4 Trend Takeaways From Milan Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2019

This week lands us in Milan, the home to iconic fashion houses like Gucci and Prada. The week started off with a bang, as Gucci kicked off Milan Fashion Week (MFW) with their highly anticipated collection inspired by Hannah Arendt’s philosophy and masquerades.

In retrospect, there were contrasting moods from MFW. Moschino’s show was more upbeat, featuring a game show inspired runway, complete with grand prizes of a sports car, a washer, and even a fridge. The mood at Fendi, however, was slighter sombre, as we saw the final collection led by Karl Lagerfeld posthumously. There was a short tribute to the iconic designer at the end of the show — his final bow as a fashion icon.

With that said, MFW was not short on new trends and great fashion.

As always, we took the best runway trends and analysed them against Omnilytics’ data to understand what’s trending for Fall/Winter 2019!

Theme: Angsty 90s’

From left: Versace, Prada, Bottega Veneta Source: Vogue.com

From grunge to cyberpunk, the 90s’ was the great era of angst. It was once cool to wear lots of black eyeliner and channel our inner goth.

For this season, the designers were clearly in a darker state-of-mind as they chose to take inspiration from goths, grunge and punk. The looks from Prada, Versace and Marni looked like a high fashion version of what Wednesday Addams would wear today.

Meanwhile, Tods, Bottega Veneta and Salvatore Ferragamo went down the goth route, with multiple full black leather looks ala the Matrix. Although the moto leather jacket is considered an evergreen item, we are seeing different iterations of the classic silhouette on the runway such as Bottega Veneta’s motocross inspired leather suit.

The chart below shows the stock movement of a leather hooded jacket by Prada sold on FarFetch. In a span of 1 month, the jacket went out-of-stock 4 times.

Stock movement of Prada’s leather hooded jacket on FarFetch.

Silhouette: Prim and Proper

From left: Fendi, Gucci, Max Mara. Source: Vogue.com

The Italians are world-renowned for their tailoring and they did not disappoint. Gucci, Fendi, MGSM, Etro and Alberta Ferretti focused on loud statement blazers with wide lapels while Salvatore Ferragamo, Max Mara and Sportmax stuck to full suits with some modern touches.

Net-a-porter data shows Gucci blazers are uptrending by 2.3%

The blazer seemed to be the way to go for the season, as our analysis from Men’s fashion week FW19 also saw an uptrend for blazers in global luxury retailers. Similarly, Gucci’s much-hyped collection this season heavily featured blazers and coats. Data from Net-a-porter shows Gucci’s jackets were uptrending by 2.3% in 2018.

Colour: 50 shades of Beige

From left: Jil Sander, Sportmax, Salvatore Ferragamo. Source: Vogue.com

All shades of beige were seen during MFW. From pale yellows to deep sand, the neutral shade dominated at Fendi, Max Mara, Alberta Ferretti, Jil Sander, Salvatore Ferragamo, №21 and Sportmax. Close to one-third of the looks presented at Fendi and Jil Sander was in beige tones.

Since the past few seasons, runway colour palettes were saturated with bolder hues when streetwear was the rage. However, recent collections across all fashion weeks proved that the hype for streetwear had slightly dissipated. A neutral colour palette serves as a cleanser after years of logomania and eye-popping streetwear.

The increased interest in beige indicated the shift towards a more mature idea of luxury fashion. MatchesFashion’s colour scheme for the second half of 2018 shows brown was the third colour with the largest SKU count behind black and white.

Colour Chart for Matches Fashion assortment.

Pattern: Psychedelic abstract

From left: Moschino, Roberto Cavalli, Missoni. Source: Vogue.com

While most of the crowd at MFW went for neutral minimalism, a few designers went full-out with prints and patterns. Roberto Cavalli, MGSM and Moschino had large abstract, block-coloured prints across their dresses and coats. Emporio Armani and Etro went paisley-crazy, giving us a folksy vibe with their collections.

Meanwhile, Missoni did different variations of multi-coloured geometric patterns as their main motif. This season’s collection featured a toned-down version of the brand’s signature pattern. Large horizontal stripes and 2 toned zig-zag patterns covered Missoni’s outwear, which was more subtle compared to their traditionally loud and busy prints. Their outerwear seemed to be a hit on Moda Operandi, as we saw the brand having a healthy total sellout of 88.3%.

Rounding up

The key takeaways?

• MFW Fall/Winter 2019 saw the great return of angst with Versace and Prada taking inspiration from goths and punks.
• On the opposite spectrum, we also saw great tailoring, especially with all the statement blazers seen at Gucci and Fendi.
• Some key colours associated with the tailoring were beige as neutrals dominated the runway this season.
• We also saw some loud and bold coloured prints at Missoni and Roberto Cavalli.

We created this trend analysis guided by real-time sales data so that we get the most comprehensive analysis — supported by fact.

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