It’s no easy feat to dissect Luca Magliano’s work — and perhaps even trickier to communicate its appeal to non-Italians.
It’s rooted in remote parts of the country’s culture, the ones decentralized from Milan’s glam, Rome’s majesty and Florence’s history, on the fringes of the usual clichés but at the center of its social and political reality. His fashion speaks of subcultures, genders, music and the working class rather than the country’s long-standing heritage and craftsmanship. Most importantly, it seduces with a raw mix of poetic nostalgia, irony and anger, which is probably why it resonates so much with a generation of local Millennials.
His spring 2025 effort was no exception. It had plenty of references — with the designer attempting to list them all post-show — ranging from fleeting childhood memories “hitting you unexpectedly as a summer storm” to Emily Dickinson’s poetry, Giorgio Morandi’s art and chemsex.
What’s surprising is that the result was a streamlined collection, featuring relaxed tailoring, fluid shirts, loose pants but also hybrid styles, like aprons attached to pants creating new silhouettes.
Knots twisting the familiar look of blazers and denim jackets and bows sugar-coating zippered knits built on the naïve theme, which was reinforced by embroidered sweaters Magliano developed with Italian indie brand Cormio.
“We found a common ground to say something political, which is that colleagues should stick together,” said Magliano, whose show was attended by colleagues Francesco Risso, Adrian Appialaza, Veronica Leoni and Niccolò Pasqualetti, among others.
A sexier counterpoint was introduced via latex pants and a Morandi-inspired print portraying sex toys popping on a cream shirt.
“In Western culture, clothes are subordinate to the body and the body is subordinate to society’s conventions. If the body is insubordinate, then clothes too become insubordinate,” read the show notes.
Magliano’s style choice? A sleeveless shirt portraying Irma Bandiera, a Bologna-born partisan and one of the first women to join the Resistance during Fascism, who was captured, blinded and killed.
“This is a particular moment in Italy — actually in Europe. And this is a super gentle vaffanculo [f—k off] to them [politicians],” he said.