In Milan, there are two undisputed dates when the city shifts from a relatively local, calm enclave into one of the world’s most international and vibrant epicentres: Milan Fashion Week and Milan Design Week.

As for the first, we all know—or at least can imagine—what happens: runway shows, celebrities, and the fashion industry at its most intense. The second, however, remains less widely referenced and far more niche, yet transforms the city in a similarly powerful way, albeit with less media attention.

During Design Week, one of Italy’s most influential cities establishes itself as a global hub for art, design, and interiors, while also extending its reach into fashion. Professionals from these disciplines, alongside curious visitors and creative enthusiasts, travel from all over the world to discover and experience installations, exhibitions, and events spread across the city. From large-scale fairs to ephemeral interventions in hidden courtyards, Milan becomes a true urban-scale creative laboratory.

Within this context, an increasing number of fashion houses, designers, and creative studios are choosing to take part in the initiative, actively contributing to the week with proposals that move beyond traditional formats. This convergence only reinforces the idea that fashion and art—far from being separate disciplines—are deeply intertwined, sharing languages, references, and ways of expression.

The names shaping this edition are:

PRADA

Italian fashion house, creatively directed by Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, continues to refine its very particular space between fashion and critical thought with Prada Frames, its annual symposium curated by Formafantasma, now established as one of the most compelling and highly anticipated events of the week. It is not about presenting objects or showcasing products, but about opening up conversations that sit between design, culture, and society, with the intention of reframing perspectives.

Under the title In Sight, the focus turns to the image: how it is constructed, how it circulates, and how it shapes contemporary perception. In a context where the digital sphere has blurred many of the boundaries between the real and the artificial, the project raises questions rather than offering conclusions, particularly around truth, representation, and the role images play today.

The fact that it takes place within Santa Maria delle Grazie adds another layer of meaning: a historically charged setting that contrasts with the contemporary themes discussed inside. This tension between past and present turns the symposium into something of a pause within the wider noise of the week.

MIU MIU

Continuing within another house of the Prada Group, Miu Miu further strengthens its relationship with contemporary culture through its now iconic and much-anticipated Literary Club 2026, titled Politics of Desire, a project that once again places the brand at the natural intersection it has built between fashion, literature, and critical discourse.

The programme is anchored in two key texts—A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux and Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo—opening up a broader conversation around desire understood as a social construct, a form of identity, and a practice of freedom. From there, it unfolds as a three-day living format combining talks, readings, and a curated library.

Rather than a standalone event, the Literary Club operates as an open space where different voices—writers, philosophers, and academics—intersect around themes such as sexuality, consent, and the ways narratives shape female identity. This is complemented by open sessions, DJs, and poetry readings, turning the space into one of the most vibrant, chic, and talked-about meeting points of Milan’s social scene during those days.

GUCCI

Expectation is something that has always surrounded Gucci, and even more so at a moment of transition under its new creative director, Demna. With Gucci Memoria, the fashion house revisits its 105-year archive not as chronology but as raw material to be reassembled. Memory is treated as something unstable, where overlapping eras and identity emerge through accumulation rather than sequence.

Installed within the Chiostri di San Simpliciano, the exhibition unfolds with a cinematic density where atmosphere carries as much weight as content. Inside this setting, the archive is activated rather than displayed, shifting between perception, space, and memory. It is also one of the most anticipated projects of the week, not only for what it presents, but for the way it reframes an entire heritage through a contemporary lens.

What emerges is a proposition that resists preservation in favour of reinterpretation—an archive constantly rewritten as it is experienced.

BALENCIAGA

Marking the first Balenciaga project in Milan since Pierpaolo Piccioli was appointed creative director of the house, the brand introduces Artean – Eduardo Chillida within its Via Montenapoleone flagship, coinciding with Salone del Mobile week. The presentation unfolds as a subtle but significant shift, placing artistic dialogue at the centre of the space rather than treating it as a parallel gesture.

The installation inaugurates an ongoing series titled Artean—a term drawn from ancient Basque meaning “between”—a linguistic choice that frames the project as an exploration of intervals, connections, and in-between states. Seven works by Eduardo Chillida (1924–2002) are presented throughout the store, some directly referencing Cristóbal Balenciaga himself, reactivating a historical dialogue between the artist and the founder of the house.

