Capsule #68 ft. Shahed Ezaydi

Hello hello,

Hope you are all gooood and had a nice week! I personally can’t believe it’s October next week… Like how…

Your third fashion month issue is here, this time with eight things worth seeing from Milan. Next week we’ll have a little Paris wrap up and then we’re done for another six months. 🫶

As ever, there’s also the news you missed, recs for your weekend, and a great Hot & Not from Shahed Ezaydi.

Thank you for being here,

Holly x

8 things worth seeing from the SS25 shows at Milan Fashion Week

A change in format from the denser reviews because fashion week is a lot to keep up with AND Paris is already underway so I felt it was high time for more of a whistle-stop tour. I also think Milan suffers in terms of timing of the fashion month schedule — New York has the joy of kicking it all off, Paris is Paris, and Milan seems to fly by, a chaotic drop of Bottega celebs and stiff leather suits even though we’re scouting looks for spring. Anyway! Your guide to the good stuff and the talking points:

1) Prada bets big on shoes and accessories

We know that fashion houses make most of their money from shoes and accessories. For customers who can afford to splurge on luxury, bags and shoes and belts feel like a good investment — leather gets better over time, they are the best way to elevate an outfit, and bags specifically have great resale potential.

Prada went all in on shoes and accessories for the spring 2025 show. While the collection felt very Prada with the collared coats and mid-length skirts, it abandoned that tidy, togetherness we usually associate with the brand. A new sense of futuristic quirkiness was delivered in the off-beat styling and also via the shoes and accessories - every pair of shoes was different, hats in new shapes, glasses fit for a superhero. The brand is pretty much saying, buy one of these cool accessories to lift your monotonous closet.

Also peep the carabiner skirts… that Chopova Lowena influence…

2) The internet loved Gucci… does that matter?

I opened my phone after the Gucci show to a deluge of love for Sabato De Sarno’s latest collection: “we are definitely on the right track”, “I have to give Sabato De Sarno his flowers for this one 👏”, “these Gucci ss25 looks are scrumptious”. That’s great news for a brand that’s recently been, as we’d say online, in its flop era. Kering’s (Gucci’s parent company) stock price slumped to it’s lowest since 2018, and the brand has struggled to gain that ‘it’ status we see fuelling rivals like Loewe or Miu Miu.

In addition to the strong responses online, the brand also got the mega influencers at the show (Nara and Lucky Blue Smith, Gabbriette, and Amelia Dimoldenberg, who interviewed them all) and actors of the moment (Dakota Johnson, Daisy Edgar-Jones).

All good, then? The buzzy few hours after the show might make you think that. But if you take a closer look at the clothes, do they feel like something you’d want to wear in spring?

The spring 2025 show was called “Casual Grandeur,” taken from a phrase De Sarno heard used to describe Jackie O’s style. For a spring collection, there were lots of coats, and in heavy materials too. The tie details are lovely, but ultimately it’s still a jacket that feels like a far cry from what you’d pack for a May weekend in Europe. I loved the little black set on the end, but again, it’s evening wear, it’s not sweat-proof summer attire and, if you had the money to buy it, you may still not even reach for it on a balmy day.

And money is important. If you did have a lot it, maybe you would slip into one of these Gucci looks for a two-hour drink date before heading back to your hotel suite for a change. In her review of the show for the Washington Post, Rachel Tashjian described De Sarno’s Gucci as “depressing picture of one percenter style.” You could argue that the majority of the clothes we see at fashion weeks are for the upper echelons, but so many of them inspire us to style things differently, teach us how to pair shapes and colour, and generally inspire us to do and feel more with our wardrobe. Tashjian’s issue with Gucci is the lack of freshness, arguing that the one percent may not be the best place to look for ideas.

With this in mind, if you take away the buzzy reactions and the countless TikToks of Amelia Dimz and Gabbriette, you struggle to find substance worth holding onto.

3) Casting at Sunnei

You always remember the shows that break the mould in terms of casting, and in Milan, that was Sunnei. The brand celebrated its tenth anniversary this season, and did so by putting on a show called Ten Years Feel Like a Hundred and casting a collection of senior models.

Sometimes we see one or two, but this was an entire show, and it was a joy. In imagining a show 100 years into the future that none of us will witness, the brand liberated themselves from contemporary pressures:

The clothes were great, too. Functional but fun. Chunky flip flops, utility belts, oversized shirts - summer as we desire it - plus some quirks with prints made from illustrations by Messina’s mother in the ‘80s and oversized puffball tops and dresses. To the next ten years!

