Three days out from his runway debut at Blumarine, David Koma is decidedly calm. “We’re all chill here,” he smiles over Zoom from the brand’s Milan studio. “No stress, good mood, everything under control.”
It’s an unusual vibe for a designer about to make a runway debut. But swerving the high pressure of a very first show at a house (in an industry currently obsessed with the performance of creative directors), Koma opted for a soft launch approach to his new role. In December, he took six talents to the Fashion Awards in London, including models Ashley Graham and Lily McMenamy, all wearing Blumarine gowns. He then released a 40-look pre-fall collection in January, presented via showroom appointments with buyers and press during Milan Fashion Week Men’s.
“I preferred to start with pre-fall because it gave me a chance to fix the synergy between all the teams,” the designer says. “It was good to see the product on the hanger and the rail and fix anything we needed to.”
During our first meeting, back in January, I offered that perhaps starting with a pre-collection, as Alessandro Michele did at Valentino, gives creative directors a chance to gauge industry feedback ahead of the big runway debut. But Koma — who’s run his own label for 15 years despite the challenging climate for London-based independents — isn’t too interested in bending to opinion. “I don’t take that much feedback. But when I design something, I have an idea of what it needs to make people feel. If it feels right, I don’t necessarily analyse it too much. That’s what happened here,” he explains.
Koma succeeds Walter Chiapponi, who exited Blumarine in March 2024 after one season. Chiapponi joined Blumarine from Tod’s in November 2023, as the brand aimed for a “more mature woman”, says Blumarine managing director Barbara Baudo. It was a market pivot from the youthful vision of Blumarine under creative director Nicola Brognano, who revived the brand during his tenure from 2019 to 2023 with a Y2K aesthetic in collaboration with star stylist Lotta Volkova (who now works across Miu Miu).
Koma’s Blumarine is easier, lighter and “more fun” than his more structured, slick eponymous brand, the designer says. His pre-fall collection was inspired by “the streets of Milan”, with a campaign featuring various pets (inspired by the pet-friendly nature of the city); lingerie with a kitten’s face on the front and slogan tees that read “woof” or “miaow”.
For Autumn/Winter 2025, Koma is moving from the streets to the silver screen, with a show collection inspired by Italian actresses. “It has a different filter to it,” he says. “Pre-fall was about connecting to the street and connecting to the huge fan base and followers of Blumarine. [AW25] is more of a fantasy, inspired by a lot of different Italian actresses. It will feel like I was directing an art house movie inspired by Sicilian beauty, basically.”
Patience and cooperation
After the challenges Blumarine’s faced in recent years, including Chiapponi’s sudden exit, managing director Baudo wanted to give Koma time to develop his vision. So Blumarine took a season off showing for SS25 while the designer settled in. “It affected business, of course. But we preferred to wait one season to allow David to become confident with the team, understand the product and stay days in our archives,” she says. “We wanted to feel 100 per cent prepared.” For SS25, the design team produced a collection to be sold to stores, and Baudo managed to keep the business “stable”.
In his interview for the Blumarine job, Koma laid out plans for seasons and pre-collections, capsule collections, campaigns and talent, she says. “He really has a clear vision. No matter if it’s a product or it’s a campaign, you know exactly who it’s for.”
More broadly, in all his collections for Blumarine, Koma’s modus operandi is to dress “the mother and the daughter”, creating intergenerational appeal as younger consumers pull back luxury spending. Each collection will focus a little more on the mother or the daughter, Baudo explains, with the AW25 runway show skewing a little more mature than the pre-fall (likely due to higher ticket showpieces). “This idea of mother-daughter is very Italian,” she says. “It speaks to the brand’s heritage, being founded [and then run] by mother-daughter duo Anna Molinari and Rossella Molinari. It’s a very Italian way to communicate.”
Paying homage to Blumarine’s Y2K golden era
While many young designers enter a big house and try to reinvent the wheel, Koma is confident in his skills and isn’t afraid of paying tribute to other designers who came before him, like Brognano. “I feel quite confident recently within my career, so I look at this in a very humble way,” he says. “There is enough of my handwriting now [on Blumarine]. Maybe if I was a bit younger, I would be more like, ‘Clear all this out, this is me’.”
Blumarine’s Y2K era under Brognano, with heavily conceptual shows and the ubiquitous butterfly motif, remains a golden era for the house in many people’s minds. Koma, too, was a fan. “First of all, it’s a really important part of the brand’s history,” he says. “Second of all, I personally love that part. So I did embrace the whole history, including that — I love it. There is a huge fan base built during that period. So I was like: let’s embrace it, but let’s elevate.”
The pre-fall collection and the runway collection each feature the Blumarine logo, appearing on bags, chests and trousers in diamantés, in a nod to this time. It’s a departure for the designer. “I’m not necessarily a huge fan of prints and logos, but it just works here,” he says. “That cursive font, it’s a font you want to wear on your ass.”
Elevating quality, reducing price
In terms of elevation, Koma and Baudo have worked together to elevate the fabric quality across Blumarine collections. Baudo brought in a new production manager to help secure suppliers and improve fabrics. But she and Koma agreed that in order to compete in today’s market, the prices needed to come down even as the quality went up. “We wanted to have more democratic prices because luxury has gotten too expensive for a lot of consumers,” Baudo says. “We worked hard over the last eight months before David’s arrival to make that happen.”
Blumarine’s core business is dresses, which now retail in the range of €700 to €800, reduced from €900 to €1,000, Baudo says, while the retail range for the knitwear category is now between €400 and €600, reduced from €600 and €800. “We want to expand our consumer base, so we can grow with the quantities, and maybe in a couple of seasons, we can revisit.”
“What I’m super proud of within this collection is how fluid and easy it looks, compared with the complexity of how difficult it was to put together,” Koma adds. “Obviously, I’m really good at the structured part, and it’s going to be a lot of beautiful tailoring, nice outwear, amazing leather — we’re going to see it all. But I’m super proud that with the Blumarine team, we managed to achieve such complexity in such light clothes [when it comes to dresses].”
To host buyers and editors post-show, Blumarine has moved to its own showroom to “stay close” to clients and ensure its leadership teams, including Baudo, can interact with buyers on a more regular basis. And the brand is shifting its communication to better connect with customers directly, too. “We don’t want to be so institutional,” Baudo says. This means sticking with the fashion show, but also testing out community events and local capsules in key markets like the UK, the US and China. “It’s not about major advertising; it’s about getting close to the final customer. This is our intention. We’ve already planned the next two years.”
Koma is tight-lipped on the exact details of the show. But he’s clear that this is just the second phase for him, defining who the Blumarine person may be. “I personally feel like it will [take] four collections to define this new language. In a way, this is just step two,” he says. “I’m trying to build my own imaginative character.”
Now, after a steady start, we can expect some energy at Thursday’s show. “At the end of the day [at Blumarine], there is always the space for a sense of humour, good mood and high tempo,” Koma says.
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