You wouldn’t expect anything less than radical from Sunnei’s Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina as they marked their 10th anniversary. There wasn’t a traditional birthday cake in sight at their show; instead, it offered a reflection on aging, the passage of time, and growing older. But in true Sunnei fashion, it was irreverent and far from conventional. The entire cast consisted of individuals of a certain age, artists and friends of the house not younger than 70 or 80, proudly showcasing their wrinkles and graying hair with absolute aplomb.
They looked fantastic (and inspiring) in Sunnei’s straightforward designs, which this season took a celebratory turn for the theatrical. A cotton shirred top featured a humongous cloudlike ruched capelet; an impactful, voluminous trapeze dress with billowing proportions was printed with bold diagonal stripes; and enigmatic illustrations by Messina’s mother, Marylène Fantoni, from the 1980s were reproduced on what resembled a kooky ball gown—the first specimen of Sunnei couture perhaps?
Ten Years Feel Like a Hundred was the title of the show, staged in the minimalist, polished white gallery of art-world powerhouse Lia Rumma. Marina Abramović and Juergen Teller sat on small wood stools alongside a select group of loyal friends and editors who have supported the label’s bravado over the past decade. “We’re turning 10 and we still haven’t managed to get a Wikipedia page,” they joked amid the joyful mayhem that followed the show.
For once, they chose not to over-ruminate on the deeper meaning of their performative show, leaving the audience to reflect on what was likely the first fashion show in history with an all-senior cast. The message was powerful enough to need time to sink in. “It can’t be fully conveyed in words, and that’s intentional,” they explained. However, true to their intellectual nature, they still offered their own insights.
“Nobody knows what Sunnei will look like in 90 years—and none of us will be here to witness it,” they mused. “These past 10 years have been so intense, they felt like a century. So we thought, why not stretch that idea and project the fashion show a hundred years into the future, to 2124? We wanted to enter a no-time zone—a distorted future where time becomes so dense that it almost dissolves, ceasing to exist. No trends, no overthinking, no overdesign. There’s no pressure or anxiety about growth, whether personal or as a brand—the obsession with constant growth is absurd. The fashion industry is aging. Milan is aging. We’re merely amplifiers of these paradoxes. There’s no need to celebrate anything. Age is irrelevant—whether it’s 10, 100, 2, or 85. They’re just numbers. There’s no melancholy or sorrow in growing older. At Sunnei, nobody is old.”
