Brief encounters: short shorts in the spotlight at Gucci’s Milan menswear show | Milan fashion week
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Gird your loins. The main message from the Gucci menswear show held in Milan on Monday afternoon was that short shorts are sliding up the style charts for summer. Of the 46 looks shown, 41 featured shorts that hovered around the three- and five-inch inseam line. One model’s look even consisted of nothing more than a pair of smooth leather shorts in Gucci’s signature ‘Ancora Rosso’ oxblood color. In the first row, the Irish actor Paul Mezcal added to the mood wearing a soft striped cotton pair from the brand that could at first glance be mistaken for boxers.
Although Mezcal was announced as the Italian giant’s official ambassador last October, he has also become the unofficial face/legs of the short shorts trend. He was one of the first to throw micro shorts into the limelight when he was photographed around 2020 in a pair of his local GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) team, an Irish sports organization for which Mezcal previously played football. Since then, “summer of the hip” has become a popular hashtag on social media and now Gucci elevated the trend to haute couture.
Held at the Triennale Milano, a sprawling design and art museum in Lombardy, the show was the third men’s collection under Sabato de Sarno, who was appointed creative director in January 2023. Serena and Venus Williams along with De Sarno’s parents joined Mezcal in the front row, which consisted of individual lacquered and gherkin-colored box-shaped seats set against the backdrop of the Triennale’s vast literary section. The brand also invited 400 students from fashion and design schools in Milan to watch the show.
While his first two collections were firmly retooled after the maximalism of his predecessor, Alessandro Michele, De Sarno’s third menswear show for Gucci hinted that classic simplicity doesn’t always have to be so restrained. “This collection is about meetings – incontri – between the city and the beach and among people who love life. After all, it speaks of freedom,” the Naples-born designer wrote in his show notes.
On board his mood was William Finnegan’s autobiography Barbarian Days, which explores Finnegan’s lifelong love of surfing, in which he describes it as “not a sport but a path”. Shirts and matching shorts featured motifs of surfers riding the waves, while others were splashed with jumping bottlenose dolphins and hibiscus flowers. Jackets and polo shirts hand knitted with sequins or shimmering beads, the color of white and sea foam green, moved in an almost wavy fashion as the models walked the catwalk.
There were plenty of classic pieces too, like double-breasted suits, but stylish touches like a flash of a mesh top under a blazer gave them a modern rather than traditional feel. Accessories are a hot item at Gucci and are often the first purchase a customer will make. This time, the Gucci B, a cross-body bag featured in De Sarno’s first collection, has appeared in a miniature version, while pillowy soft handbags in Calippo orange and yellow will be catnip on social media. There were also sleek boots and moccasins with knife-sharp pointy toes along with molded scuba slippers – a spin on the mesh ballet flat trend that’s huge in womenswear.
Earlier in the day, Italian fashion doyen Giorgio Armani unveiled his latest collection at his sprawling headquarters in Milan, which includes a purpose-built show venue and exhibition space. This season, the catwalk was set against a sepia-toned video of waving palm fronds, a precursor to a collection that featured areca nut. One section was dedicated to loose-fitting t-shirts, shirts and trousers featuring soft-focus photographic prints of palm trees and leaves. Amani pioneered classic tailoring: pants with wide pleats that sat low on the hips were a nod to the early days of his eponymous label, which launched in 1975.
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In July, Armani will celebrate his 90th birthday. While his Italian counterparts, including Versace, were snapped up by luxury conglomerates, Armani remained the sole owner of his brand. In 2022, group revenue reached €2.35bn, with revenue rising 18% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023. In an interview with Bloomberg in April, Armani said: “Independence from large groups can still will be a driving value for the Armani Group in the future, but I don’t feel I can rule anything out.”
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