New Brands to Check Out at Milan Men’s Fashion Week for Spring 2024

A play of opposites, an eco-minded approach to fashion and the post-streetwear movement are among the defining elements of some of the talents joining the Milan Fashion Week calendar for the first time.

Here, WWD rounds up five names to check out.

Andersson Bell

It’s no easy task to stem the curiosity of Dohun Kim — as the Korean designer’s past has repeatedly proven.

“I attended a total of four undergraduate universities. When I was 20 years old, I studied urban development as my major, and then transferred to another school to pursue fashion design. Afterwards, I switched majors again and learned acting and directing. Then, I transferred schools once more and majored in fashion business,” said Kim. “I learned that I’m the type of person who takes action and changes paths immediately if I find something boring.”

Ditto for a one-year internship at a fashion brand in Korea, which was followed by Kim’s realization that it’s always best to march to the beat of one’s own drum, a decision that culminated in the launch of the Andersson Bell label in 2014. “I believed that doing the designs I wanted to do within my own label would be faster and more appropriate,” Kim said about the decision. 

A decade later, the brand is gearing up to stage its first runway show as part of Milan Fashion Week, scheduled for Sunday at 4 p.m. CET and slated to present to a broader audience its “unconventional beauty,” as the designer described it.

To be sure, the brand’s aesthetic combines opposites for unexpected results, as the name itself suggests. A combination of Korean and Scandinavian cultures, Kim’s fashion mixes the urban street-style eclecticism of the former with the minimalism of the latter.

While collections often feature playful designs in vivid patterns, patchwork and colorblocking, Kim teased that the spring 2024 lineup will center around denim and military as core themes. “I drew inspiration from my childhood memories of searching for denim and military vintage clothing,” said the designer. “Additionally, I wanted to present garments that can be worn in everyday life by everyone.”

Key items will include printed denim jeans and military-inspired garments, such as a nylon jacket designed as a combination of a bomber jacket and a blazer, creating a layered look. “It is a high-tech jacket that can be worn reversibly. The inside features a mesh camouflage print, giving it a cool urban vibe that can be worn in the city,” said Kim. 

The development of accessories was among the main challenges, according to the designer, who addressed the launch of the Vaso bag conceived by imagining a woman carrying a flower vase. 

Further enhancing the play in contrasts, Kim decided to showcase the collection at the city’s historic Società del Giardino location — a social club since 1783 and usually inaccessible to the general public.

Yet the Milan scene is no secret to the designer since the company had been conducting showroom business in the city for the past three years. “Paris has an abundance of designer brands concentrated there, while we believe Milan Fashion Week has a more suitable timing to showcase [the brand’s] DNA effectively,” noted Kim.

Andersson Bell has more than 30 stockists in Italy alone, including 10 Corso Como, Modes, Antonioli and One Block Down in Milan, as well as LuisaViaRoma and Sugar in Florence and Arezzo, respectively. Other retailers carrying the brand include Printemps in Paris; Browns and End in London; Galeries Lafayette in Beijing and Shanghai, and Harvey Nichols in Hong Kong, in addition to online platforms such as Ssense, to name a few. Pieces from the brand are priced between 50 euros and 930 euros.

Asked about the ultimate goal of the label, Kim said “to represent Korea” and to “aspire Andersson Bell’s vintage archive clothing to hold even greater value as sought-after vintage pieces, commanding higher prices than their original retail prices, in the next decade or so.”

Marcello Pipitone

Despite winning the 2023 Camera Moda Fashion Trust grant, a 40,000-euro cash prize, Marcello Pipitone hasn’t lost his humble approach to the industry he has long dreamed of working in.

Born and raised in Bonola, in the suburbs of Milan, in a creative family, Pipitone first understood fashion could be the big gig of his life while in high school.

“I always wanted to venture on a solo project, and I wanted to be creatively free. An apparel brand seemed the best option; from textile research to modeling, communication, it’s all-encompassing and free,” he said. “Clothing will exist forever, even in 2300,” he said candidly with the pragmatism forged, he said, by living in the suburbs.

