Twinset opens Milan Fashion Week with its first show

Milan Fashion Week opened on Tuesday with the Twinset show, as well as numerous parallel events, before getting down to business on Wednesday with the shows of the big houses. For the Italian women's ready-to-wear brand, founded in 1990, this was its first show. For the occasion, he brought together all the top models who have best embodied the brand over the last 34 years, from the Russian model Natasha Poly to the American model and actress Amber Valletta, without forgetting the Croatian Faretta and the German Franziska Jetzek. The only one missing was the Anglo-American actress Sienna Miller, brand ambassador since last summer, who has just given birth.

The result was a successful show that captured the quintessence of the house, mixing a bohemian-romantic spirit with a rocker style of biker boots and perfect, combined with long pleated dresses, maxi silk babydolls and lace bustier dresses, as well as satin dresses Gold lurex covers and curtains. Sometimes these vestal suits are enhanced with a male vest. Simple, but effective.

In the same spirit, the Twinset woman likes to combine leather pants with an off-the-shoulder sweater, a ruffled blouse or a small velvet jacket in a total black look or playing with the contrast of white and black. Lara Davies, creative director who replaced Simona Barbieri in 2018, who founded the brand with her husband, businessman Tiziano Sgarbi, chose a classic, neutral palette with some flashes of bright red and golden yellow. Embellishments and prints were banished from the collection, giving way to monochrome silhouettes.

Knitwear, the main business of the house, which has its own factory in Carpi, where it was founded and where one of the most important districts in Italy for this type of production is located, dominated the collection. For the autumn-winter 2024/25 season, Twinset worked with knitwear in all its forms and in the most diverse treatments. Like these sumptuous coats of curly wool or with fringes, which looked like fur.

Knitwear was everywhere and made up almost 70% of the wardrobe, produced on the company's own looms. You will find it in colorful sets, made up of minishorts and an ultra-soft polo shirt, but also in transparent lace dresses, or in endless asymmetric knit dresses that reveal one arm, in thick knit sweaters, adorned with wool ruffles, or transformed in the back into a fringed poncho. Even the shoulder bag was made from a twisted fabric.

With this show, Twinset hopes to mark a turning point and gain greater visibility, determined to continue its adventure on the catwalk, at least during the winter seasons, more in line with its knitwear-focused offering. “For us, it is a starting point. An important step to accelerate our international development. It is the right time to show, which comes after an important process of change and evolution to reposition Twinset towards a more contemporary, romantic style, with a beauty, High-quality and affordable product. We have been working on it for five years,” confesses general director Alessandro Varisco, who has been in charge since 2015.

“Twinset offers an alternative to luxury and there is an opportunity to seize in this segment of the market. With inflation on the rise, consumers are looking for a product with good value for money. Our average price is around 380 euros, with the jacket from leather made in Italy represents our highest price, 980 euros,” he points out.

In any case, the parade came at the right time for the Carlyle investment fund, which acquired a majority stake in Twinset in 2012, before increasing its stake to 100% in 2017, and which has been seeking to sell the company since 2020. . The American investor's Italian team was present in the front row of the show, along with representatives of other funds, such as Roberta Benaglia, who runs Style Capital. Alessandro Varisco confirms that the brand is for sale, but “at the moment there are no expressions of interest.”

At the time of its acquisition, the Italian brand recorded sales of 243.4 million euros (for the 2016 financial year). Three years later, in 2019, sales rose to 237 million euros, only to fall again to 160 million euros during the pandemic. “We have recovered and now we are above 200 million euros,” says the general director.

Twinset is distributed mainly in Europe, with Italy being its largest market, which continues to represent 50% of its total sales. Its main markets are Spain, Belgium, Russia and France, where it has three boutiques and two shop-in-shops, and plans to open three more, two of them in Paris. In total, the brand has 102 stores, which should reach 107 by the end of 2024, with the goal of reaching 150 in five years.

On its opening day, Milan Fashion Week also stood out with other initiatives. LVMH's Crafts of Excellence division launched the second edition of its “Premio Maestri d'Eccellenza” (“Masters of Excellence Award” in French) to promote Made in Italy skills among younger generations. For its part, the Italian Chamber of Fashion (CNMI) inaugurated its Fashion Hub, open to the public, at the Palazzo Giureconsulti, where numerous projects and creations by young designers were presented.

Another unique event was that of the Italian designer Sara Battaglia, who, with the support of Wolford and Kering Eyewear, organized a flash mob in the center of Milan, appearing alongside fifteen models dressed just like her in red tights and a shirt. oversized white. with red collar. “I wanted to use fashion to denounce violence against women, so I launched this project with the anti-violence center DrittoFilo,” she tells us. The t-shirts, called “Red Collar”, were made by women who live in the center and are victims of domestic violence. They are now for sale, providing them with a job opportunity that will allow them to regain their independence.

The day ended with a fashion show by Maison Yoshiki Paris, the brand owned by the Japanese artist and musician Yoshiki, who was in Milan for the first time.