Milan Fashion Week is in full swing, and student Riccardo Rinaldi was at Vogue World, working on the show’s production. He reflects on what the spectacle means from a fashion student’s perspective, and what it can tell us about the next generation of fashion professionals.
“A million girls would kill for this job”, is what I kept hearing inside of my head while taking part in the preparation of the 5th edition of Vogue World.
In the midst of Milan Fashion Week, in nothing less than the city’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the story of the evolution of fashion, craftsmanship, and the irreversible influence of artificial intelligence was told via garments by Italy’s prestigious fashion houses, the world’s biggest supermodels, countless celebrities, dancers, and opera singers.
An incredible number of professionals, from production to high-tech, came from all over the world to help build what is, in my opinion, the most important and impactful event in the fashion industry. Held for the first time in 2022 in New York, after COVID, Vogue World is a fashion and culture function that takes place every year around the globe. It’s a mix of a fashion runway, a concert, and a live performance. It’s not just a show, it’s a celebration of culture.
Divided into five acts like a classical comedy; The Artisanal Revolution; The Industrial Revolution; Made in Italy; The Age of Intelligence; and The Imagination Revolution, the show merged fashion and spectacle to create something memorable. Although Gigi Hadid’s dramatic entrance in an Haute Couture Valentino gown by Alessandro Michele, and Alicia Keys closing the show on the notes of I Feel Love by Donna Summer, stunned audiences around the world, everyone is, of course, talking about the robots.
I met the robots while supporting the team, led by choreographer Charm La’Donna, Emmy award winner for Bad Bunny’s half time show, and Jen Green of Genevieve Productions, to develop the choreography just a couple of days before the show. I will never forget the moment the robots entered the room. Bent inside a box, they jumped out, stood up and came to “life.” All around, there was silence. The first reaction was pure amazement, smiling, laughing, but then something changed. Our enthusiasm was soon replaced by a shared perception of the uncanny. The reaction that followed from Miuccia Prada and Alessandro Michele in the front row was, in hindsight, predictable while the fascinating yet bizarre catwalk by our artificial friends brought up questions such as, is this a celebration of evolution in the fashion industry? Or is it the manifestation of the replacement of human touch?
The machines were counterbalanced by astonishing human talent. Roberto Bolle and the angelic dancers of La Scala Theatre were particularly enchanting; looking at them practicing at night from a high-up window of the Galleria was an honor and a lesson in elegance. On the evening of the event itself, more dancers, flaunting custom-made Diesel suits, animated the floor with their pop style.
Throughout the third act, Made in Italy, actors, performers, and celebrities walked the catwalk alongside Milanese personalities in a live performance of everyday life in the Galleria, with people shopping, talking, and walking around. Yet this staged authenticity is exactly where my disappointment lies, Vogue World chooses a different city each year to host and celebrate its local culture, but here that celebration felt slightly Americanized. Rather than representing the importance of Italian craftsmanship and the concept of Made in Italy, the show fed the audience Hollywood stereotypes and caricatures. Still, the event’s local presence made itself felt elsewhere: 500 seats sold, raising almost $3 million to fund the charity restoration of Milan’s Quarto Oggiaro library. Giving back to the city isn’t an act of kindness, it’s a necessary form of respect.
In the fourth act, The Intelligence Era, sports stars such as Arianna Fontana, Lorenzo Musetti, Aryna Sabalenka, Veronica Yoko, and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, also took to the galleria in one of the most spontaneously joyful moments of the evening, a confirmation that the realms of sport, lifestyle and fashion are well cemented and will continue to cross over.
I would like to put the spotlight on the hidden gems of Vogue World Milano, the ones you can’t see, but without whom everything would stop. All the fashion students and the assistants I shared this experience with. Their unbreakable enthusiasm and passion were truly inspiring, not only to me, but to everyone. It was a true demonstration of the next generation of fashion, designers, marketers, managers, and more. We all worked cohesively together, supporting each other and sustaining the roots of this colossal event.
Some of them I will never see again, some of them I will work with soon. But I can say for sure that if the future of fashion is in their hands, I feel safe and proud to be part of it.
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- MILAN, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 22: Vittoria Ceretti walks the runway during Vogue World: Milano 2026 at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on September 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Stefania M. D’Alessandro/Getty Images for Vogue)
