Tom Ford Relaunches Under Peter Hawkings and Moschino Celebrates 40 Years 

A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
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Tom Ford Relaunches Under Peter Hawkings and Moschino Celebrates 40 Years 

A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)
A model walks the runway at the Tom Ford fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024 on September 21, 2023 in Milan. (AFP)

Milan Fashion Week continued Thursday for the second day with mostly womenswear previews for next spring and summer under a steady rain.

Here are some scenes as Milan designers try to keep the focus on warm weather:

TOM FORD RETURNS TO MILAN ROOTS Peter Hawkings has come full circle, making his runway debut as creative director of the Tom Ford brand Thursday in Milan, where he started working with Ford at Gucci 25 years ago.

Fashionistas entered the Tom Ford world through plush, champagne-colored carpet, beckoning luxury.

Models trod comfortably on stiletto heels, showing leg in shorts worn with tailored jackets, revealing their form in clingy, floor sweeping dresses, and fully inhabiting velvet suits with silken shirts with the trademark Tom Ford plunging neckline.

Hawkings freely acknowledged that his design codes owe a lot to the 25 years he worked alongside Ford, who passed the torch last April. "The design ethos is ingrained in me," he said backstage.

The collection was inspired by Donyale Luna, a Detroit-born Black supermodel who was a muse to Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon.

But Hawkings said his wife, Whitney, equally embodies the Tom Ford woman, one with strong opinions. The pair met at Gucci back in the day.

"I run everything by her. She will tell me whether she loves something, hates something, how it fits, how comfortable it is. I can't try the clothes on, but she can. And she can give me constant feedback," he said.

Whitney wiped tears after the show. "I feel hugely emotional about the whole thing," she said. "It is like going back, but it is a huge step forward. It’s a lot going on. It’s family after all."

MOSCHINO EMPOWERS WOMEN AS IT MARKS 40TH ANNIVERSARY Moschino briefly passed the torch to four top female stylists as the brand marked its 40th anniversary with an homage to founder, the late Franco Moschino.

Fashion designer Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele created a high-low, mix-match collection that can go anywhere and suit any woman. Gabriella Karefa-Johnson tapped a rap vein with high-energy hip looks featuring ruffled, tiered skirts, denim and granny squares that were size-inclusive.

Lucia Liu tapped Moschino's romantic vision, capping her collection with a cake-topper dresser with layers of pink bows, rosettes and boas, fit for the Barbie-moment. And Katie Grand let loose with dancewear from leotards with humorous graphic references and cutouts, exaggerated tutus and ironic slogans like Loud Luxury. Her models — professional dancers — brought the runway to life with a writhing, grinding, irreverent routine.

"We found the codes that we thought would be the most visually dissonant from one another," Karefa-Johnson said. "The challenge was creating cohesive looks within that, which is what I love as a stylist."

A successor to Jeremy Scott, who stepped down in March after a decade as creative director, is pending. But the spirit of Franco Moschino lives on.

BENETTON REACHES ACROSS GENERATIONS There’s a lot of floral-on-floral action in Benetton’s new co-ed, generation-spanning collection for Spring-Summer 2024, unveiled Thursday on the second day of Milan Fashion Week.

The Italian brand known as much for its consciousness-raising ad campaigns as for its bright knitwear is not looking to nudge into the luxury space, but rather into the every-day rotation of colorful dressers looking for elevated basics.

Andrea Incontri, in his third collection for the brand, reimagined Benetton’s mainstays and injected fun with bright monochromes that segued into the season’s upbeat strawberry and banana motifs, closing with tight floral prints that the designer treats as a wildflower patch: mix and match at will.

Denim looks punctuated the color, in two sweet miniskirt-jacket combos for her and shorts for him. The collection was mirrored across generations, underlined by babies and children accompanied by model parents.

Incontri said backstage that his aim is not to create iconic pieces so much as make the wearer feel that "you are iconic. You are expressing yourself with style."



