Ones to Watch: The New Names and Emerging Brands of Milan Fashion Week September 2025 Edition

MILAN — This Milan Fashion Week season will be remembered as the one filled with the most debuts in recent history. But alongside the high-profile designers sharing their visions for marquees brands, a host of younger talents are testing the city’s showcase as well.

The Ghanaian designer who calls Bologna, Italy, home; the Vivienne Westwood alumni who found inspiration in the Mexican jungle; the theater and cinema enthusiast with previous stints at luxury brands; the Brazilian talent who decamped to Porto, Portugal: these are the new names to know and emerging brands to watch during Milan Fashion Week for spring 2026.

Moja Rowa

Colorful disobedience is how Moja Rowa cofounders Yelena Mojarova and Edward Benedikt Sittler characterize their creative spirit and brand ethos.

The life and business couple remain as excited and committed to fashion creation as they were 10-plus years ago when they first met in London, where they relocated from Italy and Germany, respectively, to join the Vivienne Westwood studio and work with the late designer and Andreas Kronthaler.

After quitting their jobs in early 2020, they kicked off what was meant to be a four-month trip across South America, but never went further than Mexico, their first stop, as the pandemic started to spread globally. They ultimately spent almost three years in the country, initially renting a house in the jungle and learning local crafts.

“We didn’t go to Mexico with the idea of launching our brand. Our original intention was to travel and then go to Italy and find a job. But then somehow, spending life more connected to nature…and having more time [to reflect], we got inspired,” Sittler said.

Once back in Italy, the pair settled between the Marche and Emilia-Romagna regions and established Moja Rowa in 2022. But the reality of navigating the industry with a nascent project came with some wet blanket experiences, including many suppliers turning down the opportunity to work with them, which Mojarova billed as “rejection therapy.”

Focused on using resources with the lowest environmental impact and on exploring different printing techniques — including their favorite, tie-dye — the sustainable brand has until now released only small drops and one-of-a-kind pieces.

“We’ve tried to have an honest project,” Sittler said.

“It is also a very personal project, really close to our hearts. We try to convey feeling through the clothes, to be kind of emotional, personal, colorful and playful,” Mojarova added.

Earlier this year, Moja Rowa was one of the four recipients of the 2025 grants bestowed by the Camera Moda Fashion Trust, the nonprofit organization established in 2017 to support young Italian or Italy-based talents in developing their businesses with financial aid, as well as business mentoring programs and tutoring. The brand received 50,000 euros in funding.

Touting the experience and the team behind the trust, Sittler said the prize has helped them keep their brand alive. Against the economic and social turmoil roiling the industry and the world at large, the couple has learned to dream pragmatically.

This season Moja Rowa is officially part of the Milan Fashion Week calendar for the first time with a full-fledged seasonal collection and has scooped a deal with the 247 showroom. Until now the brand has been sold only direct to consumer.

The presentation to be held inside a tony 19th-century bourgeois apartment in central Milan — a “sciura [lady] house,” as Sittler put it — triggered the pair’s imaginations.

Upon seeing the venue, they imagined the living room as a ballroom for dance competitions. Although they see their work as a continuum, each drop or season a new chapter sticking to similar values and narratives, dance soon emerged as spring’s key theme. 

“It kind of feels like you always work on the same collection and then, of course, you have also new inspirations factoring in,” Mojarova said.

With their limited resources, the creative process has always been serendipitous, sometimes driven by the deadstock fabrics the pair could find and afford. “It’s like treasure hunting,” Mojarova said, adding that 60 percent of the new collection is crafted from deadstock.

Fluid silk and viscose are cut on the bias for asymmetrical draped dresses or midi skirts, both bearing pansy prints, the latter paired with see-through cotton and silk blouses with balloon sleeves; a lot of the brand’s signature styles, such as the sailor collared tops, are repurposed into denim outerwear, while a ladylike pleated skirt features the catchphrase “Dance! Dance! Dance!”

In sync with the dance theme and in a nod to the creative process, the presentation will recreate a dance competition, with models donning Moja Rowa pieces and number badges while twirling and gliding with headphones on — silent party mode. The audience is invited to join, too.

