Milan Fashion Week got its emotional anchor on day two: per AP, on February 25, 2026, Maria Grazia Chiuri showed her first collection for Fendi — a coed Fall/Winter 2026-27 debut staged before a star-filled front row, five months after LVMH named her the house's chief creative officer. The homecoming matters: Chiuri began her career at Fendi in 1989, and this was her first runway since leaving Dior in May 2025 after nine years.
What did the debut collection actually say?
Per WWD's review, which titled the show "A Shared Wardrobe," the collection was a coed proposition built on approachable, well-crafted classics rendered mostly in black — plush furs, delicate lace, ornate leather embroidery — punctuated by bolder pieces like neon coats. After years in which Fendi's identity leaned on its accessories engine, the collection put ready-to-wear, and specifically outerwear, back at the center of the argument.
The coed format is also a quiet cost-and-message decision. One show, two categories, a single narrative about how Fendi clothes women and men — an efficient structure at a moment when houses are trimming calendars without trimming ambition.
Related stories: Kering Hands Alexander McQueen to a Former Prada CEO · Korea's Top Court Says Customizing Your Luxury Bag Is Legal.
Why does this appointment matter beyond one show?
Because it completes the industry's most consequential game of creative musical chairs. Chiuri's move to Fendi, per AP, followed Silvia Venturini Fendi's step aside into the honorary president role, and placed the first woman to lead Dior's womenswear at the Roman fur house where the Fendi sisters built their own story of female leadership. The symbolism was the show's real product.
Commercially, Fendi has been the steadier LVMH brand without a blockbuster moment; Chiuri's track record at Dior — commercial collections wrapped in feminist messaging — suggests LVMH wants volume plus meaning, in that order.
The detail most coverage skipped
The debut was a women's-and-men's presentation, but Fendi is keeping its couture story separate: per W Magazine, Chiuri's first haute couture show for the house will be staged in Rome at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in July. The split calendar lets the ready-to-wear reset land in Milan's commercial cycle while saving the Roman homecoming spectacle for couture season.
Why this matters for the season ahead
Fall 2026 is the first season in years in which nearly every major Paris and Milan house shows under a new or newly confirmed creative director, and Fendi set the tone for how those debuts should behave: fewer gimmicks, more wardrobe, black first. If buyers respond to Chiuri's shared-wardrobe logic, expect the coed format to spread through the rest of the Milan calendar and into Paris shows.