The summer fashion season opened in Florence on Monday with Pitti Immagine Uomo while in Caserta (in the splendid Royal Palace) Max Mara’s Resort 2026 paraded.
Fashion is vision and feeling but also business and bet.
For the TAKE10 column, we have selected the 10 best collections of the last 20 years. The collections that broke the mold, got discussed, revolutionized, launched trends and designers, sold.
Iconic collections (and shows) that have influenced and marked the market and the sector in the following years.
10 – JW ANDERSON
What? Fall 2016 – Woman
When? Feb 21, 2015
Why? Abstractionism and Surrealism adapt to an exquisitely ready-to-wear collection in which female shapes are enhanced by tailored cuts.
It is the consecration collection, the one that projects English talent Jonathan Anderson into the Olympus of the best new generation designers.
9 – CALVIN KLEIN
What? Fall 2018 – Woman & Man
When? Feb 14, 2018
Why? It is the third and final collection that sees the Belgian designer Raf Simons at the helm of the iconic brand of the USA (and of the 90s).
It is the most complete, highest collection resulting from what we can define as a controversial and comprehensive collaboration.
The American spirit is shaped and redefined in workwear uniforms that become epochal Museum of Fashion and Costume pieces.
8 – GIVENCHY
What? Fall 2012 – Man
When? Jan 20, 2012
Why? The atmosphere is post-apocalyptic and this is probably the outsider collection in our ranking.
But we couldn’t help but tell it. Riccardo Tisci, at the helm of the Parisian Maison, rewrites the codes of menswear.
Red, gray and black dominate a concrete collection where streetwear for the first time embraced tradition in a grunge mood.
7 – JEAN PAUL GAULTIER
What? Spring 2022 – Couture
When? Jan 26, 2022
Why? Before Duran Lantink‘s very recent appointment as creative director, the Jean Paul Gaultier brand collaborated with eight different designers on the creation of Couture collections (since its founder left the helm at the end of 2020).
The collaboration with Glenn Martens is, without a doubt, the most successful.
It’s memorable.
The designer of Belgian origin decisively appropriates Gaultier’s aesthetics and casually distorts its characteristics without distorting it.
It is a sexy, edgy, thoughtful, decisive collection.
6 – VETEMENTS
What? Fall 2015 – Woman & Man
When? Mar 05, 2015
Why? As someone said at the time, VETEMENTS is a shock.
It’s an injection of adrenaline to the soporific Paris Fashion Week of that year.
With its third collection, the brand led by the Gvasalia brothers confirms itself as a generation-breaking phenomenon.
They rewrite the rules of beauty.
Clubbing culture makes love with fashion. The volumes are exaggerated, vintage becomes luxury, the boy next to you at the bar the night before walks the catwalk. And Demna flies.
5 – PRADA
What? Fall 2015 – Man
When? Jan 18, 2015
Why? At a time when the race for excess seems to destroy the age-old rules of style and good taste, Miuccia stops, takes a step back and creates a rational collection, apparently counter-current.
The colorful prints that have always made Prada famous throughout the world have given way to black which is a cohesive common thread and a witty aesthetic warning.
It is an abrasive collection, with clean cuts. It is the Nylon Collection whose splendid fruits the brand still reaps today.
4 – BALENCIAGA
What? Fall 2021 – Couture
When? Jul 07, 2021
Why? Until that moment in the collective imagination Couture was synonymous with pomp.
People imagined a modern Madame de Pompadour at Versailles.
Demna Gvasalia once again overturns the rules of the game and overwhelms the audience with a radical and avant-garde collection. Madame de Pompadour has been evicted. In his place are the children of the X Generation, young and dynamic party girls and party boys.
It is a revolutionary collection in which Demna paroxystically elevates everyday clothes to complex objects of desire.
It’s luxury, without scaffolding.
3 – GUCCI
What? Fall 2015 – Man
When? Jan 19, 2015
Why? It is Alessandro Michele‘s first collection as creative director of Gucci.
It’s a surprise, we still remember the applause at the end of the show.
The collection is a hedonistic promise maintained and strengthened in the following years.
If Tom Ford explored sexual freedom with a glamorous and intellectual attitude, Alessandro does it with functional maximalism, clearing and enhancing the value of genderless.
As it was for Tom, at Gucci there is a before and an after Alessandro.
2 – JIL SANDER
What? Fall 2006 – Woman
When? Feb 20, 2006
Why? Raf Simons (at the helm of the German company, now part of the OTB Group) had not designed the woman before that moment.
It is a surgical collection.
It’s a cohesive collection.
It is a collection that defines the aesthetics of its time, crossing space and time and reaching us, intact and harmonious.
It’s a meeting of refined souls between Raf and Jil.
It is an absolutely unforgettable historical moment.
This collection is a back-to-basics show, but its attenuated lines gave it a confident shape.
1 – MAISON MARGIELA
What? Spring 2024 – Couture
When? Jan 26, 2024
Why? We cried.
This John Galliano‘s Couture collection is the latest collection by the brilliant English designer for Maison Margiela, the brand founded in 1988 by Martin Margiela and Jenny Meirens.
It’s a magnificent legacy.
It is a tribute to pure art.
It’s a dramatic collection.
It’s a waking dream that forces you to look beyond the market and business system.
It is a blossoming hope for those in the sector who for a moment had stopped believing in the dream.
Logo by Andrea De Angelis