“We should enjoy [fashion] also these days.…We’re really grateful to be doing this, it’s our dream, and we enjoy it and have fun, and so we also want our community and our friends and the people around us to have fun,” Mojarova said.

Victor Hart

Victor Hart’s personal and professional path has taken many detours since his university years studying painting and sculpture in his native Ghana, first with his move to Italy in 2012 to attend the Haute Future Fashion Academy school in Milan and then with the launch of his namesake brand in 2021.

“After university, I really felt like I was done with arts and painting and everything. I wanted a different career,” he said.

After a few textile and sustainability design consulting gigs, he relocated to Bologna — a city that has become a hub for young creatives in recent years, including Luca Magliano and Marco Rambaldi.

The brand focuses on hybrid workwear, focused on sartorial constructions and largely crafted from deadstock denim pieces in what Hart bills as “futuristic tailoring.”

“It’s about a futuristic approach to the wardrobe staples, which can be used for many occasions…not just about buying Victor Hart and forgetting the clothes you have already but integrating it and mixing together to create that unique style,” he said.

In 2024 Hart was among those who received an award at the Camera Moda Fashion Trust event, where he scooped the Max&Co.-backed prize of 20,000 euros as well as the opportunity to join the contemporary brand’s design team for a special project, as part of the Max Mara Fashion Group’s label’s Design for Change program.

The spring 2026 collection to be presented Thursday during Milan Fashion Week is the result of that collaboration and was developed as a multidrop range, with the menswear component already unveiled during last June’s fashion week.

Titled “Defiants,” the womenswear — but also mostly genderless — collection is inspired by Hart’s journey of going against the grain and embracing his own passions.

“It’s always been my approach, of me not studying law, accountancy [as was expected of me]…and trying as much as possible to be who I am as an artist and now becoming a designer,” Hart said.

The designer is seeking to offer a wardrobe that helps wearers find their style. “It’s difficult to find your taste…but then you have to be consistent with who you are. The collection is based on my struggles,” he said.

There is a little bit of Italian history embedded in the collection, as draping is informed by Dante Alighieri’s tunics seen in portraits of him. There is natural beauty, too, with landscapes of Trento, Italy’s trees changing and decaying over time informing a lot of the textures.

Although Hart continues to use deadstock textiles for his direct-to-consumer inventory, the upcoming collection is crafted from new Italian fabrics the designer poured effort — and money — into researching and developing.

“Textures are very important. The smooth, the rough, the tactile.…All these things come together to make the garment a unique piece,” he said, referencing, for example, corn flock print on top of denim trenchcoats with a moss-like effect.

Tailoring forms the backbone of the collection, and it comes with shoulder pads framing the silhouette, echoing military silhouettes and workwear he remembers from his teenage years in Ghana.

After taking part in Milan Fashion Week with digital-only presentations last January and June, the designer is now hosting an IRL event where he hopes guests will try on the clothes and enjoy his fashion vision up close.

The season comes with a dedicated look book shot in the monumental cemetery of Bologna, its architectural grandeur countered by the modernity and Gen Z-fluency of the clothes.

“I felt like it was the right time and place to say ‘We are here to stay.’ Bologna is the city I’m building this from,” Hart said.

Amid struggles, like many of his up-and-coming peers, Hart maintains big ambitions.

“Everything is done by me. I do consulting, freelance work, even washed dishes in a hotel last summer — all to save money for fabrics, production, to pay the people who collaborate with me,” Hart said.

“I want to build an institution, not just a personal brand. So tomorrow, if I’m not around, the brand, the institution, can survive,” he added.

To this end he has been traveling to trade shows and other fashion showcases around the world, including the recent edition of Coterie in New York.

Henri Paris

In 2024, in between cinema, couture and theater, the brand Henri Paris was born. The founder, Henri Maheu, started in fashion through his passion for cinema and film costumes from the 1950s and 1960s. “My family is not at all in the business, so the glamour came to me really through cinema, that’s how I discovered fashion. That’s also why I’m so interested in vintage fashion,” the designer said.

