ByElena SendonaonOctober 8, 2025
At Milan Fashion Week, where spectacle often overshadows substance,Casa Preti’s /Summer 2026 collection ‘ILOS’stood defiantly apart. The Sicilian brand, led by designerMattia Piazza, delivered more than just fashion — it presented a movement. A collective act. A reflection on what it means to betogetherin a world obsessed with the individual.
The title“ILOS”is more than a name — it’s a poetic reversal. Derived from the Italian word“soli”(meaningalone), flipped on its head, it becomes a new word with a radical spirit. “ILOS” becomes a call for union — a vision only possible when shared, recognized, and embraced together. In an age of hyper-individualism, it’s a revolutionary whisper: we’re stronger as one.
Rather than defaulting to seasonal trends or market-safe silhouettes,Casa Pretiapproached the runway withartistic integrity and conceptual firepower. The garments themselves played with contrasts: fluid silk met structured technical fabrics, suggesting a constant dialogue between softness and resistance, vulnerability and strength.
Inspired byPellizza da Volpedo’s painting “Il Quarto Stato”— a 20th-century Italian symbol of collective power — the collection reimagined this “Fourth State” for a contemporary audience. These weren’t just clothes; they were tools of resistance, uniforms for the emotionally brave and socially aware. Each piece bore the soul of timeless design, rejecting fast fashion in favor ofethical, durable, and useful fashion.
Gone was the notion of luxury as exclusivity. Here, luxury meant time, care, and community. “Being oneself becomes a form of labor,” reads the collection’s manifesto. “And like any labor, it needs alliances, networks, and guilds.” It’s a line that lingers long after the final model leaves the runway.
The Claire Fontaine Effect: Feminist Art Meets Sartorial Rebellion
At the heart of “ILOS” lies an electrifying collaboration withClaire Fontaine, the feminist art collective known for interrogating political impotence and the illusion of individualism. The result? Aworkwear-style bagthat functions as an extension of the body — part tool, part totem — and acollective performance piecethat was revealed on September 27, 2025.
Fontaine’s presence imbued the show with a deeper conceptual weight, blending performance art with fashion’s physicality. Together, Casa Preti and Claire Fontaine blurred the line between clothing and protest, aesthetics and action. It wasn’t performative activism; it was activism as performance.
Founded inPalermo in 2017, Casa Preti embodies the Sicilian tension between tradition and modernity. Piazza, who studied music before turning to fashion, infuses each piece with the rhythm of storytelling and the geometry of classic tailoring. His signature clerical lines — inspired by the baroque painterMattia Preti, from whom the brand takes its name — recall sacred garments, not just in form but in intention.
His clothes don’t scream for attention. Theywhisper to be lived in— places to inhabit, rather than trends to consume. It’s an ethos that finds freedom in slowness and power in quiet gestures.
Beauty as Ethics, Ethics as Beauty
For SS26,Casa Preti redefines beauty not as an aesthetic, but as a philosophy. The brand’s foundational principle —“buono uguale bello”(good equals beautiful) — guides everything from textile selection to customer relationships.
Local production, Italian fabrics, and an intimate sense of craftsmanship aren’t optional; they’re the core.
With technical partners like Wella (for hair) and ProLab Milano (for makeup), led by key MUA Camilla Conterio, the presentation found strength in collaboration at every level — from backstage artistry to philosophical framework.
Not Just a Show. A Signal.
In a season saturated with viral gimmicks, “ILOS” was a humanist outcry. It reminded the fashion world that clothing, at its best, is not a product but a proposition. A question posed. A connection made.
