JW Anderson moving men’s and pre-fall collections to Milan

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Nov 22, 2021

The house of JW Anderson will move its next men’s show and its pre-fall collections to Milan, to be unveiled during the next fashion week in that city in January.
 
The UK fashion house will also be listed on the official calendar of the  Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, the governing body of Italian runway seasons in Milan.

 
“It’s very important news because it shows once again there is a special openness in Milan to welcome creative young independent designers to our city. Jonathan Anderson is a special talent, and we are very happy to have him showing in Milan,” confirmed Carlo Capasa, the president of the Camera della Moda.
 
Milan’s next menswear season is due to be staged from January 14 to 18; and will follow the three-day menswear fair in Florence, Pitti Uomo, which will include a headline show by the house of Ann Demeulemeester.

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Anderson, one of the most exciting talents on the London fashion scene, last staged a menswear show in Paris in January 2020, an homage to French poet Arthur Rimbaud and artist and cult Lower East Side activist David Wojnarowicz. His last women’s runway show was a month later in the UK with a bravura hyper-dimensioned collection inside his preferred London locale, Yeoman House.
 
Given his current cult status as a happening designer and success in his night job as creative director of Spanish brand Loewe, the decision of Anderson to move his next show to Milan represents a considerable coup for the Italian fashion capital.
 
Since the debut of the pandemic, Anderson has restricted himself to multiple versions of shows-in-a-box, the most recent a glossy calendar shot by Juergen Teller, even including images of the portly German photographer in his briefs. Many versions of JW’s box shows have gone onto become collectors’ items treasured by fashionistas.

“Jonathan’s decision also underlines that independent designers feel very attracted to Milan. Right now, Milan has a great deal of positive energy and that is fueling designers desire to show in our city,” added Capasa.
 
He suggested that Anderson may show both the men’s fall 2021/22 collection and his women’s pre-collection together.
 
“They are still defining how exactly how they want to stage their collections, and we are happy to support their eventual choice,” said Capasa.
 
The provisional calendar of the next Milan menswear season is due out in early December.
 
Anderson has shown in Italy before, as a guest of Pitti Uomo in Florence in June 2017, when he unveiled a collection marked by multiple images of himself, unveiled in the garden of the late Renaissance villa La Pietra, in the hills above the Tuscan capital.
 
The Northern Irish-born designer has also shown a collab collection he created as part of Moncler Genius with the Italian marque.