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Sabato De Sarno Unveils Gucci Precision Saturated in Color to Close Milan Fashion Week

A model wears a creation as part of the Gucci men's Spring Summer 2025 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP)
A model wears a creation as part of the Gucci men's Spring Summer 2025 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP)
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Sabato De Sarno Unveils Gucci Precision Saturated in Color to Close Milan Fashion Week

A model wears a creation as part of the Gucci men's Spring Summer 2025 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP)
A model wears a creation as part of the Gucci men's Spring Summer 2025 collection, that was presented in Milan, Italy, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP)

It’s been creative director musical chairs at some of Italy’s top fashion houses, and the pressure is showing, at least on social media.

Gucci’s Sabato De Sarno presented his third collection in Milan on Monday, still the most highly anticipated runway show of the week as Gucci undergoes a major style transition.

Hours earlier, Valentino, the fashion house that snapped up his predecessor Alessandro Michele, launched images on social media of Michele’s first resort collection for Rome-based Valentino, which previews its collections in Paris. Commentators couldn’t help but notice the similarities to his Gucci years.

Anyone with complicated family dynamics can understand just how fraught the timing was. Gucci is owned by the French conglomerate Kering, which has a 30-percent stake in Valentino, an important but not determinant share. Add to that, De Sarno is a Valentino alum, whose recent resort collection included a pussy bow that was one of the codes Michele brought to Gucci.

Michele's runway debut for Valentino is expected in Paris for womenswear previews in September.

Some highlights from the fourth and final day of Milan Fashion Week, mostly menswear previews for Spring-Summer 2025:

Gucci saturates precise silhouette Sabato De Sarno’s sophomore menswear collection for Gucci was all about precise silhouettes saturated in color. A long, acid-green bonded leather coat over thigh-baring shorts and a netted shirt set the tone for an outing that was both rigorous and edgy.

Models strode through the atrium of Milan’s Triennale design museum, in tribute to De Sarno’s view of museums as "nourishing" spaces. In that vein, he invited 400 fashion students to watch the show, and was meeting with them afterward. Part of the brand’s relaunch has been moving to spaces away from the sprawling Gucci Hub on Milan’s outskirts, as De Sarno lays claim to Italy’s fashion capital one venue at a time.

His Spring-Summer 2025 collection featured wearable elements easily composed to one’s desire, reflecting De Sarno’s wish "that people feel free and welcomed in my clothes."

Amid the structure of the bonded leather jackets and crisp poplin suits, there was a lot of movement, in undulating, vivid repeating prints of surfers and dolphins on boxy bowling shirts, shimmering beaded fringe jackets in shades of lemon or lime, and long-sleeve hand-knit polo shirts sparkling with embedded sequins. A subtle jacquard was a rare sign of the Gucci logo.

Fresh styling conceits included chunky sunglasses that, when not worn, could be strapped backward around the neck with a brightly colored Gucci cord. Highly constructed bags were inspired by archival luggage, and include detachable pieces. Sneakers and scuba slip-ons featured molded soles.

Media-shy De Sarno said in press notes that the collection "speaks about freedom."

"I feel free when there is no distance between my words and my thoughts, between my actions and my heart,” he wrote.

Serena and Venus Williams serve up some Gucci De Sarno has the full endorsement of Serena Williams, who sat in the front row between Kering boss Francois-Henri Pinault and her sister Venus.

“It was a beautiful collection. I think Sabato is a great designer,” Serena Williams said backstage. “Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Williams, dressed in a pretty peach suit with a sparkly knit top, was joined by sister Venus, wearing a Gucci Pantone red leather coat. Venus also showed up at JW Anderson's show Sunday night. Also on hand was Irish actor Paul Mescal, keeping cool in striped shorts and a GG monogrammed blue dress shirt.

Giorgio Armani's North Star There has been one constant at the Giorgio Armani fashion house for the last 49 years, and that’s Giorgio Armani.

His looks are a steady evolution of the relaxed tailoring that has characterized his fashion empire.

Soothing hues set the mood for the Spring-Summer 2024 collection, where the loose, often pleated, trousers were the star. Jackets were worn open, and shirts were often collarless or with casual shawl collars. Silken trousers featured big side pleats, billowing with each step. Small slit pockets provided utility. Vests added a ruffian flair, with or without shirts. Scrunchy sun hats were packable.

Models walked slowly, deliberately, on a runway surrounded by video images of tropical plants — a motif of the season. Some smiled, as the designer has urged in recent seasons.

Turning 90 next month, Armani remains firmly at the center of his fashion group, launched in 1975, and is always on hand to take a bow after his shows.

This round, he was joined by his long-time right-hand-man Leo Dell’Orco, who heads the group's men's style office, and Gianluca Dell’Orco, head of Giorgio Armani men's styling office.

Russell Crowe was front row for the show at Armani’s Milan theater. Clad in jeans, the actor said he was jet-lagged and wanted to be comfortable. He may well have spotted something from the runway that fits that bill.

