Building a Wardrobe With Milan Men’s Fall 2025 Presentations
MILAN — With fewer runway shows than usual on their schedules, the fashion pack had more time to hop from one showroom to another and discover the collections of smaller brands. Here are some key pieces that might come in handy come fall to refresh a man’s wardrobe via smart basics with a twist.
The Must-have Crewneck Sweater: Altea
There’s a big difference between seeing Altea’s proposition and touching it. The brand’s images don’t do justice to its sophistication and top-notch quality, best expressed by its knitwear proposition.
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Favoring a laid-back and understated aesthetic, the brand charms IRL for its prime materials, fuzzy textures and color juxtapositions. The fall 2025 collection included handsome knitted basics in colorblocking or playing with different weaving techniques and gauges that can inject a fresh spin on a wardrobe with simplicity. The label has much to offer also in essential outerwear, relaxed tailoring, denim workwear and, from this season, for women, too.
At its Milan presentation, Altea teased its debut into womenswear with eight looks spotlighting the company’s expertise in knitwear but with a more decorative flair, with mohair, alpaca or cashmere pieces cut in more daring shapes or punctuated with sequins. They were a spoiler of a bigger collection to be presented during Milan Fashion Week next month. Until then, women can continue to quietly steal Altea’s knits from their male friends’ closets.
The Fancy Knit: Federico Cina
For men looking for a fancier touch, Federico Cina had a knit-centric approach in his personal fall 2025 collection, which marked a return to its poetic take on fashion. Trading a runway show for a poignant performance staged at Fondazione Sozzani, the designer paid tribute to his grandparents, imbuing a sense of familiarity and nostalgia in humble, everyday clothes, with cozy knitwear and deconstructed suits with raw-cuts taking the spotlight.
Soft textures, faded colored patterns and gentle proportions amplified the languid and rustic mood via a series of comfy cardigans and crewneck sweaters. As Cina paired them with washed-out denim and pleated pants — all cut in relaxed volumes — he showed they could add an arty-crafty vibe to everyday outfits.
The Leather Jacket: Valstar
Great outerwear marked the Valstar fall 2025 presentation. With a heightened focus on materials, the collection blended workwear and technical sportswear with the refinement of traditional fabrics and cutting-edge materials, such as the three-layer Tempesta waterproof fabric, water-repellent cotton and nylon blends, and combed wool with technical finishes.
Corduroy, wool felt, and wool-hemp twill added to the range, but if one had to walk away with just one item, let it be in leather. With their minimal shapes, sleek appeal and refined colors, jackets were the unfussy style choice to elevate any look.
The Varsity Jacket: 1989 Studio
A ‘70s preppy flair ran through the 1989 Studio fall collection, which was filled with corduroy varsity jackets, including one in sage green bearing a “Saturday Night” embroidery on the back in nods to the 1977 movie starring John Travolta. The Los Angeles-founded, Italy-based brand owned by the Folli Follie group since 2022 unveiled the first full lineup by newly minted creative director Pietro De Nardi, a seasoned designer with previous experiences at Stone Island, Zegna, Rossignol, Golden Goose, and Jeezy. Rooted in sportswear with “preppy and sexy touches,” as De Nardi characterized it, the lineup subtly took cues from the wardrobes of the decade’s style icons including Cassius Clay (later Muhammed Ali), Mick Jagger and John Lennon, among others. It included swaggering suits with fitted and elongated blazers and flared pants, as well as workwear-inspired hooded suede jackets lined in cashmere polar fleece or tracksuits in bonded wool or knitted.
The Corduroy Pants: Slowear
Big changes ahead at Slowear. The Italian company that groups specialists in every wardrobe segment such as Incotex, Zanone, Glanshirt and Montedoro, has kick-started a rebranding. It unified its different souls under the Slowear umbrella, in a quest to offer a more cohesive proposition and ultimately shift perception from excellent manufacturer of prime wardrobe builders to full-fledged international brand.
