The New Days of Disco

Milan Fashion Week begins, with Fendi setting the pace. Pandemic? Climate change? Party! Or take a breath at Jil Sander.

MILAN — Climate Week had just begun in New York when seemingly half the fashion journalists, retailers and related style professionals in the city boarded a Delta flight to Milan — most for the first time since February 2020, just before the world came to a virus-induced halt. Despite all the talk that has been going around about sustainability in the industry, especially once the pandemic spurred calls for a reassessment of old practices, no one mentioned carbon credits. People were too busy being excited and a little freaked out about traveling again.

“It’s unnerving,” Jonathan Anderson said via Zoom earlier the same day. He wasn’t talking about flying, but rather “this idea it should all go back to the way it was before.” The two are not unrelated. He was explaining why he had decided to skip putting on a show for his JW Anderson brand, and also more broadly, what fashion represents: an attempt to distill the mood of the moment.

“How can we come out of this pandemic not changed?” Mr. Anderson said. “I didn’t want to rush.”