Since formally establishing the brand in 2020, he has incorporated his upbringing and personal story into the collection, which is filled with streetwear and sportswear inflections and celebrates Milan’s suburbia.

“Suburbs can be harsh on young kids; you always have to look over your shoulders, protect yourself,” he said, mentioning how his brand logo references the M sign at subway stops in the city as well as an ancient Greek helmet.

“I want to give back the ‘power of colors’ to kids that are missing them here,” he said, noting how the neighborhoods are scattered with concrete condos lacking personality. “They’d rather avoid wearing flashy colors and logos in the ‘hood and sport peacock-y looks downtown… it’s about this contrast between suburbia and the city center, the minimal concrete buildings here and storied palazzo on, say, Via Palestro,” he said.

Soon after COVID-19 emerged and a few months after graduating from Milan’s fashion and design school IED, Pipitone started posting upcycled, made-to-measure pants he had been crafting for private clients on his Instagram account.

Word of mouth and social posts helped him gain visibility and landed him a spot among finalists at the 2021 edition of the “Who Is On Next?” talent search and a recycling-geared collaboration with the Fondazione Pistoletto.

Then local celebrities started to endorse him, including singers Tananai, Ghali and Marracash, wearing soccer jerseys he would upcycle and reinvent.

The spring 2024 collection that will be showcased at the Fondazione Sozzani Tazzoli on Saturday as part of Milan Fashion Week will further pay homage to metropolises, Milan in particular.

“It always stems from a celebration of my ‘hood and Milan but the real goal is to be able to speak to all metropolitan cities in the world,” he said.

Heavy on graphics — some realized in collaboration with creative director Gaetano Di Dio — and sportswear inflections and silhouettes, Pipitone described the spring lineup as an “industrial scale representation of my vision.”

At the presentation Pipitone is inviting artist friends to display their artworks including Giacomo Feltrinelli, Jacopo Caldirola, and digital artist Simone Campagna. He is also hoping to be able to unveil a photographic reportage-style book he put together strolling around the city.

Leveraging the Fashion Trust’s grant, Pipitone aims to set up an e-commerce platform to kick off his business beyond made-to-measure. His fashion retails between 250 euros for T-shirts and 1,000 euros for women’s dresses, with upcyled pants selling at 300 to 600 euros.

Maison Laponte

A relative newcomer to the Milan scene, Maison Laponte launched in late 2019 as the brainchild of business and life partners Benedetta Bertolini and Gianandrea Sergi, but sharpened its focus over the pandemic years, which, despite being tough on independent, nascent brands, also enabled them to be very creative.

Combining their expertise rooted in different backgrounds — he a tailor and patternmaker, she an arty type that came to realize her creativity could better serve fashion than the art world — Sergi and Bertolini let their flair for modern, and oftentimes rugged, romanticism run freely.

“We started this project with crazy ideas,” Bertolini said. “There was no marketing, no strategy, it was only about fabrics and our ability to make things. We carried on with no real brand structure,” she added.

A strong focus on textile research has set the foundation for the brand’s development. “That’s for sure one thing we don’t want to compromise on,” she said.

There’s always a quirky touch embedded in Maison Laponte’s creations, which goes hand-in-hand with a natural inclination for a genderless approach that never feels calculated.

“When it comes to patternmaking and sizing, we craft our clothing so that it can easily adapt to both genders. Benedetta and I share a lot of garments; our fashion does not differ from who we are, our wardrobes are shared and so is our brand’s ethos,” Sergi explained.

The spring collection is filled with unisex pieces, no matter that they are traditionally associated with the male or female wardrobe. Cue wrap skirts, that Sergi said telegraph a “punk perspective on menswear… men look like men anyway, and women look like romantic types with a flair,” he said.

In keeping with their layering approach that has been a boon to the brand for the past three seasons, driving a relatively strong distribution footprint, the spring lineup embeds that concept in the way garments are constructed rather than via styling tricks.

Patchwork dresses, petticoat-bearing frocks, blazers with mismatched sleeves done in an oversized polka dot pattern, as well as a bell-sleeved shirt with ruffles and lots of transparencies and see-through layers exuding subtle sensuality are the key codes in Maison Laponte’s offering.

