Milan Men's SS27: Our Picks From The Week

Milan Men's SS27 ran from June 19 to 23. Only 17 physical shows on the calendar — Gucci and Fendi stepped back from the June men's slot, Zegna decamped to Los Angeles. A quieter week than usual, which made the shows that actually had something to say easier to hear. Here are four worth knowing about.

Prada

If one collection defined Milan this season, it was Prada. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented what might be their most distilled menswear proposition in years — familiar garments, jeans, jackets, shirts, blazers, each subtly recalibrated through proportion, fabrication, and restraint. White denim replaced traditional blue. Silhouettes became slimmer. Unnecessary decoration was almost entirely removed. The Fondazione Prada was stripped to a transparent floor with light-up beams underneath, guests seated on Perspex benches. Climbing accessories throughout: carabiner belt bags, chalk pouches, triple-buckled shoes with elongated toes.

Simons described it backstage as being built from "little ingredients, but well executed." Rather than proposing a new aesthetic, Prada proposed a new attitude: intentional dressing over endless consumption. Their joint statement left no room for misreading: "There is nothing that I hate more in this period than useless design."

Thom Browne

Thom Browne's first Milan show since 2008 took place Monday afternoon at Palazzo Serbelloni — with 400 seersucker flowerpots arranged across the courtyard. The reference was A Bug's Life, the 1998 Disney film, which Browne watched on a flight from Milan to New York. "I thought it was an enchanting story to play with, to soften the times we live in with a bit of lightness," he said after the show.

Beekeeper hats, oversized butterflies, frogs, crickets, ants, and honeycomb motifs throughout. Technical nylon seersuckers alongside open-weave cottons, graphic-check wool piqués, and colorful madras. A bride in a white suit and tulle cape closing the show before Browne took his final bow in a frog-shaped headpiece. Beneath the spectacle remained his signature discipline — impeccably tailored jackets, pleated skirts, striped ties, the continued obsession with proportion. The collection balanced fantasy and wearability in a way few designers can actually pull off.

Ralph Lauren

Few shows felt as confident as Ralph Lauren's return to Milan, his second consecutive season in the city after a 20-year absence from Italian menswear.

Presented inside the designer's Milan palazzo, the collection continued Ralph Lauren's decades-long project of constructing an idealized vision of American style. Purple Label tailoring alongside Polo sportswear, references ranging from Ivy League prep and Italian leisure to Japanese boro textiles and military-inspired outerwear. Ties appeared not only around collars but reimagined as belts and accessories throughout. His letter to attendees read simply: "When I began designing menswear, my inspiration came from the ease and traditions of collegiate style. It was about character and camaraderie."

Ralph Lauren remains one of fashion's most effective storytellers. The clothes sell not merely a wardrobe but an entire world, and he has been building that world consistently for over fifty years.

Saul Nash

London-based Saul Nash showed his fourth consecutive collection in Milan inside SGM Forza e Coraggio, one of the city's oldest sporting societies. Nash has built his practice around a single question most menswear designers avoid: what can clothes actually do for the body in motion.

SS27 went further into that territory than any previous season. Wrestling singlet graphics on compression tops. Semi-sheer nylon twinsets in pale yellow and rustic orange with varied opacity that exposes skin differently depending on how the light hits. Suit jackets with pleats and elasticated backs borrowed from fencing uniforms. Denim with darts that open as the wearer moves. "The collection began through researching archival imagery of sports figures and male pin-ups, examining how masculinity is constructed and performed through both clothes and gesture," Nash said. At a moment when luxury menswear increasingly borrows from sportswear as aesthetic, Nash remains one of the few designers genuinely advancing that conversation.

After Milan

A quieter week produced cleaner results. Without the usual commercial noise filling the calendar, the collections that landed did so on the strength of their own logic rather than by default.

That said, Milan still has a gap between the handful of shows generating real conversation and the rest of the schedule. Paris follows next week with the bigger names — Louis Vuitton, Dior under Jonathan Anderson, Saint Laurent. The fuller picture of where menswear is heading for SS27 won't be clear until then.