This July Milan Fashion Week will be going digital, moving from its traditional spot usually held in mid-June.
Officially named Milano Digital Fashion Week – July Issue, the online-only Italian Fashion Week follows in the footsteps of Shanghai Digital Fashion Week and Helsinki’s virtual Fashion Week held this past April and will follow London’s digital Fashion Week, which is scheduled for early June. The move to go digital is a way for fashion to combat the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has halted both the industry and the world.
Milan Fashion Week’s new digital format is intended to unite Italian fashion designers and promote their messages across virtual platforms. It will, of course, showcase Spring/Summer 2021 men’s collection’s and women’s and men’s pre-collections for Spring/Summer 2021. Additionally, some resort 2021 and ready-to-wear Spring 2021 collections will also be spotlighted for the first time.
“The idea of this digital Fashion Week is to have something a bit different from a normal Fashion Week. It’s something we thought of specially for the digital world,” Carlo Capasa, the president of the Camera della Moda, told Vogue. “It’s something very mixed. Everybody can decide their own message. The advantage is that in a digital world, you are completely free. You find your way of expression. We said to everybody, ‘You have from one minute to 15 minutes, and you decide what you want to show.”
Designers and brands will have free range on how they want their fashion show to look like. Some might opt for a filmed version of their show behind closed doors, while others might make a short fashion movie or offer backstage images of ad campaigns. Ermenegildo Zegna has already announced a combined physical-digital runway show resembling a more traditional experience, while other designers have remained tight-lipped.
Along with showcasing the seasonal collations, Milano Digital Fashion Week will also include virtual showrooms, panels, video content, backstage access, and interviews. The week will also be enriched with webinars delving into topics dedicated to fashion professionals, live streaming of keynote speeches with personalities of the industry, and live performances.
But don’t expect Milan Fashion Week to remain digital in the future. “This does not exclude the fact that in September we are going to have, we hope, an almost regular Fashion Week,” Capasa shared. He went on to state that some brands may even choose to show digitally in the summer and then add a physical show in the fall. “We have given freedom to each brand to decide and this is a sign of the times. It’s very difficult today to set a fixed strategy,” he stated. He went on to note that it’s “important for us to convey the message that fashion has not stopped.”
Milano Digital Fashion Week – July Issue will take place from July 14 to 17 and will be hosted via the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (the National Chamber of Italian Fashion)’s website and its various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Weibo, and YouTube.
The upcoming event acts as a continuation of the “China, we are with you” campaign, which allowed more than 25 million Chinese fashion fans, buyers, and media that were prevented from travelling to Milan this past February to follow Fashion Week digitally.
Additionally, keeping future fashion weeks digital could be a much-needed answer to the current sustainability and climate control crises.