Installed among the current collections, the works dissolve the boundary between retail and exhibition, allowing fashion and sculpture to coexist within the same spatial rhythm. As Piccioli has noted, the project is conceived as a space of emotion, thought, and curiosity, where art becomes a conduit for cultural and personal memory rather than a separate discipline.

RIMOWA

German brand Rimowa, a global reference in luxury travel and luggage, moves into more domestic territory through its collaboration with Lehni, a project that transforms something as functional as storage into an almost architectural gesture. The result is two anodised aluminium pieces—RIMOWA Lehni Bench and RIMOWA Lehni Drawer—specifically designed to integrate cabin suitcases into the home as part of a wider furniture system.

What makes the proposal particularly compelling is the way it translates the language of travel into everyday space without losing its technical precision or refined aesthetic. During Design Week, the Milan Visitor Centre extends this narrative through a quieter environment, where even simple gestures such as sending a postcard become part of a broader reflection on travel and memory.

Beyond the installation, the brand also opens a new store in the heart of Milan at Via Pietro Verri 5, further anchoring its relationship with the Italian capital of design and reinforcing its position at the intersection of mobility, craftsmanship, and contemporary living. For those with an appreciation for interior design, the space itself unfolds as a carefully considered architectural environment. On the upper floor, a dedicated “laboratory” introduces an element of customisation, offering visitors the possibility to personalise selected products through a hands-on, experimental process.

Taken together, these interventions expand Rimowa’s universe beyond travel objects into a fully immersive spatial experience, where retail and design culture converge.

DIESEL LIVING

As a seasoned businessman—and unmistakably Italian—Renzo Rosso, president of the OTB Group to which Diesel belongs, understands the importance of showing up during one of the most closely watched moments in the global design calendar. It comes as no surprise, then, that one of the group’s most recognisable brands is firmly present at Milan Design Week with Diesel Living with Moroso.

Through this platform, Diesel Living presents The Baggy Collection, a furniture system that translates the brand’s signature codes into the language of interiors. Developed under the creative direction of Glenn Martens in collaboration with Controvento, the collection centres around a bed and matching side tables defined by soft, generous volumes and a sense of effortless comfort. Upholstered in a custom jacquard with a denim effect, the pieces subtly bring Diesel’s identity into the domestic space, balancing playfulness with a more refined, tactile approach to design.

Echoing the same visual language, the side tables integrate hidden storage within their rounded forms, reinforcing the idea of functionality without sacrificing character. Taken together, the collection merges Diesel Living’s experimental attitude with Moroso’s craftsmanship, offering a relaxed yet distinctive take on contemporary living.

This is not where it ends. As we understand it, the brand is set to announce another collaboration in the coming days. What form will it take—and who will be involved? The anticipation is already building.

JIL SANDER

Still under the same OTB umbrella, Jil Sander offers a markedly different, more introspective approach to Design Week. In the middle of the city’s intensity, something as simple as it is necessary is proposed: to slow down and read. Reference Library, an activation by Jil Sander developed in collaboration with Apartamento, functions as a temporary library conceived not to impress, but to be inhabited.

A selection of sixty books chosen by creative figures comes together as a shared map of references, where each title opens a different doorway into ways of thinking, making, and seeing the world. The space is carefully composed to support this idea without distraction: light, silence, and enough time for reading to become a genuine experience.

For those who love reading, this is not a space to pass through quickly—it is a place to remain in.

STONE ISLAND

A defining force in contemporary streetwear, Stone Island returns to Capsule Plaza with the next chapter of NO SEASONS, an installation developed in collaboration with Milan-based interior studio NM3.

Building on an original concept by Massimo Osti from 1989, the project revisits Stone Island’s notion of timelessness by shaping new outerwear archetypes through a process rooted in continuity and evolution. Anchored in the brand’s history, it looks forward to the future of material innovation and functional design.

The installation is complemented by a week-long programme of cultural events and music, activating the space beyond the presentation itself and reinforcing the project as an ongoing dialogue rather than a static display.

Stone Island installations are often known for their unexpected conceptual and spatial twists — so what will this one reveal?

