Credit: MM6 Maison Margiela
If there is one segment that has really shone in Italian menswear in 2024, it is leather clothing. In a general context of slowdown, leather recorded an increase of +11.1% in exports and +5.2% in imports, standing out as the only sector growing both in outgoing and incoming.
A clear signal: the market responds to the quality and perceived value of the material. Men are once again choosing iconic, structured, long-lasting garments, and leather confirms itself as an emblem of strength, investment and stylistic identity.
This is also confirmed by the fashion houses, which in January had presented collections in which leather was truly a great protagonist, showing its versatility and beauty thanks to the use of processes and treatments that highlighted its many souls.
A trend that had already been announced in the place where menswear finds its most important habitat, namely Pitti, which in the last edition had hosted MM6 as Guest Designer, giving a preview of what would be the trends on the catwalk.
It is therefore not surprising that the supply chain awaits with curiosity its summer edition, the 108th, scheduled from 17 to 20 June as usual in the spaces of the Fortezza Da Basso, which will host the Spring Summer 2026 collections of over 730 brands, 43% of which are foreign, and three international guest designers. They are HOMME PLISSÉ ISSEY MIYAKE, Guest of Honor of this season, who on Wednesday 18 June will be the protagonist of an event at Villa Medicea della Petraia; Guest Designer Niccolò Pasqualetti, a Tuscan designer who was a finalist for the LVMH Prize 2024 and twice winner of the Camera Moda Fashion Trust, who will debut with menswear on this occasion, and finally Post Archive Faction (PAF), the menswear brand founded by Koreans Dongjoon Lim and Sookyo Jeong.
We just have to wait and see in which direction men's fashion will move and what its consequences will be on the Made in Italy supply chain.
