This Is What These Fashion Brands Did at Milan Design Week 2025

Milan Design Week 2025 saw fashion trade runways for living rooms, curating an experience that blurred object and obsession, performance and presence: on the streets, in the salons, and in the space between things.

By Sean Castelo III April 18, 2025

Louis Vuitton Does Décor

Louis Vuitton brought range. Their Objets Nomades collection sat somewhere between a neo-futurist luxury lodge and a Milanese nostalgia trip. Chairs by Patricia Urquiola mingled with butter-leather record players, and a rug room borrowed playful patterns from Futurist designer Fortunato Depero—like fish and folklore, but made it maximal. For good measure, they built Charlotte Perriand’s seaside house in a courtyard, threw a blowout party, and gave their Via Montenapoleone store a glossy relaunch. As one does.

Gucci’s Bamboo Gets Philosophical

At San Simpliciano, Gucci went full Renaissance monk-meets-material futurist. “Bamboo Encounters”, a meditation on the house’s famous handle. Seven artists reinterpreted bamboo as material, metaphor, and message. Anton Alvarez made a bronze fountain. Dima Srouji wrapped memory in woven form. The air hung heavy with incense and slow-moving ideas.

Etro Shows Its History

Etro’s immersive installation walked visitors through its paisley-printed past like a sensory memory maze. The Arnica fabric, all swirling kaleidoscope and earthy grounding, was honored in “5 Threads, 40 Years”—a meditative walkthrough guided by color-coded threads and a talking table. Trunks projected archival film; carpets led the way in a pattern-heavy history.

Loro Piana: Cashmere, Curves, and Cini Boeri

^{loro piana Living room for la prima notte di quiete}

At Cortile della Seta, Loro Piana marked its 100th year with a soft-spoken homage to architect Cini Boeri, also born a century ago. Her Botolo chairs and modular Strips sofas were reimagined in Loro Piana’s signature fabrics—silk-cashmere blends, undyed wool, and textured weaves that felt more elemental than decorative.

LOEWE and the Cult of the Teapot

Somewhere between the kiln and the catwalk, LOEWE curated a ceramic daydream. Twenty-five artists made teapots that belonged less on a breakfast table and more inside a philosophy museum. They were vessels, but also tiny monuments to obsession, fragility, and perfectly restrained whimsy.

Miu Miu’s Literary Lounge

Miu Miu, always the intellectual flirt, hosted a “Miu Miu Literary Club” where books, drinks, and performance art mingled like guests at a Gertrude Stein dinner party. Picture Simone de Beauvoir sipping a Negroni while a harpist scores your existential spiral.

Fendi: Sexy Sofas, Serious Craft

To mark Fendi’s 100th, the house doubled down on what it does best: turning a logo into a love language. Their boutique transformed into a space split by seduction and serenity. Bamboo, suede, soft murmurings of light wood opposite metal, mirrored swagger, yellow fur teasing with Murano glass. The Idol chandelier by Lee Broom refracted the FF logo in glowing shards. Peter Mabeo’s Efo coffee table softened the monogram into a mellow sculpture. High design didn’t just meet heritage, but made it blush.

Prada: All Aboard the Arlecchino

While others showed furniture, Prada showed thought. The house’s annual symposium, “Prada Frames”, took up residence in the marbled Padiglione Reale and, naturally, aboard a Gio Ponti-designed train. Themed In Transit, the series tackled big ideas—migration, surveillance, climate, space travel—packaged in hushed intellectual glamour and forest green upholstery. It wasn’t a panel talk. It was a curated state of mind.

Milan Design Week 2025 was a thesis on texture between fashion and design: smoldering, obsessive, and publicly on display. More than that, it was about space — physical, psychological, and philosophical. The space between a cup and the table. Between the logo and its echo. Between the object and the obsession that made it. If you walked away with a new lamp, great. But chances are, you’re left with a slightly rearranged sense of taste. And isn’t that the real luxury?

Photos: LOUIS VUITTON, GUCCI, ETRO, LORO PIANA, LOEWE, MIU MIU, FENDI, and PRADA