Age Is but a Number
Review of Sunnei Spring 2025 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Playful. Defiant. Time-bending.
Though the Spring 2025 collection marks the ten year anniversary of Sunnei, founders and creative directors Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina aren’t looking backwards or caving to the pressure to make their delightfully zany world more commercial, more trendy, more “luxury,” or more “grown up.” Instead – and thankfully – they’re opting to keep doing what they’re doing: a steady development of their idiosyncratic and fiercely independent practice of cartoonish proportions, clever details, bright color, and, of course, stripes.
They are, however, playing with the idea of slowing down – literally. Spanning two floors of Milan’s Lia Rumma gallery, the show already has to have a slower pace as its models descend stairs and cover plenty of ground; on top of that, the music dramatically slowed down partway through the show. But the most impactful aspect of the show’s staging is its casting, which features entirely older models – a seemingly simple choice that is nonetheless radically at odds with industry standards, and that cleverly fleshes out the idea of aging with grace without losing any spark for life.
The collection, too, does things at its own pace. This time around, the brand’s penchant for proportion play tends toward elongation, with oversized tunic tops alongside simple shapes and ballooning volumes. Bags are either petite or maxi. Second-skin tops feature recently rediscovered drawings made by Messina’s mother in the 80s that are then situated against surreal, dystopian backdrops. The show notes explained that the designers initially tried to rework these drawings with AI, but were unsatisfied with the results, and so turned back again to human creativity – another way the brand is resisting the passage of time as it applies to the rest of the industry. There’s also a second collaboration with Camper, one of the few footwear brands able to match Sunnei’s commitment to balancing fun with exacting quality.
THE DIRECTION
THE QUOTE
Sunnei turns 10, yet it still hasn’t managed to get a Wikipedia page. 10 years feels like 100, because over this decade we’ve traveled through time to the point of losing all sense of it. Now, time feels distorted, and it’s the moment to share this perception with everyone here. That’s the experience offered to guests this season – that’s the kind of interaction they’ll be invited to: living in a different conception of time.”
THE WRAP UP
It’s not the most out-there runway show concept the brand has served up (there have been some truly memorable and surprising ones), but it does feel like one of the most thoughtful and pertinent. There’s no time like a major birthday to reflect on the passage of time, where one’s been, and where one’s going. Sunnei rises to this opportunity with an optimistic yet incisive affirmation that it will always do things its own way, at its own pace, despite – or because of – the fact that this makes them an industry outlier.
