Gucci unveils Adidas collab during Milan Fashion Week

Outside Milan’s luxury runway shows on Friday, two Ukrainian students held aloft signs reading “No World War III” and “No Putin” to draw attention to the war in their homeland and to urge the West to take harsher measures.

Their goal: get into photos of influencers and VIPs to remind the world of the horrors going on within Europe.

“For now, it is just sanctions and no action," said Yulia Sayko, 24, a medical student in Milan whose family live near Lvov, near the Polish border. She in particular wants Italy and other holdout nations to shut down Russia's access to the SWIFT international payment system.

Tori Ptaha, a 25-year-old international economics student, said she is very worried about her family in the capital, Kyiv. Then a VIP car started to leave the Versace show and the students and a companion raced to get their signs seen. “We have to get in the photos,’’ Ptaha said.

Details from mostly womenswear previews during Milan Fashion Week’s third day of runway shows Friday:

GUCCI AND ADIDAS JOIN STRIPES

Alessandro Michele has long seen an affinity between Gucci’s stripes and Adidas’ stripes — but whenever he tried to experiment, alarm bells went off. So, he made it official, with an actual collaboration between Gucci and Adidas that took center stage during the preview show for next fall and winter.

Michele said the collaboration was “his longtime hidden desire.”

“Stripes and lines are incredible symbols,’’ the Gucci creative director said backstage at the brand’s Milan headquarters, where the luxury brand showed for the first time since the pandemic.

The collaboration included men’s suits in track-worthy shades of royal blue and purple with the Adidas stripes down the sleeves and trousers and Gucci written under sports brand’s trefoil.

The choices for her were manifold, from a dual-brand corset over an athletic style dress, jogging suits made out of pretty patterned knitwear, paired with heels and not sneakers; or a stunning Victorian-inspired white dress with a full skirt and fully ruffled.

Headgear includes swimming caps with the Adidas logo, and double-billed baseball caps allowing each brand to share prime real estate. The trefoil also appeared on big travel bags, and as a print on trousers.

"It is an experiment that can seem easy to some, but it was extremely strong,'' Michele aid.

The showroom was outfitted with mirrors, which the creative director said was meant to reflect the multiplicity of fashion, how a single garment can be many things depending on how it is worn, and even changing as it ages, gets more lived in. Suits were the centerpiece of the wider collection, which he used to underline the interplay between genders, opening the show with a woman wearing an oversized double-breasted pantsuit.

Michele said that sense of gender fluidity, which made a sensation when he took over as Gucci's creative director seven years ago, came naturally to him. “I am always walking between the genders,'' he said.

VIP guests included Rihanna and Stan Smith, known for the namesake Adidas tennis shoe.

VERSACE’S CORSETED WOMAN

The corset gave shape to Donatella Versace’s latest collection, which offered looks for women of a broad range of sizes.

The bustier appeared on its own under suits, in satiny pastels, or incorporated into slinky slip dresses, as a sort of breastplate on clinging tops and even as a detail on a long leather jacket.

The silhouette ran from loose trousers, with businesslike pinstripes or checks contrasting with bra tops under open suit jackets; or elastic pull-on Morticia-style skirts in bubblegum pink or acid green. Tweed was frayed, appearing as dress bound by a corset, or as jacket and mini-skirt sets.

Versace said the looks were built on “contrast and tension -- like an elastic band pulled tight and about to snap back with a build-up of energy.”