4) Books at Del Core

In the autumn trends issue of Capsule we talked about bookishness and fashion’s close connection with literature. Then at the Del Core SS25 show last week, we saw books as accessories on the runway. It writes itself! Like the many Intermezzo’s on the Overground this week.

5) Crocheted flowers at Bottega Veneta (and other playful)

One of the main things I remember about Milan, apart from Jacob Elordi sat on this bunny chair at Bottega Veneta, was the crocheted flowers from the same show. I’m not always a lover of gimmicks because I’ve bought too many in my time and know they have about two weeks of wear, but these flowers felt different. More elevated than a toy but still so playful, way nicer than he faux flowers we were all raised on, and perfect for channelling your inner Jeremy Allen White at the farmers market. So gorgeous. And, if we put our minds to it, we could make our own.

6) Another brand doing playful and whimsy

Is Moschino. Playfulness is in the brand’s DNA so it works — not sure how far this will carry through but there’s something pleasing about seeing the everyday made into high fashion. As a woman who loves to bleach things I smiled at this.

7) More balletcore

We saw it at Simone Rocha in London and now at Ferragamo in Milan: Balletcore is here and thriving my loves. I’m as surprised as you are, but either high fashion houses are not as microtrend-pilled as the rest of us, or ballet isn’t so much a microtrend as an eternal point of reference. Although saying that Ferragamo’s creative director Maximilian Davis is young (Wiki says 29-30, he’s also from Manchester 🥺), so maybe he saw how we latched onto those Sandy Liang and Simone Rocha ballet elements and ran with it. Enjoyed the collection, although the ballet stuff felt stronger than the other pieces. Also enjoyed ballet dancers online saying this doesn’t actually resemble the post-class look. But of course…

8) Speaking of trends we’re familiar with… brat

The GCDS show looked fresh off Charli xcx and Troye Sivan’s Sweat Tour — tights, briefs, big coats, sunglasses, and brat green. Underwear as outerwear is proving to be another big trend of the season (cc. 16Arlington) and I’m sure there will be more references to come from Paris. This show was also Charli xcx approved, as ‘Everything is romantic’ played as models walked the runway.

And finally….

News across fashion and pop culture you may have missed this week:

• The chic Olympic shooter Kim Yeji is in Vogue Korea

• Chappell Roan is continuing to talk about the toll fame is having on her life after being diagnosed with severe depression

• Jojo Siwa got people talking about her style again

• Bella Hadid returned to the runway after a two year break to walk at Saint Laurent

• A peak brat celebrity cultural moment: Lorde, Addison Rae and Kelley Heyer (Apple dance creator) at the sold out Sweat Tour show at Madison Square Garden

• Rosalía had a birthday party in Paris. See who went for some birthday season outfit inspo

• The latest divisive fashion item is here. I kind of love…

• And Lana Del Rey got married! 💍

This week, Shahed Ezaydi popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Shahed is a writer for Stylist Magazine and regularly writes about culture and politics. She's based in London at the moment and is also the author of the upcoming book, The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women, due to be released in 2025.

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📺 Watching: The Outrun, that new Saoirse Ronan film with the Ladybird style poster, and In Vogue: The 90s, the new fashion documentary on Disney.

📖 Reading: It’s Sally Rooney publishing week so of course there is a bunch to read - the New York Times interview in which Rooney talks about being satisfied where she is professionally as opposed to craving more growth, The Guardian piece where she talks about the way being in love helped her to write, and here is Rooney’s list of books she was inspired by during the writing of Intermezzo in case you want to get even deeper.

🎧 Listening to: The posthumous SOPHIE album, the new Jamie xx album, Christian Lee Hutson’s new album, and this excellent episode of Nymphet Alumni about the 90s with Jon Caramanica (the guy who does Popcast for the NY Times).

Is buying a designer bag worth it? Charlie is here to deliver some insights this week: Second hand designer/luxury bags have never been searched more than this year, and search interest almost doubled in the past five years. At the same time, search interest for “resale value” in connection with bags more than doubled (+120%) since 2019, and searches around investing in connection with bags also reached a record high in 2024. So it’s not a crazy idea to be eyeing up a Chanel after all?

If you’d like to adopt Charlie or one of his friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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