The underlying inspiration was 19th century, U.S.-based photographer Alice Austin, who broke away from the constraints of her Victorian-ruled upbringing and forged an independent life that went against acceptable female behavior and social rules. The collection is to be unveiled on Sunday at the brand’s headquarters inside a parking lot in central Milan that happens to have a verdant garden. The pair linked up with Germi, a Milan-based bookshop and cultural center, that is throwing a 5 p.m. tea party together with the brand.

Veering away from prints, their most recent commercial success, the pair is focusing more on silhouettes and fabrics, aiming to expand their core clientele and further enhance quality and craft.

Currently distributed through around 25 stockists in Italy, France, Greece and Spain, as well as South Korea, the brand’s collections retail from 350 euros for shirts to 1,000 euros for suits and 1,300 for dresses.

Gams Note

“My main inspiration comes from the extensive research and deconstruction of men’s uniforms, especially [those from] scouting or outdoor wear,” said Alessandro Marchetto, founder of Italian label Gams Note.

A graduate in fashion design from Istituto Marangoni in Milan, Marchetto launched his brand in 2021, after stints as menswear designer at labels such as Brooksfield and Annakiki. Presenting his first collection last year, Marchetto intended to offer easy-to-wear, practical total looks crafted from deadstock recovered from high-end European fabric manufacturers.

In sync with this eco-minded approach, he focuses on designing essential silhouettes, often cut in boxy or cropped shapes that can suit multiple occasions, be easily combined and layered, and ultimately stand the test of time.

The instant readability that marks his work will also define the spring 2024 collection, which will be unveiled via a video presentation on Tuesday. Marchetto favored the digital format for his Milan Fashion Week debut as he considered it more immediate in raising awareness around the brand. 

The designer’s clean ethos will be expressed via sleeveless shirts with polo-like buttoning, paired with cargo pants in relaxed silhouettes or short shorts for a stronger contrast in proportions. The sense of lightness and overall ease will be amplified by a palette of pastel hues that will additionally reiterate Marchetto’s attention to sustainability. 

To wit, the designer said he has explored alternative solutions in terms of dyeing and printing techniques. “Some of my favorite pieces are the shirts and shorts dyed in Japan with natural and sustainable dyes like mint or cabbage,” he said. 

Overall, the brand’s concise collections retail at prices ranging from 60 euros for logo-ed foulards, 240 euros for the signature poplin shirt featuring a hidden embroidery under a buttoned pocket, up to 360 euros for cropped anoraks and overshirts in cotton and silk.

Maragno

Comfort, ease and spontaneity are three elements fashion stylist Giulio Maragno is looking to infuse in his Maragno genderless brand, which will unveil its first spring collection on Tuesday. 

At his Milan Fashion Week debut, Maragno will present a lineup dubbed “Shadow,” which on the contrary promises to be all about a neutral palette of earthy tones. Cozy and enveloping shapes and lightweight and natural textures will define the range.

The oversized silhouettes, which wink to the ‘80s here and there, will be crafted from fabrications such as cotton, linen, hemp, wool and silk, recovered from the manufacturing plants of prominent Italian brands in an upcycling exercise. 

The breezy vibe will be magnified by the garments’ construction with the introduction of long laces, which will add movement to the essential pieces as well as help define their volumes. 

“Having designed just two fall collections so far, I found challenging and at the same time interesting to think about the volumes I wanted for summer,” said Maragno, whose brand’s ultimate goal is to spotlight “beauty through simple things.”

Graduated both as an advertising graphic designer with a specialization in fashion photography, and as a costume designer and theater set designer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Maragno has worked as a fashion stylist for almost two decades. He has contributed to the development of advertising campaigns and look books, curated e-commerce looks and collaborated with brands ranging from Max Mara to OVS. 

His newly born brainchild brand hinges on focused collections priced between 100 euros and 700 euros for accessories and ranging from 250 euros up to 3,000 euros for ready-to-wear, with cashmere outerwear the most pricey pieces.