MILAN — Call it Milan Tailored Week. Spring 2025 presentations staged here last week showed range on sartorial codes, from new proportions to sparkly embellishments. WWD rounded up seven takes on tailoring — one for every day of the week.
Brioni
When executive design director Norbert Stumpfl officially introduced the La Donna women’s line earlier this year, he said he wanted the Brioni men and women on the same level. He reiterated the concept at the brand’s spring presentation, which showed how he’s slowly opening up to more feminine textures and shapes rather than just readjusting men’s codes on a women’s fit.
The next-level fabrics the brand is known for — from light wools to high-end silk and crepe — were deployed to deliver lightness and movement in uncomplicated and roomy silhouettes, as seen in a silk trenchcoat, a caban jacket cut in a couture-like A-line or in the way Stumpfl opened the sides of a tailored coat for extra ease. Classic suits and blazer jackets had an effortless allure, but Stumpfl also experimented with bolero versions, whose graphic cropped proportions contrasted with the overall elongated silhouettes and marked “a big change for us,” as he put it.
Other eye-catching pieces included a statement black evening jacket covered in 8,000 small crystals hand-knotted with silk thread in a nod to the first gesture in garment-making. The technique was replicated in an extra-long cream tuxedo jacket that deserved to be on a red carpet.
Blazé Milano
Coolest-girls-in-town Corrada Rodriguez d’Acri, Delfina Pinardi and Maria Sole Torlonia, who have recently set down roots in Milan by opening their first flagship, further expanded their sartorial world for spring 2025. Hinging on natural colors spanning from butter and hazelnut to dusky pink and pops of coral, the lineup displayed both tailoring cut in new proportions and flowy separates — such as leopard printed frocks, slipdresses and fluid sarong-like skirts — which completed the looks while targeting warmer temperatures.
Highlights included the Shamo bolero jacket and matching Appaloosa miniskirt, both crafted from the Gipsy moth fabric for a raffia-reminiscent effect and resulting in a youthful total look that could work from day to night. The same cropped fit was rendered also in a version in a chocolate shade with white profiles that was utterly chic. Ditto for a standout suit covered in butter-hued sequins and featuring contrasting details to underline the collarless shape of the jacket and the brand’s signature half-moon-shaped Smiley pockets.
Kiton
Celebrating the first decade of presentations at Palazzo Kiton in Milan with an evening event, the mood was upbeat, as Maria Giovanna Paone, creative director of the womenswear division, continues to build the segment each season. For spring, she talked about the pleasure of traveling but also of coming home. In fact, Kiton’s Neapolitan tradition was there, with its perfectly tailored double-breasted suits, albeit softer on the body, blended with impressions picked up from the trips around the world, including the bold brush strokes on the soft silk obi-like sleeveless dress.
Massimo Alba
Massimo Alba, known for his soft colors, fabrics and tailoring, sees his clothes as ageless, timeless and trend-free, and wants people to “feel good, and at ease” in them. His latest collection featured a double-breasted linen peacoat in mellow cream, and a long and lightweight linen topcoat in a similar shade.
Alba argued the coat could work as easily on the beach — over a bathing suit — as over a summery dress. Other key looks from his collection included sheer, striped tops that could also work on the beach, and crinkly linen trousers in a variety of shades.
Eleventy
Eleventy continued to build its tailoring proposition around soft and laid-back silhouettes — the feminine suit coming in more formal single-breasted iterations paired with roomy, pleated pants and knit underpinnings or in inventive combinations of belted pants and sleeveless dusters, the latter a novelty alternative to blazers. Paired with a tonal silk blouse, a mauve pink double-breasted jacket added an intriguing spin to sartorial khaki pants, while versatile lightweight linen blazers were styled with casual cargo pants or over waistcoats in contrasting colors for a modern interpretation of the three-piece suit. The brand, which has just signed a men’s capsule collection for Holt Renfrew, worked to round off its womenswear proposition, currently generating between 25 and 30 percent of global sales, adding touches of Lurex to eveningwear designs, a developing category that included alluring slipdresses.
Sa Su Phi
At Sa Su Phi, founders Sara Ferrero and Susanna Cucco celebrated female leadership, “and all women who make the difference.” This empowerment does not exclude femininity as they showed fluid and soft dresses as well as deconstructed suits, with knitwear the common denominator on which the brand was first launched two years ago. The suit is a tool of self-expression in their view and it’s often worn with knits in cashmere or silk to offer a more relaxed look. Pants and skirts were made with menswear fabrics but nothing was constricting. Powerful can also be comfortable.
Slowear
Soft tailoring expert Slowear is building up its womenswear offer, which is now created in tandem with the menswear. The brand’s store in Forte dei Marmi, on the Tuscan coast, is one of the first to showcase both collections together. “It’s one world in one space,” said Piero Braga, chief executive officer of the brand.
Highlights included a pastel pink chore jacket, and a lineup of double-breasted jackets in traditional menswear weaves such as chalk stripe, herringbone and windowpane, worn with tailored shorts or trousers. There was more casual fare, too, in the form of cotton khaki and field jackets and a belted shantung style as easy as a dressing gown.