight back to London. Another thing I enjoy doing at fashion week is spotting who I describe as ‘fashion famous people’. Once, in the queue for the Eurostar on my way to the Haute Couture shows in Paris, I spotted a senior editor from British Vogue. This time, the passport queue at Linate Airport didn’t disappoint, when I spotted a fashion editor from one of the British newspapers. Both times I’d felt too shy to go up to them. Perhaps I need to make a resolution: speak to more fashion famous people next season.
Cover image features the SAGABOI runway show in Milan, courtesy of the Global Fashion Collective.
