Milan Men’s Fashion Week Kicks Off: Luxury Brands Strategize

MILAN — Get customers into the store, pamper them, offer them unique experiences and build their trust.

That appears to be the mantra for fashion executives kicking off the year, as Milan Men’s Fashion Week opens on Friday. The fall 2025 menswear schedule looks slimmer this month, and fashion brands remain dogged by uncertainties such as China’s luxury slowdown and geopolitical instability around the world. This has led Carlo Capasa, head of the Italian chamber of fashion, to expect 2024 sales of the fashion and connected industries (including textiles, clothing, leather goods, footwear, jewelry, eyewear and cosmetics) to decrease 5.3 percent compared to 2023 to 96 billion euros. 

No matter, there are green shoots. A new HSBC report on LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton stated its analysts “remain convinced, for the sector as well as for LVMH, that Chinese consumption has not deteriorated further since third-quarter 2024, while American consumption of luxury has picked up convincingly since the early November 2024 election.”

In Milan, executives are showing resilience and focus, investing in particular in their store network and retail excellence — and the threat of the looming tariffs promised by President-elect Donald Trump don’t appear to be a major concern at the moment.

“As a group, 2024 was a year where we worked to reinforce the strength of our three brands — leveraging each brand’s uniqueness remaining very focused on our solid strategic growth pillars: brand equity, our one-of-a-kind Italian filiera [chain] and providing outstanding client experiences to further convey our legacy and authenticity,” said Gildo Zegna, chairman and chief executive officer of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, which controls the Zegna and Thom Browne brands, and produces and distributes Tom Ford Fashion.

The executive said the group “is moving toward an even greater direct-to-consumer approach, with the Zegna brand having already paved the way. We continue to see positive results from the DTC channel, in particular for the Zegna brand, and in important markets such as the U.S. and the Middle East. We know that 2025 will present some uncertainties, but we remain confident in the strong potential of our brands and the overall strength of the luxury goods sector,” he told WWD. 

As reported, in the nine months ended Sept. 30, group DTC revenues rose 10.2 percent to 953.6 million euros.

For years the Prada Group has invested in a long-term retail strategy, which has paid off and has been endorsed by CEO Andrea Guerra, who joined the company in 2023. Guerra has also been putting a strong focus on retail space productivity, like-for-like growth and pushing the teams to prioritize customer relationship management, or CRM, clienteling, and increased customer outreach.

As reported, the group in the first nine months of 2024 reported continued growth, propelled by strong retail sales in all geographic areas, including Asia-Pacific. Retail sales, which continue to contribute the bulk of revenues, showed an increase, up 4 percent to 2.53 billion euros. According to Guerra, key to growing like-for-like sales is working with Prada’s communities, expanding them, making sure that they find novelty in the stores, offering constant experiences. Investing in the client experience is a global focus, creating and maintaining a meaningful relationship with the brand’s customers. Prada’s new store openings will be representative of this strategy and retail culture throughout 2025.

A recent example is the unveiling of the new boutique in St. Moritz in December spanning two floors over a total area of about 4,320 square feet, housing the women’s and men’s collections as well as a special selection of accessories. In December, Prada also inaugurated a new boutique at ION Orchard, Singapore.

Covering almost 13,000 square feet, the space is defined by a curved glass facade, featuring the Prada triangle pattern, allowing a panoramic view of the internal space. It also features a Prada Caffè.

Robert Triefus, CEO of Stone Island, has been spearheading a streamlining of the brand’s wholesale channel, which before Moncler Group’s acquisition contributed to the bulk of sales, and is developing a network of directly operated stores. Aligned with this strategy, in the first nine months last year, Stone Island’s wholesale channel was down 22 percent to 156.7 million euros, while its direct channel grew by 26 percent to 135.7 million euros.

Stone Island will present its fall collection at the brand’s new Milan showroom in Via Tortona on Saturday. Asked to comment on the softer menswear schedule, Triefus said he believes “menswear is particularly strong at the moment as a category. I think that Milan will always have a very important place in both the calendars, but within the industry for menswear.”

Triefus also highlighted the fact that several foreign brands produce their menswear collections in Italy, “so [Milan] as a center of gravity, that’s never going to change. I think what happens is, and it happens in women’s fashion week as well, you get fluctuations of when designers want to do things,” citing the decisions of Gucci’s Sabato De Sarno and Valentino’s Alessando Michele to opt for coed shows.

“It can appear one season that things are getting thinner on the ground, but actually it can be just a phenomenon, whether anniversaries, or special moments, but I personally think the men’s category is as strong as it’s ever been.”

Asked about the potential impact of U.S. tariff increases, Triefus said: “We’ve seen [President-elect Donald] Trump in the past. You know they have that expression that a dog’s bark is worse than this bite. I think that he uses, as it were, the megaphone to create a little bit of a negotiating stance. My sense is that his focus is more on other sectors, to be honest, technology, automotive, those kind of sectors, rather than fashion and luxury.”

In December, Kiton opened its first directly operated store in Japan, a key development for the Italian brand, according to CEO Antonio De Matteis.

“This is a very important step for us, after we set up Kiton Japan last year,” he said.

