The Tamesis
Milan’s 2026 autumn and winter show is full of more freshness than usual. Demna’s first Gucci had a lot of throwback elements from the Tom Ford era, and you’ll notice that Kate Moss ended the show in a nostalgic sparkly thong in the back, while in the front she wore a smoky eye and nude lip combo from makeup artist Sam Visser. Then, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first show at Fendi carried a “Less I, More Us” message of solidarity, with hairstylist Guido Palau sending models down the catwalk in low ponytails, seemingly a nod to the brand’s former head, Karl Lagerfeld. An equally cool pony (this time tied up by hairstylist Tom Wright) walked the first Marni collection by Meryll Rogge, the Belgian designer who first described his vision for the brand’s muse as “strong and self-directed: someone with a career, a family, friends, a true love of art and culture,” Rogge told us. fashion magazine Tiziana Cardini demonstrated backstage the “wearability factor” she wanted to reflect.
Simone Bellotti’s second Jil Sander show was then celebrated. He describes his collection to Nicole Phelps FashionThe Run-Through podcast calls it “the olive in the martini, that extra something that makes the cocktail perfect.” The look above the neck was translated into a read-my-lips red mouth by makeup artist Lucia Pica, while Glenn Martens’ after-party Diesel show featured body glitter and neon-painted eyes by makeup artist Inge Grognard. A controlled messiness was welcomed this week: at Louis Trotter’s second Bottega Veneta show at the brand’s headquarters in San Fedele, Palau, models wore beanies to celebrate the beauty of a beautiful day. “Milan is a very Brutalist city,” Trotter told reporters backstage, with “a bit of hidden sensuality.”
here, Fashion Highlighting the beauty trends worth checking out:
A good day for bad hair
There is no such thing as a bad haircut at a Milan show. It started at Etro, where hairstylist Cyndia Harvey transformed stylist Marco de Vincenzo’s “kind of crazy” theme of throws and bangs into perfectly greased and tousled tangles. Hairstylist Franco Curletto made even the messiest bun from Marco Rambaldi’s show look cool, like Palau’s gorgeous hat hairstyle for Bottega Veneta. At Moschino, hair director and Kevin Murphy personal ambassador Eugene Souleiman created a “tongue-in-cheek” look. “It’s about the encounter of contradictory, sharp structures with soft, disintegrating movement,” explains Suleiman. “It was polished, but there was a little bit of unfinishedness.” For the “curls, we made it wild, big, almost a little bit witchy,” he says, while for the “rocker hair, we made it a little more messy. The shorter styles felt more masculine and shiny.” Using Kevin Murphy Staying Alive Mist as his signature wisps, the overall attitude was “elegant, emotional, and a little undone.”
High smoke point
From makeup artist Lucia Pieroni’s bold black line at Prada and Ferrari’s subtle smoky eye, to makeup artist Patrick Glatthaar’s darkly romantic Blumarine wings, and Yadim’s softly structured shadow at Boss, jet-black looks were everywhere on the runway. Yes, you’ll definitely recognize the naughty-era smoky eye and nude lip that Visser wore at Palazzo Delle Scintille for Demna’s Gucci debut. “I realized the importance of Gucci in Italian culture, that it was part of the entire oeuvre of Michelangelo, Botticelli and Donatello. So we built a museum for this exhibition,” Demner told Phelps of the past collection. “For my generation, his Gucci really brought sensuality into fashion,” Demna said of the Tom Ford era, which was when Moss first hit the runway with Pat McGrath’s original sexy makeup concept.
art party girl
As mentioned before, Milan is famous for its art, and the runways fittingly reflected the muses who went straight from art parties (or basement raves) to the catwalk. Sometimes she was a downright surrealist: To capture Antonio Marras’ fairy and snail themes, MAC lead artist Ricky Morandin brought the latter directly to the model’s brow bone. “I handcrafted two small trumpet-like elements consisting of a chrome rose and a wire reminiscent of a seashell spiral, placed on the forehead to evoke the snail’s antennae,” explains Morandin. Diesel once again applied abstract splatters of paint directly to the face, and makeup artist Inge Grognard used MAC Chromalines electric shades to capture Glenn Martens’ polychromatic vision (which Martens called a “vomit of color” during a pre-show presentation). FashionLuke Leitch tells the story of reimagining the morning after a perfect night of partying). “You obviously don’t have time to look in the mirror,” Martens said. “But when you walk down the street, you look incredibly sexy because you own it. You had a really great night and everything was great, so you’re sparkling from the inside out.”
low pony
Finally, the low ponytail is celebrated. We saw hints of this supreme ease in retro looks at New York Fashion Week, and Palau was soon cementing the style on more than one Milan runway. At Prada, his cool ponytail was tied with a silk scarf from the collection, or a bare elastic band, and he sported a similar look at Grazia Chiuri’s Fendi debut, which featured just as many shaggy floats. At Marni, hairstylist Tom Wright pulled back texture on models’ backs that seemed to float rather than fall, embodying Rogge’s vision for her first collection for the brand. “I’ve been a fan of Marni since I was a teenager; it really shaped the way I think about fashion,” she said backstage of the aforementioned “wearability factor” that she wanted to celebrate from the brand’s codes.
read my lips
The femme fatale’s glamorous red eyes that took New York shows by storm traveled to Italy and started walking. After all, we love statement lips that say what we’re really thinking. In Roberto Cavalli, Fausto Puglisi spoke of the world’s chaotic state: “I’m happy, but I’m also sad,” he told Phelps. “I’m sure you’ve read the same article.” Makeup artist Yadim applied a dark gothic lip to the Cavalli show, a visual nod to the dark clouds hovering over the world. At Jil Sander, Belloti’s martini flavor tried to liven things up, and makeup artist Lucia Pica transformed it into a neon red lip gloss that was much brighter than Dolce & Gabbana’s lip gloss (the brand’s own liquid lip gloss, a brick shade called Audacity). “I imagined how she felt after getting dressed,” said Ermanno Scervino FashionGiulia di Giamberadino Backstage at his show, some models walked with crimson lips painted on them. di Giampardino notes that it opens with Mina’s voice from “Sacumdì Sacumdà”: “One day the devil met me in the street and said, ‘Come, no one will see. I have everything you need.'”
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