Dolce & Gabbana, Emporio Armani and Neil Barrett interpret timelessness during Milan menswear shows

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MILAN (AP) — Menswear is looking for post-pandemic footing during Milan Fashion Week, landing somewhere between resort, adventurer and tailoring.

Dolce & Gabbana offered an interpretation of quiet luxury, reinventing masculine silhouettes with feminine tailoring tricks without the brand’s usual color and bling. Neil Barrett dipped into the archives for crisp, uniform looks that are timeless. MSGM offered adventure with an off-road collection inspired by African travels.

On the tailoring side, Ralph Lauren showed its high-end Purple line in its patrician Milan villa, focusing on made-in-Italy detailing for everyday luxury, including burnished footwear, unconstructed cotton-linen blend jackets, and chunky Fair Isle knitwear.

Margherita Maccapani Missoni chose the menswear shows to unveil her new brand, using her paternal Maccapani family name instead of the more familiar Missoni from mother Angela. Her women-focused Maccapani brand features easy to wear, form fitting clothes meant to accompany women throughout their day — a twist on the knitwear that made the Missoni family brand a household name.

Some highlights from shows Saturday on the second day of mostly menswear previews for Spring-Summer 2024.

DOLCE & GABBANA FEMINIZES MENSWEAR

Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana feminized the menswear silhouettes this season, with tailoring tricks long deployed in their women’s line.

The wide-ranging collection of nearly 80 looks was a departure for the designing duo in any season, a play on quiet luxury, a reinvention of timelessness, with the designer’s fancy coming through in the silhouettes. There were no prints, no color and no bling. Instead, the focus was on shape and materials, with a neutral color palette of black, white and camel and ivory.

Tops were ruched around the waist, creating a cummerbund effect but reminiscent of the duo’s provocative ruched dresses. Tunics featured chest-baring deep-Vs and long, trailing sleeves. A sheer organza top and pants were prettily decorated with floral appliques on the cuffs. Sheer panels gave an ephemeral touch over trousers. Wide satiny trousers were paired with a form fitting mock turtleneck, a look that would equally suit women.

A series of oversized tailored jackets summarized the tailoring, with hour-glass waistlines on long coats, ruched detailing on oversized puffers, deconstructed blazers with sheer panels and pillowy vests.

Booties and shoes that zipped up the back gave a futuristic edge to the looks, especially worn with ribbed long johns or briefs.

Dolce & Gabbana filled the front-row with musical talents including Machine Gun Kelly, Italy’s Blanco, South Korea’s Doyoung and Australian Luke Hemmings, each eliciting screams of adoration from fans as they arrived.

EMPORIO ARMANI’S TIMELESS MEDITATION

The new Emporio Armani collection was a meditation on timelessness, set against the backdrop of a large ginkgo leaf, itself a symbol of endurance.

The ginkgo, which the designer notes has endured for 250 million years, appears throughout the collection as a motif in jacquards, prints and as elegant golden jewelry.

The loose silhouette had hints of Asia and North Africa, in super wide-leg trousers, sleeveless tunic and robe jackets. The color palette was of blacks and creams, often with a sheen, so even black stands out against the nighttime background. The silhouette was loose and elongated, with deep V’s in silken tops or long knitwear jackets. Leafy cutouts created a lace-like effect on coats.

Giorgio Armani took a bow at the end of the show with Italian Olympic athletes, wearing the uniforms they will sport during next year’s Games in Paris.

MSGM MATURES

MSGM, at 13, is growing up.

Creative director and fashion house founder Massimo Giorgetti said backstage that the collection was inspired by a recent trip to Tanzania, specifically the hours just before sunrise, which he likened to the moment ‘’when you realize a desire to grow up, but remain youthful in the head.’’

Models — including some older men, in a brand-first — emerged through mist into a striated cavern beneath Milan’s main railroad tracks, as if from a cave into the African dawn. They were accompanied by rhythmic electronic music.

Giorgetti’s own iPhone vacation images became prints and motifs: a sunrise ombre on T-shirts and knitwear, frayed cotton recalling zebra prints but in monochrome tops or suits, striated eco-leathers imitating the geological formations on overcoats.

Silhouettes were grown up, with nary a sweatshirt. For the maturing MSGM audience there were oversized suits in jacquard earth tones or celeste blouses with big-pocketed cargo pants. Protective canvas hats snapped around the neck, creating a collar when not in use. Soft high top hiking boots, moccasins and loafers finished the looks, with jewelry of polished stone or raw amethyst.

NEIL BARRETT MINES ARCHIVES FOR “CORE CODES”

Neil Barrett returns to Milan with crisp, clean looks for the man who needs no help standing out.

“The beauty of today is that people are looking for real clothes again, and it is not just about jerseys, T-shirts and sweatshirts,” the designer said backstage.

The minimalist codes were easy to read, without being simplistic. Barrett took cues from uniforms, digging back into his archives going back two decades: shirts with simple epaulets, shorts with nearly invisible utility pockets and leather waders featured in his first runway show back in 2000.

Trousers are neatly creased. The white T-shirt is a layering element, giving a sense of order to the looks. The palette was of mostly monochrome neutrals, broken up by pinstripes, tight checks and a muted, leafy graphic print.

Barrett said that young consumers who have grown up on streetwear “are growing up, so collections have to evolve. It is fortunate for everyone who believes in true fashion and design.”

FEDERICO CINA’S ODE TO ROMAGNA

Federico Cina paid homage to his native Romagna with an artisanal co-ed collection, raw in materials and emotion, that recalled arid summers in farmers’ fields.

For Cina, the runway was a stage and the models performers: A topless man carrying a stack of empty crates opened the show, creating a notion of work.

Dresses fit the form to perfection, falling into complex, swishing skirts. Dresses at times felt purposely unfinished, knotted at the shoulders and along the hem. A macrame skirt for her and tunic top for him finished in long dramatic black and white fringe, fixed with wooden beads. Macrame bags and chunky knits had a homemade feel. Some garments were treated with peach color, as if clay from the ground.

The performance element continued with topless women in white trousers carrying thrushes of dry wheat, and naked man carrying in front of him a folded blanket.

Cina conceived the collection before deadly floods struck Romagna, a coastal region east of Bologna, this spring, making global headlines.

“After what happened it seemed a sign to give more value to the population to honor the population of Romagna for what happened, to bring a piece of them here,’’ Cina said backstage.

JORDANLUCA’S “POST-ANXIETY’ POSTURE

The designers behind the JordanLuca fashion house told their models to lean into their runway walks, and many did so aggressively, appearing nearly hunched.

“It is a silhouette against friction,’’ said designer Luca Marchetto, who launched the brand with partner Jordan Bowen five years ago.

Most of the looks appear made to party although there is a slight pretense of office wear, with ties worn askew, tucked through a sleeve tab. Shirts with double collars were worn under broad blazers, and short shorts fit for video meetings. For men, kilts were worn fetchingly under double-breasted coats, with pleats peeking out. Trousers, which were wide-legged and baggy, and shorts alike featured a curious horizontal zipper across the front.

The designers’ first womenswear collection featured midi-skirts with a mermaid silhouette finished with pleated kilting details, recalling the men’s looks. Dresses were fitted, in silk, lace and even latex.

The collection is for what the designers called our current “post-anxiety” phase. The runway show was cast against a red-lit background, a reference to lipstick as the one time-proven indulgence in hard times, as a show of dignity.

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