MARIMEKKO

Bringing a distinctly Nordic sensibility into the Milan Design Week landscape, Marimekko reimagines its unmistakable visual language through a more experiential and sensorial format with Osteria Fiori di Marimekko. The project blends design, gastronomy, and culture into a playful exploration of the “Art of Flowers”, extending the brand’s universe beyond textiles into a fully immersive lifestyle environment.

At the heart of the project lies the floral motif that has defined Marimekko since the 1960s, reinterpreted through bold textile installations, curated ceramics, and a setting that shifts fluidly between exhibition space and social gathering. Rather than treating flowers as a decorative code, they are framed as a living system of forms, colours, and atmospheres that extend into everyday rituals, from design to dining.

Set on Via Ascanio Sforza, the space unfolds as a contemporary osteria where creative expression and conviviality meet, reinforcing Marimekko’s optimistic approach to life through design. It becomes less an installation than a lived environment, where the boundaries between experience and everyday ritual gently dissolve.

ASICS

Until now, the names shaping Milan Design Week have largely belonged to the world of fashion. The programme, however, also opens up to disciplines beyond it—most notably sportswear, where ASICS is about to make its Design Week debut with a very different kind of proposal: ASICS Kinetic Playscape, an installation designed to be experienced through movement and already shaping up to be one of the most anticipated events of this edition.

Within the installation, a fictional research institute imagined by Los Angeles-based studio NUOVA becomes the setting for a multi-sensory environment where Italian radical design meets Japanese minimalism. Visitors move through a sequence of spaces that shift from the physical to the perceptual, where movement is understood not as performance, but as a change in mental state.

At its core sits the GEL-KINETIC™ 2.0, a silhouette rooted in ASICS’ archival running models and reinterpreted through a contemporary lifestyle lens, featuring technologies such as Scutoid GEL™ cushioning. Framed by ASICS’ philosophy Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, the Playscape becomes less an installation and more a provocation: what happens when movement itself becomes design?

INSIEME, Curated by Sabato De Sarno

Stepping away, for a moment, from fashion and sportswear, the focus moves further into the realm of art and curation with INSIEME, Curated by Sabato De Sarno. For the Italian designer, fashion remains his primary language, yet art has always existed as a parallel discipline that has shaped his creative sensibility. Following the release of his book Napoli Infinita, his attention appears to be shifting more decisively towards cultural and curatorial projects, making this initiative a natural continuation of that trajectory.

The perspective moves away from the object and towards the people behind making, turning instead to the gestures, processes, and knowledge that shape it. The exhibition brings together twelve Italian artisanal houses across materials such as glass, ceramics, metal, stone, wood, and textiles, presenting each not as a static output, but as an expression of identity and lived practice.

Set within Piscina Cozzi, the project unfolds as a slower, more contemplative experience, encouraging visitors to engage with time, labour, and materiality in a more attentive way. Extending beyond the exhibition space, the façade intervention by JR—featuring the faces of the artisans—brings visibility to what is usually left unseen, reinforcing the human dimension at the core of the project.

WHIM

Closing the selection, Whim brings a New York-based perspective at the intersection of design, sport, and apparel, using golf as an unlikely yet precise medium through which to explore space, access, and cultural codes. Founded by Will Gisel and Colin Heaberg, the practice has built a distinct language around the tensions inherent to the game—between exclusivity and openness, repetition and unpredictability—most notably through its Free Golf installations, which have reimagined the sport as a public, participatory experience across major American cities.

Presented at Milliony Arlekina, La Cupola marks a shift in direction for the studio. Conceived by Will Gisel, the work takes the form of a gallery-spanning hemispherical putting green that deliberately resists interaction. Where previous projects invited play, this one withholds it, transforming a familiar surface into something closed, opaque, and strangely untouchable. Drawing on the architectural language of the dome—central to Italian spatial history—the piece brings that form down from the ceiling to eye level, turning it into a solid presence rather than an enclosing structure.

In doing so, La Cupola translates the mental experience of golf into spatial terms: the constant recalibration, the subtle negotiation of distance, slope, and perception. Here, however, the condition is fixed, forcing a different kind of engagement—less about action and more about awareness. If Whim’s previous environments redefined how the game could be played, this latest installation suggests an equally compelling shift, already positioning itself as one of the more intriguing proposals of the week.