Moschino sent designer rubbish bags down the runway at Milan Fashion Week. The show was entitled Tools Of The Trade, where the house explored the idea of hard work. Known for its theatricalities, humorous marketing and love of logo-mania, Moschino presented all that and more at its autumn winter 2025 show.
Creative director Adrian Appiolaza, an Argentinian designer and avid vintage collector who spent a decade at Loewe, joined Moschino last year with his first collection debuting at autumn/winter 2024 fashion week, and he has certainly not subverted expectations.
Appiolaza’s playful eye is a perfect fit for the label, merging eccentric Italianisms with a tinge of lively surrealism. Franco Moschino, who founded the label in 1983, used his ads to campaign against drugs, violence and cruelty to animals, alongside bringing early attention to environmentalism in fashion production.
Appiolaza honoured Moschino’s legacy with this collection, noting, “Franco had that sense of irony and humour, so it’s important that I keep that vein through the collection”. Models dressed in glossy black bin bags and T-Shirts emblazoned with the earth and SOS waltzed down the runway.
Alongside the political messaging, motifs of the house popped up throughout, from the signature Smiley to nameplate belts and the flamenco ruffle. Deconstructions of various garments were reassembled to make collage-like dresses, workwear was transformed through exaggerated silhouettes and a desire to keep the viewer guessing permeated the collection.
The palette was as varying as the silhouettes. From charcoals, blacks and pops of pink dominating the collection with sudden interjections of bold florals and bright yellows. With Tools Of The Trade, Appiolaza demonstrated that irony, excess and social commentary remain at the heart of Moschino.
The collection balanced nostalgia with fresh irreverence, offering a playful yet pointed take on fashion’s role in consumer culture. From bin bags to bold florals, it was a celebration of contradiction, both a critique and an embrace of the spectacle that is high fashion.