Going Green? British Fashion Struggles with Sustainability

Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
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Going Green? British Fashion Struggles with Sustainability

Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations for the Bora Aksu catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Britain, 13 September 2024. (EPA)

In an industrial underground space in central London, models in contrasting period dresses and playful streetwear strutted down a brightly lit London Fashion Week (LFW) runway.

But unlike most other shows, all the floral dresses, trending workwear and double-denim outfits were second hand at the event by charity Oxfam and online used clothes retailer Vinted's "Style for Change".

Bay Garnett, a sustainable fashion pioneer who picked out the pieces from Oxfam's warehouses, called the runway "really exciting".

"When we first did this show eight years ago, it was really not like this," Garnett told AFP backstage, noting the stream of enthusiastic attendees.

Despite the excitement surrounding the Oxfam show alongside another "pre-loved" runway by online auction site eBay, British fashion is struggling with sustainability.

Around 44 percent of all British companies overall have put in place a structured climate action plan, according to insurance company Aviva's "Climate-Ready Index".

By contrast, the fashion world is lagging sorely behind, a situation the Collective Fashion Justice (CFJ) charity said was "an embarrassment".

A recent CFJ report found that just seven of the 206 members of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which organizes London Fashion Week, had set out targets to reduce their carbon emissions.

And only five of these -- or less than 2.5 percent -- had goals aligned with the 2016 Paris Agreement to cut global warming, CFJ said.

The UK is the third largest footwear and clothing market in the world, after China and the United States, according to analysis by the Fashion United platform.

A 2018 report from sustainability consultancy Quantis said the sectors account for around eight percent of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.

- Go big or go green? -

Luxury fashion giant Burberry -- a LFW veteran -- is one of the handful of brands publishing scientific targets.

Known for its tartan branding, the fashion house recently raised its emission reduction goals and hopes to be carbon neutral by 2040.

But BFC chief executive Caroline Rush said: "To set carbon reduction targets, you need a team to be able to measure your targets, understand how to reduce them and then report on them."

"For a small business that's quite a challenge."

To help, the BFC now has some 50 businesses that will go through its "low carbon transition" program for designers.

Ideally, advocates say the program should be extended to help brands monitor and report their carbon reduction plans.

Copenhagen Fashion Week has taken its own step to require all brands involved to meet a series of environmental goals.

In the United States, reform could come with a "Fashion Act" under consideration by the New York authorities, which would legally require businesses to cut emissions and take into account those of their entire supply chains.

"I think a lot of the issue is (that) the fashion industry can try to handball its problems to other industries," said CFJ director Emma Hakansson.

She explained that while there are many discussions on the climate impact of the meat industry for example, there wasn't the same pressure on producers of such materials as leather, wool and cashmere.

And yet the latter "are coming from the same supply chains", which use large quantities of water and emit methane.

- Textile waste -

There are a number of solutions to make fashion "greener", some of which will be on display at London Fashion Week.

Designer Ray Chu has created a vegan leather made using recycled tea leaves while Romanian designer Ancuta Sarca uses recycled materials in her footwear collections.

But such innovations could struggle to keep up with the scale of emissions and textile waste.

Some 300 tons of clothes are binned every year in the UK, according to a 2020 British parliament report.

Since then, the popularity of fast fashion brands like H&M and Zara, and ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu, has only grown.

Such brands sell cheaply made, mass-manufactured clothes at breakneck speeds, only for them to fall apart or be discarded after being worn a few times.

While many brands are turning to recycled materials, or offering clothing repair or rental services, the long-term solution seems to be to "slow down our habits of consumption in general", said Hakansson.

To help with this, people could work towards "cultivating a sense of personal style", she suggested.

"If you don't know what you as an individual like, then you're much more likely to follow these micro trends that are being really pushed on us very hard," Hakansson added.

With greater awareness of the challenges posed by climate change, shopping second-hand has become more popularity, noted Garnett.

"The kids have basically got the idea that... second hand -- it's a cool way to shop. By finding your own style, a one-off piece, it (becomes) like a style choice."