At Milan Fashion Week designer brands’ favorite shoe game was the inventive reinterpretation of classics. Although styles seen throughout the week on the catwalk drew inspiration from traditional silhouettes, there was nothing too conservative about them, as it was clear that the injection of newness no longer comes from just color and material update.
Here are three key trends that ruled the runways in Milan.
Ultra-flat flats
A trend already seen in womenswear, the ultra-thin sole infiltrated in the men’s spring offering, suggesting the two markets are increasingly connected and cross-pollinated. Prada’s eye-deceptive flats came in the shape of fringed monkstraps or early Aughts-inspired sneakers, some with silver mirrored metallic toes. The sole-less Tod’s Gommino car shoe punctuated by its rubber pebbles – also an early-2000s reminiscence – returned front and center in the brand’s spring collection, while at Ralph Lauren Purple Label both casual trainers and slip-ons had the thinnest of soles. Fendi and Jordanluca took the trend to a fashion-forward level unveiling ballerina-style flats for their male customers, from the former’s rounded shape with a foldable heel to the latter’s ultra-pointy version.
Summer Boot
Not an obvious choice for summer, boots will be trending next year as they appeared across catwalks in Milan. There is not one style fits all and they came in different iterations, from the polished Chelsea boots seen on Sabato De Sarno’s Gucci models to further punctuate the short shorts he paraded (a look that Gen Zers were already replicating on the streets with lace-up and socks in tonal black) to JW Anderson’s take on Safari boots, flared at the top and cut mid-calf. Giorgio Armani, too, embraced the trend for both the Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani collections with leather combat boots, here enhancing the roomy silhouettes of pants tucked into them.
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Loafer Love
The spring 2025’s footwear winner is the loafer style which however didn’t play by the preppy rulebook it is often associated with. Modernized in many ways – with thinner soles and in a range of non-traditional colors, as well as in tapered versions – the summery design in the penny or slip-on versions appeared on the Giorgio Armani and Dunhill show, as well as at Brunello Cucinelli and Zegna. The latter brand’s artistic director Alessandro Sartori styled each one of the 50 looks with variations of the loafers, including the burgundy leather version sported by Mads Mikkelsen to close the show.
