Vogue World Goes to Milan

A long long time ago in a textile powerhouse land of workshops and skilled artisans, fashion’s biggest names were birthed and raised to produce a gold mine of brilliant tailoring and bold sensuality. Milan built its reputation in the late 1970s, when Armani, Versace, and their peers turned Italian ready-to-wear into a global force, and behind them were the craftspeople who made it possible. Take Como's silk printers, Biella's wool mills, the leather workshops of Tuscany and the Veneto as examples. Even the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where Mario Prada opened his first shop in 1913, is essentially a monument to the idea that where something is made matters as much as who designed it.

So, Milan was a natural choice for this year's Vogue World, a tribute to the human hand in the age of AI. I watched the stream of this year’s runway while painting my nails. I sat down ready for silk, marble, and Italian extravagance. Instead, the first thing on my screen was an ad for Meta’s smart glasses. Turns out, the sponsors of the show included Meta and OpenAI. Hmmm…I checked the theme again to make sure I have it right – “Where the Future is Made by the Hand.” I looked down at my wet nails. Noted.

What is Vogue World?

Anna Wintour launched Vogue World in 2022 as a public, livestreamed runway show that moves to a new city each year. It has since visited London, Paris, and Hollywood, and it now rivals the Met Gala as fashion's biggest night. Celebrities walk alongside models, and the proceeds support arts organizations in each host city. From the Meatpacking District’s street fair runway to the Place Vendôme’s tribute to the Olympics, the show is a high-concept culmination of fashion’s greatest designers, faces, and ideas.

Milan's edition opened Fashion Week under the Galleria's glass dome. There was opera, which felt right with La Scala next door, along with ballet and Alicia Keys singing in Francesco Risso. J.Lo appeared, Vittoria Ceretti revisited her face-of-Italy role from the Winter Olympics, and Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol."

The show was opened by Gigi Hadid in a gold brocade Valentino gown made from recycled Venetian quilts. It encapsulated the night’s theme in a single garment, with old textiles rescued by hand and turned into couture. Prada, Armani, Versace, Ferragamo, and Gucci also contributed one-of-a-kind pieces, dressing faces like Aryna Sabalenka.

Levi McConaughey and Sam Slavin followed by dancing down the runway in grey suits as a nod to the Industrial Revolution. Italy has an incredibly rich industrial story with the Biella wool district and the development of mills into houses like Zegna. While the looks were classic and luxurious, this particular segment missed its opportunity to really capture the atmosphere of old Milan. It was almost a dystopian, Abnegation-esq take on Milan’s industrial scene. I am unsure how I feel about Faction chic.

The third segment was full of pieces as bold and colorful as a newsstand in the Roman sun. Cardi B arrived in a Versace dress printed with Vogue covers, draped in Tiffany & Co. on top. J.Lo dressed in black Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda Roma and opera gloves twirls beside tennis player Musetti. The energy of the models was that of the Italian diva, as inspired by Fellini, and injected with that good espresso. Around them, scenes of city life captured the novelty of Milanese culture, placing the glamour and craftsmanship of the show on real streets. I loved it. 

Following the Made in Italy tribute was the Age of Intelligence segment, opened by Machine Gun Kelly in an orange Byblos jumpsuit and Camper shoes. Around him were dancing machines that mimicked the movements of the models they accompanied. This was the only segment of the entire night where the human hand seems to have vanished. Italy already imagined the future gorgeously, notably since 1909. This was an entirely different future full of sustainable textiles in absurdly extraterrestrial form, and dancing robots? I had never really pictured Milan as the center where research, design, technology, and creativity converge – rather  it stands as one of the last jedi resisting the impending doom of SF and New York tech giants. It begs the question of whether this was the doing of the event's sponsors or a statement of the ever-evolving Italian fashion scene, now only emphasized by the growing concerns involving temperature and the demands of the environment.

The show concluded with a new term: The Imagination Revolution. Vogue has imagined, for its audience, a future that transcends time and place. Italy possesses a level of heritage and craftsmanship that is so innate and unreplicable. We have been taken through centuries of its fashion history and have now been asked to imagine what fashion might become next. We must speculate whether it will continue to nod back to its untouchable past, or will it adopt the extraterrestrial absurdity imagined by technology’s ominous presence?

The square I cannot seem to circle is that the entire show was a tribute to what AI cannot do, while being funded by the companies building AI. Fashion, of course, has always depended on patrons it disagrees with, but this … this was an especially visible example. Vogue World has become a massive profit driver for the publication as traditional print continues to decline. Star-studded, global spectacles are the way that Condé Nast maintains its ongoing market dominance to its designers and stakeholders. What this show made abundantly clear is that there is no doubt that craftsmanship still matters – no one is denying that their least favorite segment was that flooded by uncanny robo-models. However, attention seems to be paying fashion debt. 

I look back down at my nails after the grand finale and they're finally dry. Uneven, a little streaky, unmistakably done by hand. The future of my nails is the least of my concerns, but they do anchor me to my current place in time. Right now, a hand still did this. Maybe next year there will be a machine that paints nails flawlessly in thirty seconds, and maybe I'll even use it. But tonight, fashion's biggest night spent three hours reminding me that the imperfect version is the valuable one. The best parts of the show were unmistakably those produced by human creativity, and that still gives me hope. 

Xoxo,

Annie