If I love American working woman’s style, and Marc Jacobs’ grunge collection of the 1990s, and I do, then it comes as no surprise that I absolutely loved this year’s Milan Fashion Week and its (magnificent) focus on office wear grounded in street style. I saw elements of this style in all the shows I watched, and I feel as if Milan was marked by beautiful, creative chaos. It felt almost like a reinterpretation of the American working woman’s style, just in an Italian, elegant way.
This season confirmed something that has been building quietly: Milan is in a phase of field stabilization. After years of global turbulence, pandemic recalibrations, and leadership changes across houses, Milan appears to be consolidating rather than experimenting. From a Bourdieusian perspective, what we are seeing is the defense of institutional capital. Milan’s dominant houses are reinforcing their legitimacy through craft, lineage, and material excellence rather than spectacle.
Heritage as Structured Power
The gravitational centers of Milan remain houses such as Prada, Gucci, Fendi, and Giorgio Armani. What distinguishes Milan is that experimental designers orbit these houses rather than destabilize them.
Prada’s collection leaned into controlled severity, structured coats, disciplined tailoring, and silhouettes that felt almost pedagogical. Even when the proportion shifted, it did so within boundaries. The palette was slate, brown, muted metallics, grey, black, denim, you name it, Prada had it. Prada did not chase “quiet luxury” as a trend. It asserted intellectual authority. It was office style meets streetwear in an explosion of materials, shapes, and colors. Almost like creative chaos. I loved it!
Gucci’s recent years have been about rediscovering its center. This season felt like strategic grounding, less theatrical layering, more structured tailoring, clearer lines, and clean colors. Where once there was flamboyant maximalism, there was now composure. The house seems to be translating its archive into stability. In Bourdieusian terms, this is a shift from high symbolic volatility toward durable economic capital. The message is reassurance, and it was the close to the American working woman’s style, the Italian (elegant) way. There was also an element of casualness, such as a model stopping to check his phone, and of course, bags, bags, bags. However, I was not sure about models and the way they walked and appeared, and what the message of that was. Some users on YouTube said they looked as if they were coming back from three days of partying and that they looked rough. Maybe that was the point, to look fierce and independent in Gucci, but I am not sure it came across as much.
Fendi doubled down on material excellence, leather work, fur references, and tactile surfaces. Silhouettes were refined but not fragile. Fendi reminds the field that Milan’s power lies in making. Production capital is not hidden here. A lot of focus in Fendi’s collection was on office wear, signaling practicality while maintaining Italian elegance. I particularly loved skirts, which came in all shapes and colors. And of course, some slogans, because after all, it is Maria Grazia Chiuri. When she was with Dior, I always felt she was out of place, and while her silhouettes were beautiful, I did not always feel they were exactly Dior and match historical focus on femininity, nor did I feel that her interpretations of the Bar Suit were true to Dior. I always felt she would be better for Chanel, but Fendi works. It seems like she has found a good home with Fendi, and I hope she stays. I would love to see how she continues to reinterpret Fendi’s style.
Armani does not need reinvention because Armani already is the institutional model. Soft tailoring. Structured fluidity. A palette that avoids shouting. If Paris dramatizes transformation, Armani institutionalizes it. Armani’s collection was less about surprise and more about continuity, and continuity is power in an unstable field. As with other designers, there is an element of office style and streetwear here too, which minimizes the focus on the silhouette and redirects attention to style. I loved it!
Economic Capital Without Apology
Milan remains unapologetically commercial, but this is not a weakness. It is structural clarity. The city’s fashion identity is deeply entangled with its manufacturing networks. Unlike cities where the runway is primarily symbolic capital, Milan’s runway is directly linked to production infrastructure. The clothes shown are meant to exist beyond the runway. This season reinforced wearability without banality, investment silhouettes, and stability over volatility. In Bourdieusian terms, Milan prioritizes reproductive legitimacy. It reproduces the system rather than rupturing it.
At a moment when fashion globally is grappling with AI acceleration, micro-trend fatigue, and sustainability pressures, Milan appears to be asking a different question: What does durability look like in a destabilized field? The answer this season was controlled form, material excellence, heritage reinforcement, and strategic minimalism, along with streetwear meets office style, a theme running across main designer houses. This was not revolutionary or chaotic. It felt deliberate.
Thank you for reading!