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Fashion

Fashion Suppliers Want Brands to Help With EU Green Regulations

An employee arranges bobbins at a textile plant in Haian county, Jiangsu province, China. REUTERS
An employee arranges bobbins at a textile plant in Haian county, Jiangsu province, China. REUTERS
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Fashion Suppliers Want Brands to Help With EU Green Regulations

An employee arranges bobbins at a textile plant in Haian county, Jiangsu province, China. REUTERS
An employee arranges bobbins at a textile plant in Haian county, Jiangsu province, China. REUTERS

As the global fashion industry braces for new green supply-chain regulations, clothing makers in low-income countries like Bangladesh expect major international brands to share the burden. The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), adopted in July, requires corporations to make their global value chains more sustainable.
The new rules on workers’ rights and emissions could transform the way clothing is made and sold, most significantly in the garment factories and textile mills across Asia that account for much of the sector’s pollution. Bangladesh, the world’s second-biggest clothing exporter after China, in particular needs assistance from major brands as it undergoes a political transition following mass protests sparked by a jobs crisis that ousted the previous government.
"While in Bangladesh we have prepared our mindset and ecosystem for the change, we will need support from our global buyers, as well as our government, to reach the green transition goals," said Abdullah Hil Rakib, managing director at Team Group, a clothing supplier in Bangladesh that employs about 23,000 people. The CSDDD seeks to bring corporate practices in line with the Paris Agreement on climate goals. Major European brands must ensure their suppliers are conducting due diligence to protect workers and communities from the adverse effects of their operations or pay compensation for damages.
For the fashion industry, the onus will mostly fall on factories in places like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cambodia to find and fill the gaps in safeguarding labor, human rights and the environment, experts said.
International brands must collaborate with these suppliers to adhere to the new rules, according to a study by clothing makers in Asia that was supported by the Transformers Foundation, which represents the denim industry, and GIZ FABRIC, a project from German development agency GIZ to support sustainable textile production in the region.
GROWING COMPLEXITY
The new regulations may provide a chance for suppliers to push for ethical commercial practices and more favorable contracts from international brands, representatives from companies behind the study told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a joint interview.
But manufacturers are still coming to grips with what measures they must take and how they will finance their portion of the estimated $1 trillion investment required for the fashion industry to transition to net-zero emissions in the coming decades.
Rakib estimated that suppliers will have to make additional investments of 20% to 30% to turn their factories green.
Industry experts warned that the CSDDD will require a raft of legal changes in countries where the products are manufactured.
National legislatures will have to pass laws that line up with the EU directive. Brands must devise their approach to implementing such laws, and courts will need precedents in order to enforce them, said Matin Saad Abdullah, a professor of computer science and engineering at BRAC University in Dhaka who maps garment factories’ compliance on labor rights and environmental standards.
"The path forward is long and complex," he said.
Brands and suppliers have widely differing capacities and plans for meeting what the EU calls “just transition,” said Zahangir Alam, a fashion industry consultant who has worked for three decades with top global brands on labor issues and sustainability.
For example, Sweden’s H&M Group aims to cut carbon emissions by 56% by 2030, while US retailer Walmart’s Project Gigaton seeks to avoid 1 billion metric tons of emissions in its global value chain by 2030.
Smaller producers in particular will struggle to determine which actions they need to take to meet a brand’s particular benchmarks, Alam said.
‘SHARED RESPONSIBILITY’
Industry associations and government agencies can encourage a common approach by companies in the transition to cleaner and fairer practices, said Rakib.
Bangladesh's garment makers' association, called BGMEA, has set up the Responsible Business Hub to provide information to suppliers about the changing regulatory landscape. The group is also creating a platform to facilitate data collection and sharing. But suppliers said they need brands at their side too and that meeting the CSDDD’s requirements is a “shared responsibility,” as the directive mandates.
Brands are often accused of passing the buck to their suppliers when it comes to ensuring a living wage or investing in decarbonization.
To achieve net-zero emission by 2050, the fashion industry will have to invest more than $600 billion to implement solutions that already exist and about $400 billion to develop innovations, according to a report by the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), a non-profit promoting sustainable investments.
Aii has formed the Fashion Climate Fund, which pools resources from brands and philanthropies, and is working with more than 1,000 suppliers to help them achieve energy and water efficiency, said Lewis Perkins, President of Aii.
Aii acts as a "clearing house" to identify programs and technology for decarbonization and encourage local suppliers to adopt them.
"We have identified 1,500 suppliers with high energy usage and aim to support locally grown decarbonization solutions, when they meet our criteria, prioritized by the suppliers themselves, with buy-in from multiple stakeholders, so that all actors are on the same page," Perkins said.
WORKERS’ VOICES
The EU directive is also aimed at improving labor conditions, requiring businesses to verify workplace safety and allow workers and unions to file complaints about human rights violations with authorities.
Union leaders said they are waiting to see how the changes are put in place to protect workers.
"When the laws kick in, we need clear and simple channels to seek remedy when anything goes wrong - and the Global North should have a roadmap for supporting the upskilling of workers," said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS).
"Moreover, for all the lawmakers' focus on transitioning to net zero, there should be a comparable commitment on helping workers deal with climate impacts like flooding and heat," said Akter.
Garment-producing countries like Bangladesh could lose $66 billion in export revenues by 2030 due to flooding and heat waves, said reports by the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University in the United States and investment manager Schroders published last year.
Team Group’s Rakib said Bangladesh’s experience making changes to improve conditions for workers and the environment make it well-positioned to tackle the new rules – and ensure it retains its position as a leading producer of the world’s clothing.
"With the strides that suppliers in Bangladesh have made in ensuring workers are safe from fire and electrical risks - and more than 200 green factories making extra savings on energy and water - we will remain a key sourcing choice," Rakib said.