Milan and fashion. A combination that sounds obvious, almost as if they were synonyms. But what happens when you add the Design Week to the equation? For years, not much, actually. Because fashion at the Fuorisalone was an external presence, hardly tangible, inserted into the design circus with the home collections of brands such as Armani, Versace, and a few others. The stage offered by the various districts of Design Week was animated by powerful exhibitions brands distant from the furniture system but not coming from fashion: for years, car manufacturers had a prominent presence, capable of investing huge budgets in the Milanese event, with perhaps a few eceptions coming from the technological world. Fashion was watching but standing still, except for a few rare exceptions, such as Louis Vuitton's Objet Nomades, paradoxically absent from Milan this year.

But things are changing, and now fashion brands are increasingly participating in Design Week with exhibitions and installations that are eagerly anticipated and indispensable. A large billboard in the city’s preminent commercial boulevard  advertises the presence of Ugg, the boot brand not exactly beloved by Milanese fashionistas, debuting at the Fuorisalone with a Capsule room at Spazio Maiocchi, where the product is elegantly omitted (fortunately, someone will say). The Veneto-based footwear brand Marsell, which recently inaugurated its first showroom in the Quadrilatero and has always moved in contiguous territories with art and design, welcomes one of the most beautiful installations of Design Week each year at its headquarters in the Porta Romana area, created by the German studio Gonzalez Haase.

Bottega Veneta transforms an occasion (the brand used Le Corbusier's LC14 stool as furniture in a fashion show) into an installation in a space we will still be talking about; Gucci's "cousins" (it's always Kering group) reinterpret some unconventional Italian design icons (Aulenti, Vigo, Bellini, and others) in "their" red, and Saint Laurent returns to the designer Gio Ponti with a collection of plates. Loewe constructs one of the most elegant installations of Milanese design week dedicated to the project, while fashion begins to infiltrate even at Alcova. Sunnei collaborates with CC-Tapis, and Msgm kicks off Design Week with a big party (guess where?) at Triennale - where the Mendini exhibition bears the mark of the Fondation Cartier (for curiosity, Saint Laurent on the ground floor is the brand behind Jurgen Teller's major exhibition). Not to forget Pino Pascali at Fondazione Prada, one of the most viewed non-design exhibitions of Design Week...

The only certainty? We'll see more and more of it. And not just because fashion and Milan rhyme. But the fashion system has probably realized that through the Fuorisalone, it reaches the public in a more immediate and democratic way than through the very exclusive circle of influencers, journalists, and others who follow Fashion Week. Conversely, during this Fashion Week, we've seen more and more fashion influencers in design showrooms. And at the Salone. But that's a whole different story.

Opening image: Gucci, design Ancora. Photo Daniele Ratti