A year after he took on one of the biggest jobs in fashion, the designer Sabato De Sarno has a formula for his new Gucci: “casual grandeur”.

De Sarno needed this show to go with a bang. The response to his first collections could be summed up as: nice clothes but not enough personality. Figures reported in July showed that Gucci sales had fallen by 20% year on year in the second quarter of 2024. Gucci is a big name in Italian culture. People expect not just style but charisma.

Watched by a front row that included the Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner (polo shirt under a suit) and the singer Debbie Harry (red leather jacket and matching loafers), the show started quietly, with a charcoal bomber jacket, zipped to the throat, worn with matching trousers pooling over white trainers.

But it soon picked up pace. A pair of black and white maxidresses with side slits and gold metal details referenced Tom Ford’s 1990s Gucci era. Silk headscarves and oversized sunglasses worn with popped-collar knits and short skirts channelled Jackie Kennedy Onassis – a house icon, namesake of the brand’s most famous handbag – on holiday in Capri. The former US first lady’s holiday wardrobe, with a dash of Tom Ford slink for summer nights, equals casual grandeur.

De Sarno and his team wore T-shirts with the motto “Family, friends, teams, partners, lovers”. The show ended with an Italian pop classic by Fiordaliso – “the music I grew up with”, De Sarno explained backstage, after making a beeline for a hug with his parents.

The designer said he was “obsessed” with creating a mood that was “accomplished and refined … but always with an irreverent attitude”. Casual grandeur, he said, was “tailoring, lingerie, leather, 60s silhouettes … and the moment the sun dives into the sea at the end of an August day”.

De Sarno is turning up the volume on Gucci’s flag colours of red, green and white. Classic poppy red has already been replaced with a deep oxblood, which has become De Sarno’s signature colour, and this season swapping out the traditional racing green for neon lime – radiant on lace party dresses and bold on a car coat trimmed with olive leather piping.

Timeless appeal of Armani aesthetic

Giorgio Armani turned 90 in July, not that you would guess it from his punchy schedule. He is staging fashion shows on two continents in the space of two months. In October, he will travel to New York, where he is planning a catwalk extravaganza to celebrate a new Madison Avenue flagship with two boutiques and a restaurant.

At Milan fashion week, a supersized collection of 114 Emporio Armani looks was followed by a party to celebrate a bigger store that opened this week in his home city. “A physical shop offers customers the opportunity to touch, try … it complements the digital realm and can never be replaced by it,” he said before his Milan show.

A blown-up black and white portrait dominated the show space: a woman with her hair neatly parted and sharply slicked back, wearing a suit and tie, lips darkly glossed and long lashes shadowing her cheekbones. The image, by Tom Munro, epitomised the gamine androgynous chic on which Armani has built his empire. That the photograph dates from a 2000 advertising campaign was a reminder of the timeless appeal of this aesthetic.

The models wore neat blazers and supple trousers. Gazing coolly at the audience over their sunglasses, they sauntered casually in their loafers; no spike-heeled high-stepping here. Clutch bags were carried casually in one hand, like a newspaper or a document folder. There was the occasional slip dress or short skirt but the stars of an Armani show are always the suits. The brand’s core code is a suit without stuffiness. For this spring collection, some were beach-cover-up light, in pyjama-striped cotton.

A surprise came at the end of the show, when Armani, who usually takes his bow solo, was joined by four senior members of the design team, including his niece Silvana, the head of the womenswear studio. This nod to succession planning was a rare reference to Armani’s age.