Fabrics and crafts take center stage in Milan with Neil Barrett, Federico Cina, Simon Cracker, Pronounce

This weekend, Milan Men's Fashion Week for Autumn/Winter 2024-25 showcased Italian craftsmanship and many designers' shared passion for fabric innovation, evident in the collections of artists such as Neil Barrett and Simone Simon Cracker Botte. , as well as emerging labels such as Federico Cina and Pronounce.

Neil Barrett effortlessly combined the purest British fashion heritage with contemporary Italian tailoring. The result was an attractive and well-thought-out men's wardrobe, with simple but never banal garments, beautifully made in fine wool and high-tech tweed. The British designer, who has lived in Italy for more than 30 years, has intelligently renewed the sober and functional minimalism that made his brand a success in the 90s.

He redesigned the essential basic elements of men's fashion, subtly modifying them giving them a fresh touch. In particular, she moved elements that are usually relegated to the sides or back to the front of some garments. For example, the generous twin pockets located on the front of a pair of jeans, ideal for putting your hands in and completely redefining your attitude.

Barrett also turned up the sleeves of some of the jackets slightly, making the rows of cuff buttons visible on the front, and did the same with the elbow patches, placing them a little lower on the forearms in an original twist. The back pleat on some shirts reached the front, adding a ruffled effect, while Barrett used plush, reversible fabrics to enhance some workwear items. The cardigans came in leather and felt.

“I used fabrics that give direction to the garments, as well as softness and some volume. “They are hybrid looks that allow me to create a new attitude, both country-casual and urban-formal, a kind of modern streetwear, for example in the sports jacket made with tweed, polyester and polyamide, with slightly puffed volumes,” Barrett. he told FashionNetwork.com backstage.

“Modernity meets tradition, as if a young man had rediscovered his grandfather's wardrobe and combined it with his own. “It is not a case of nostalgia, but of respect for traditional codes,” he added. Barrett used the diagonal side pockets of a pea-style jacket to add a new touch to a classic loden coat with square pockets, a long beige cashmere coat, and a leather jacket. He applied straps typical of hunting pants to enhance the cuffs of his leather gloves. And he replaced the leather button closures on a duffle coat with large padded nylon closures, revamping this men's fashion classic.

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Federico Cina has opted for a complete reboot this season, embarking on a similar type of in-depth fabric research. “We have worked with very high quality fabrics, especially recycled wool, thick cashmere yarn mixed with nylon, to achieve a rounded but ultra-light touch, and also alpaca and raw materials such as hemp,” says the Italian designer, who keeps his models behind a large whitish screen in the center of the stage.

“I wanted to clean everything up, simplify it, eliminate redundancies. I wondered how I could illustrate the changing stages of life and thought of fog, within which silhouettes gradually emerge and become increasingly clear,” she added.

Cina, a semi-finalist for the LVMH Prize in 2021, excels in all types of knitwear. She chose ribbed knit wool to pair with a pale green long coat and pants, and a cozy pastel pink skirt suit. Chunky knit sweaters featured a large zippered collar that protruded from the jacket or coat. Ultra-thin, sheer and form-fitting knitwear alternated with 3D embossed textured cardigans. She and she used brushed wool to produce sets in color gradations ranging from black to blue.

The rest of the collection consisted of monochromatic looks, most of them featuring tailoring pieces of unusual construction, such as asymmetrical jackets fastened on the sides using detachable buttons at the collar. Another novelty was the tortelino handbag, which reproduces the shape of the stuffed pasta typical of China's native Romagna. Federico Cina is distributed in the MDC showroom and is available in around thirty multi-brand retailers, of which 45% are outside Italy, in Asia, in the rest of Europe and in the United States.

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Textures and colors also took center stage in Simon Cracker's collection. This season, the brand abandoned its neo-punk aesthetic for a quieter path, with a soft-spoken collection themed around sleep. “It is a time for calm and reflection. Instead of putting on our usual subversive show, we silently protested, putting aside our punk style to create a new and fresh atmosphere,” said backstage Simone Botte, who founded the brand in 2010. From the beginning, she opted for fashion 100 % recycled. and after the pandemic, Filippo Biraghi joined him as brand coordinator.

Botte recycles everything, all types of unsold inventory and idle stock, including threads and shoes. He deconstructs jackets and other garments, then reassembles them in his own way, creating new silhouettes with raw edges and patchwork compositions with detachable strips of fabric held together with safety pins. “We sew the components together and then dye them with a colored powder from India, so each garment has a unique color,” she said. The collection, with its palette of bleached pink, peach, orange, green and purple hues, has a soft, faded feel.

The idea was to create a night atmosphere, like pearls creating the impression of frost on jackets and coats reminiscent of a frozen night. Or the glow of the full moon at night, the starry sky represented by a shower of bright stardust scattered randomly on garments. While the luminous glow of the moon was reproduced through brooches and oversized necklaces set with large white pearls.

For the prints on the denim and velvet items in the collection, Simon Cracker turned to British fashion and fabric designer Sue Clowes, known for the collection launched by Boy George in 1981. After the pandemic, Simon Cracker has had to rebuild an important part of your retail business. grid. It is now supported by the Garage showroom and distributed through around 15 multi-brand clients.

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Luxury fabrics and top-notch craftsmanship are the hallmarks of Pronounce, an Italian-Chinese brand founded in 2016 by Yushan Li, 35, and Jun Zhou, 33. Based between Milan and Shanghai and a regular at the Week of London Fashion, Pronounce paraded for the first time in Milan on Sunday, presenting a sophisticated collection.

The label is distributed through 25 multi-brand retailers worldwide. The collection featured a variety of classic Chinese costumes, such as uniforms and typical long tunics, reinterpreted with a contemporary couture perspective. The designer duo took inspiration from the flight of the butterfly for the coming winter, decorating clothing with swirls, arabesques and whirlwind motifs using silk and satin ribbons, leather strips and laces, applied to long coats, suits and cozy sweaters . The result was very geometric, with large textured trimming effects.