What to Watch: Italian Fashion Brands Set to Celebrate Landmark Anniversaries in 2025
MILAN — Break out the Champagne: The year 2025 is shaping up to be one of celebration for several major Italian fashion brands.
The anniversaries will not only lead to dedicated initiatives — they are also impacting the Milan Fashion Week calendars. For example, Fendi and Dsquared2 will sit out the menswear fall 2025 collections this month, opting for coed shows in February.
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Fendi will celebrate its centennial as questions swirl around the future of its womenswear division, following the exit of Kim Jones in October. The British designer, whose title at Fendi was artistic director of haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections for women, stepped down after four years. Silvia Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and menswear collections, is for now leading the overall design effort for men’s and women’s. A new creative organization has not been revealed yet as speculation swirls around names ranging from Pierpaolo Piccioli and John Galliano to Maria Grazia Chiuri.
Also a new flagship, Palazzo Fendi, is slated to open in Milan in 2025 after extensive renovation of the building, which is located on Via Montenapoleone at the corner of Corso Matteotti.
Dsquared2, which has embraced the coed format for a few seasons, will exceptionally switch the timing in order to mark its 30th anniversary, moving from the Milan’s men’s schedule to the women’s one.
After turning 90 last year, Giorgio Armani will celebrate 50 years of his namesake company in 2025. In October, Armani told WWD that he was “still thinking about how to mark the 50th anniversary. It’s a significant milestone, but I’m not one for fanfare, so it will be something subtle. For now, I’m focused on New York, which is already a major, meaningful event for me.” The designer was referring to the spring 2025 collection he unveiled at the Park Avenue Armory in front of 650 guests in October, and the opening of his company’s new building at 760 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, completed in partnership with SL Green Realty Corp., the city’s leading office landlord.
The building was entirely redesigned to include residential units, the new Giorgio Armani and Armani/Casa boutiques, and an Armani/Ristorante.
Menswear brand Brioni, controlled by Kering, will celebrate 80 years in 2025 and in the fall it planted the seeds of key activities, opening, for example, the Nazareno Fonticoli School of Haute Tailoring, named after the master tailor who cofounded Brioni with Gaetano Savini.
It has also officially launched the Brioni Foundation, and both underscore the long-standing commitment to safeguard and strengthen craftsmanship in Penne and Italy’s Abruzzo region where the company is based. Along with Accademia Costume & Moda (ACM), the Roman fashion school whose famous alumni include Alessandro Michele and Frida Giannini, in November Brioni launched the first Master in Menswear Design degree.
K-Way will celebrate its 60th anniversary with the arrival of a new shareholder, Permira Growth Opportunities II, which in October agreed to buy a 40 percent stake in the French premium outerwear brand from BasicNet, led by the Boglione family.
There are other companies set to mark major milestones this year but that have not yet disclosed their plans. Italy’s department store Rinascente will be 160 years old, while Swarovski is marking 140 years in business. Additionally, Yoox was founded in 2015, Valentino in 1960, and Roberto Cavalli in 1970.
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