Thanks to his passion for costumes, at age 14 he started to take sewing lessons, and at 21, when he moved to Paris from Montreal, he began working as a pattern-maker, which he did for 10 years at brands like Louis Vuitton, Alaïa and Saint Laurent. “Now that I’m 31, I started the brand because that was always the goal, but also because it took me time to discover my style. I think I discovered it through working in big ateliers when I would see how stylists and creative directors were really in awe with the history of fashion, but they always wanted to make it modern,” he continued.

But Maheu’s philosophy is rooted in embracing the nostalgia for vintage and past decades’ costumes, creating 1950s-inspired dresses that pay homage to the era rather than offering a modernized take.

The first meeting between the designer and buyers took place last July in Paris, when he was selected by fashion consultant Patricia Lerat to participate in the Reveler event for young designers, and after that he was selected to show in Milan.

“I wondered why in Italy they could be interested in my work. And I think that what made the connection was that through my work you can really see how I appreciate and I am inspired by the costumes in the works of Fellini and Visconti, and this, I think, brings me closer to the Italian audience.”

In his second collection, to be unveiled with a presentation Saturday, Maheu continues to refine the brand’s aesthetic, showcasing dramatic and bold silhouettes, including hourglass jackets and cocoon coats that embody the brand’s evolving identity. 

“There are geometric forms that recall the typical shapes of couture and that go beyond the boundaries of the body,” the designer said. The collection showcases structured fabrics like jacquard and shantung, as well as fake astrakhan fur, with patterns like houndstooth and a prominent cat print. “The fabrics are different from one another, but they are all telling a story about the ’50s,” he emphasized.

The presentation of the new collection will highlight the contrast between the dramatic mood of the clothes, which are almost like stage costumes, and a more romantic concept featuring girls posing with books and reading glasses. In fact, Maheu’s theater background has played a fundamental role in shaping his professional training and tastes, allowing him to create a bridge between costume and fashion.

“My early training in theater deeply shaped my relationship with fashion: I’ve always seen garments as a means of embodying a role, revealing a mood or telling a story. When I create I try to always have someone that could be the evil stepmom, or the young princess, but I also think it’s interesting to kind of break all those stereotypes about women. People can actually twist the clothes with their own personality,” he said.

Looking at longer-term future projects Maheu aims to expand his brand into menswear and accessories. “Right now, I’m still building my business strategy. One of the goals is to showcase in one of the big department stores but I know that it’s going to take time, because I’m doing a very luxurious product.”

Collaborations are also a key consideration for the future, as according to Mahueu they offer a valuable opportunity to demonstrate the brand’s versatility and ability to blend with other influences.

Davii

Founded by the Brazilian designer Davii in 2016, the brand’s journey began when the designer left Brazil for Porto and created his first haute couture atelier together with his business partner, Gianfranco Fenizia. 

“The journey actually began with a small collection of kimonos, but it evolved over time. Joining the Portugal Fashion platform in 2021 was a significant milestone, as it provided crucial support and covered expenses for our small brand,” explained the designer, who only goes by the professional name he has chosen and given to the brand. “I’ve always been drawn to the Eastern style, but it’s more of a passion than a specific connection, it simply resonates with me.”

The designer also drew inspiration from haute couture and contemporary design, creating his first collection of handmade garments based on Eastern volumes and proportions alongside Art Nouveau pleats and drapes. His research stretched from Persian art and Basqt’s Russian Ballets to contemporary tribal influences.

The brand’s philosophy, which embodies the essence of ethereal femininity and elegance, is centered around combining style, quality and contemporaneity, with a focus on the handmade. Davii’s creations, made from materials like organza and raw silk, are characterized by a distinctive tailoring style, primarily working with fluid fabrics and transforming them into “timeless” and light creations.

The new collection, debuting on Saturday, draws inspiration from the kimono, with a particular emphasis on the shoulder and sleeve design. The initial focus on silk and organza has given way to a blend of different fabrics, including neoprene and polyester.

“Our pieces are handmade in Portugal, the work is directly on mannequins to craft each garment with precision and care. This approach allows for a high level of detail and a truly bespoke finish.”

At the heart of Davii’s creative process is the atelier, nestled in the heart of Porto. The brand has showcased its latest collections in boutiques in Porto, Madrid and Milan. With the launch of the fall 2025 collection, Davii has expanded its offerings to include knitwear, leather and technical pieces with nylon, allowing it to reach new audiences.