Kiton is present in 75 markets globally and has a network of 60 stores. De Matteis said Kiton will close 2024 with a double-digit growth in sales, “more than 10 percent.” In the first nine months last year, revenues rose 14 percent. He forecast a “transitional 2025, yet still growing,” touting a “very positive” feedback to the brand’s pre-collection.

The year 2025 will see the restructuring of the New York headquarters and stores, which should be completed in early 2026, he said.

Based in Arzano, outside Naples, Kiton relies on five production centers in Italy and around 800 employees, of whom more than half are artisans. In addition to Arzano’s facilities, sportswear looks are made in nearby Caserta; outerwear in Parma; knitwear in Fidenza, and textiles in Biella.

In 2025, Brunello Cucinelli will open stores in Vancouver, at Macao’s Four Seasons, and in Abu Dhabi and will expand the Vienna and Geneva boutiques. It will also open a branch in Mexico.

Cucinelli was upbeat about the potential of the U.S. and China markets. He spoke from a position of strength, describing 2024 as “a truly enchanting and outstanding year” in light of his namesake company’s performance and confident that 2025 would not only bring additional growth but also “a rebalancing of luxury with more attention to fair prices, fair wages for workers and better service in stores.”

He urged a focus on “exclusivity, creativity, craftsmanship, innovation and contemporaneity,” which he believes are essential and what fuel the performance of his company and differentiates it from its competitors.

 In December, Cucinelli once again raised the company’s sales projections, expecting 2024 revenues to increase between 11 and 12 percent and trumpeting “an increasingly confident outlook” of a 10 percent increase in sales for 2025 and 2026. Preliminary 2024 sales reported earlier this week actually showed a 12.2 percent gain on 2023.

He added that “luxury will never go away. We think the propensity to buy in the higher range is unchanged, if not greater, for products of absolute luxury.” Conversely to many of his peers, for 2024 he forecast a 10 to 12 percent increase in China, a market that continues to improve, attributing the growth to the positioning of the brand, “the exclusive distribution within the country, the appreciation for the ready-to-wear offering of the highest craftsmanship and handiwork, and the taste of our collections, with the expectations and requests of local customers in line with our type of offering,” Cucinelli said.

Cucinelli was also confident in the strength of the Americas for the year. In 2024, sales in that region climbed 17.8 percent to 476.5 million euros, and Cucinelli said he was not worried about the threat of tariffs. President-elect Trump “will surely lead the country in a softer way compared to his stance during the campaign — which is often the case in politics — and he will not be alone, he will have to listen to other voices in his party. Mankind needs a new political, economic and moral order.”

Stefano Canali, president and CEO of Canali, was equally positive about the U.S.

“We have closed 2024, with a steady single-digit growth, driven largely by the strong performance of the North America market, which has more than offset the challenges posed by a slowdown in China. This contrast highlights the importance of a balanced yet focused strategy as we move into 2025, with North America continuing to play a pivotal role in our growth story.”

Canali said the “primary focus” remains on Greater China and on North America, “where our long-term partnerships with prestigious wholesale clients will allow us to increase the number of doors, reinforcing our position in what is undeniably our most important market. We remain hopeful that any discussions on tariffs and export duties under President[-elect] Trump’s administration will respect the long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship between our two countries.”

Coming up next, the company will debut its bistro Locanda Canali in Hong Kong, an evolution of its lifestyle store concept and expand into Wuhan. Also, a store in Beverly Hills will open soon, following recent openings in Seoul and Macau.

Regarding the slimmer fashion week calendar, Canali admitted this is “indeed a challenging moment for the luxury sector, and we understand why some smaller brands may scale back their presentations or why larger houses might opt for coed shows. However, we firmly believe in the importance of Milan’s dedicated menswear calendar. Despite this season’s reduced schedule, Canali remains committed to participating in what we consider the most significant platform for men’s fashion.”

Key for all brands is the need to protect the supply chain and foster the network of artisans in the country, continuing to invest in training. Cue Brioni, which is marking 80 years in business in 2025 and in November partnered with Roman fashion school Accademia Costume & Moda, whose famous alumni include Alessandro Michele and Frida Giannini, to launch the first Master Accademico di I Livello in Menswear Design.

Also, Brioni, which is controlled by Kering, in October unveiled the Nazareno Fonticoli School of Haute Tailoring, named after the master tailor, who cofounded Brioni with Gaetano Savini, the original fashion coordinator, and officially launched the Brioni Foundation. The school’s mission to educate the next generation of tailors enhances the close relationship of the company with the Penne and Abruzzo territory.

“Fine tailoring and savoir-faire are intrinsically linked to our history and our exceptional offering of timeless elegance, exquisite craftsmanship and personal touch,” said Brioni’s CEO, Mehdi Benabadji. “Investing in the training of young talents to continue this legacy is invaluable to Brioni. Our maison’s long-standing commitment to preserve and revitalize artisanal methods is one of our guiding principles and highlighted in our ‘Art of Slow Luxury’ Manifesto, which details Brioni’s intentional business model. We believe true luxury is meant to last and the promotion of in-house artisanry where overproduction is avoided and precious materials are valued has been our approach since Brioni was founded in 1945.”

Benabadji said the school “is symbolic of our dedication to create and grow the Abruzzo region’s sartorial know-how,” and that the goal is to “carry on the noble and valuable tradition of tailoring and craft to support the continuation of Made in Italy while also being an exciting part of modernizing and innovating these traditional methods.”