Here’s the Next Fall-Winter Menswear Trends, According to Milan FW

Held from Jan. 12 to 16, the latest fall and winter edition of Milan Fashion Week that has just passed presented a plethora of collections, setting the tone for 2024 menswear trends to come. From Sabato De Sarno opening with his first Gucci menswear runway to Stone Island returning to its Italian roots with the brand’s first-ever show in the nation’s fashion capital, Milan FW24 Men’s Fashion Week was one for the books.

Looking back at the best moments of Milan Fashion Week this FW24 season, here are a few menswear trends you might encounter in the year ahead.

Business Unusual

Toying with the typical corporate uniform, Prada taps into the supposed incongruence of office wear and man’s great yearning for a life beyond the cubicles through whimsical motifs and bright pops of colour, evocative of 1960s Mod décor. Set against a backdrop peppered with trimmings from mother nature, like the low babble of a creek that served as ambient noise and piles of fallen leaves along the venue’s grassy floor, Prada’s FW24 season broke away into the outdoors.

Also riffing from clothing designed for wearing outdoors, Neil Barrett garnered inspiration using military jackets, overcoats, and sharp trench coats. The collection interpolates classics rooted in British hunting fashion into minimal, business-ready versions that wouldn’t be out of place in either a boardroom or a road trip.

Printed, Please

These prints and illustrations are not for the shy. While the cutting and fabrics display calm comfort for the wearer, the images embedded into these garments are conversely, quite striking. Directly referencing Kubrick’s extravagantly indulgent final film, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999), JW Anderson incorporates reproductions of Christiane Kubrick’s artworks (barely perceptible as a part of the film’s interiors) onto jersey knits and illustrative sweaters that were either elongated to the ankles or paired with skimpy skin-baring shorts, transforming into moving canvases layered with a surrealistic quality.

Stationed in the Porta Venezia subway station, Massimo Giorgetti sinks into the subconscious through transposing photo prints onto flitting button-up shirts in his latest MSGM collection. Images featuring motion blurring and distorted shapes, captured with the Google Pixel phone, were then transposed onto the garments.

Glamour’s for the Guys

Last year was a dissonant one, whereby the seemingly opposing trends of quiet luxury and maximalism that served throwbacks to past eras of excess both held some footing in the public eye simultaneously. Perhaps it’s time they meet in the middle, and that was exactly the feat delivered at Milan’s FW Fashion Week this year. Sartorial flair and sleek, glistening fabrics were the subtle yet strong means of delivering a luxury that shines just that little bit brighter but never glaringly so.

Just by looking at Sabato De Sarno’s menswear debut as Gucci’s latest Creative Director, the collection is a far cry from the fashion house’s previous shows under Alessandro Michele. Though heavily trimmed down, the aspects of glamour firmly remain in the form of assertive, sweeping coats, satin neckties, monogrammed leather, and sequins. Dolce & Gabbana too has embraced stripping down to the brand’s foundations, culminating in fluid garments that gradually bleed out into clean-cut yet larger than life coats and beaded pieces.