“It’s all about evolving from being the house of specialists to a brand,” confirmed Slowear’s chief executive officer Piero Braga. “It’s a little change in the label but for us it’s a big chance of pace,” he added, addressing also the creative approach going forward of conceiving collections not as the sum of different product categories but in a holistic way.
Also in light of this change and an expansive fall 2025 collection that displayed compelling total looks, it was no easy feat to identify only one key piece to invest in. The lineup ranged from modern takes on tailoring and outerwear — best expressed in the new “Primo” bomber jacket and a lightweight wool take on the Loden coat — to a smart capsule collection dubbed “Travel Pack” and conceived for turning packing a suitcase into child’s play via easy-to-match essentials, such as double-breasted jackets, overshirts, cargo and jogger pants all cut from the same fabric or rendered in the same color.
A standout part of the collection had an eco bent: delicate dyes made using natural powders extracted from minerals and sediments informed the manufacturing process of wardrobe basics and their charming subdued pastel colors. Pale pink-hued corduroy pants might not be the most obvious choice for men, but Slowear’s collection turned them into a highly covetable piece.
The Madras Shirt: Harmont & Blaine
In a season that has seen heritage plaids come to the fore, Harmont & Blaine offered its distinctive colorful interpretation with a range of checkered and madras shirts layered atop solid T-shirts in tonal nuances for its take on Italian, understated casualwear. They were paired with corduroy pants and chinos in both muted colors such as beige and brown and rich hues, including burgundy and pink. In keeping with the exploration of mannish fabrics, checks appeared on a midlength reversible coat with a herringbone pattern on the other side, contrasting with the abundance of floral jacquards, prints and embroideries on knits, shirts and denim, in sync with the collection’s “Winter Bloom” theme. The lineup included also the “Earth Dye” capsule collection for both men and women comprising leisure garments dyed using natural pigments. It is part of Harmont & Blaine’s tie-in with Treedom, the Italian B Corp company committed to reforestation, with which it has pledged to plant 500 trees in Ecuador.
The Suede Trenchcoat: Eleventy
Eleventy’s founder and menswear creative director Marco Baldassari was inspired by Milan for fall, explaining that the brand’s hometown fully represents its DNA style-wise. The mission is “to bring a Made-in-Italy with a strong Milanese accent around the world,” said Baldassari at the crowded presentation stage in the company’s expansive headquarters, and so far such an effort seems to have been fruitful. Baldassari said sales grew 35 percent last year and the company reached the 100-million-euro milestone, driven by its product and both wholesale and retail push.
The performance encouraged the designer to continue to expand the Eleventy assortment of wardrobe archetypes crafted in its signature neutral palette, integrating new garments in refined clay, blueberry, raspberry, cocoa and ultramarine colors. Highlights included cashmere Loden coats in essential proportions, chunky knits with a vintage feel or shearling lining and a suede trenchcoat that charmed with its relaxed yet polished look.
The Shearling Coat: Brett Johnson
In charting his vision of American luxe casualwear, Brett Johnson continued to deliver wardrobe-building pieces crafted from luxurious and high-quality materials, embedding a countryside chic vibe, courtesy of an inspiring trip to Tuscany, its autumnal palette of burgundies, forest greens and browns enhancing the collection’s warm look. Among a plethora of statement outerwear this season, the shearling coat — done in alpaca — came to the fore as an all-time classic to embrace, which Johnson presented in a mid-length suede version with 3D outlines for patch pockets and buttonholes. Shearling was also rendered in a hooded bomber jacket design and as a detail on the collar of deerskin leather flight jackets. The luxurious outerwear bonanza mingled with cashmere turtlenecks and zippered knitted polo shirts paired with tailored pants.
All Things Denim: Jacob Cohën
What’s a wardrobe without denim? For a refresher on the ultimate essential for any season, dial Jacob Cohën. A specialist in the field, the brand focused on its fabric of preference to offer indigo total looks and smart separates for fall, ranging from jackets, trenchcoats, shirts and tops in different washes and cuts. They added to items in soft suede and cashmere that introduced dove gray- and camel-shaded counterpoints to the collection.
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