The autumn/winter 2025 collections at Milan Men’s Fashion Week presented a striking blend of beauty and menace, reflecting a world of tension and exploration. Drawing inspiration from ancestral legacies, raw instincts, and cultural icons, designers wove a narrative that blended modern anxieties with historical references, resulting in collections that spoke to both creativity and conflict.
The atmosphere of Milan’s runways echoed the mood of contemporary society—a mixture of fragility and resilience. While the collections ventured into themes of “toxic masculinity” and deep-rooted social issues, they also explored the power of aesthetics as a form of resistance and expression. This juxtaposition created an undercurrent of unease, yet allowed space for poetic visions of fashion to emerge.
Qasimi: A Tribute to Ancestral History
Qasimi’s autumn/winter 2025 collection stood out for its collaboration with Maori artist Emily Karaka, whose work focuses on the struggles of land loss, political oppression, and ancestral history. The collection, drenched in hues of burnt orange, ochre, russet red, and blues, evoked the rugged landscapes of New Zealand. The show opened and closed with garments reminiscent of traditional Maori war cloaks, made from shaggy fibers that echoed the iconic Kahu kuri dog hair capes worn by Maori chiefs. These designs not only honored indigenous history but also offered a poignant commentary on heritage, culture, and resistance.
Dolce & Gabbana: Sicilian Elegance Meets Darker Undertones
Dolce & Gabbana’s autumn/winter collection for 2025 continued to explore the opulence of Sicilian culture, offering elegant evening wear and sophisticated tailoring. Yet, beneath the surface of classic beauty, there was a more sinister presence. Oversized long coats, trimmed with fur, carried the shadow of the Sicilian mafia’s notorious allure. Dolce & Gabbana’s signature style, deeply influenced by Italy’s history, was juxtaposed with this darker narrative, creating a collection that felt both glamorous and threatening.
Prada: The Disturbing Side of Americana
Prada’s autumn/winter 2025 collection, under the creative direction of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, delved into raw human instincts and the unsettling side of Americana. With painted cowboy boots and mohair garments that resembled human hair, the show was a contemplation of human nature’s darker impulses. Faux fur pelts, resembling hunting trophies, were draped over jackets, evoking images of primitive rituals and unsettling trophy hunting. The collection blended the beauty of texture and form with the unease of its materials, challenging the viewer to rethink the boundaries of fashion and its representation of nature’s rawness.
MSGM: A Hallucinatory Dive Into the 1990s and Early 2000s
MSGM’s designer Massimo Giorgetti took a different route, drawing inspiration from the surreal and rebellious films of the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Donnie Darko and Gummo. His collection emerged as a fever dream—a hallucinogenic landscape filled with oversized Fly agaric mushrooms. The garments, with thrift store coats, shrunken shorts, and heavy zip-sided boots, were a nod to the angst and rebellion of youth, evoking a sense of chaos, parallel worlds, and societal disintegration. Giorgetti’s approach was a vivid exploration of fantasy, combining fantasy with reality, and speaking to a generation’s sense of rebellion and dystopia.
Conclusion
The autumn/winter 2025 Milan Men’s Fashion Week collections reflect an urgent dialogue between beauty and menace, heritage and modernity. Designers have tapped into the collective consciousness of a world in turmoil, using fashion as a platform for commentary on societal pressures, political strife, and the human condition. While the fashion industry continues to evolve with new methods of presentation, these collections reveal the power of fashion to capture the spirit of the times, blending the old with the new, and offering an aesthetic expression of the tensions that define our present world.
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