SUNNEI never plays on the same playing field as the rest. Its strategy isn’t to present collections, but to rethink the very format of fashion. This time, Spring/Summer 2026 didn’t unfold on a runway, but in an imaginary auction designed in conjunction with Christie’s Italy, the epicenter of the global art market. The initial question was clear: what happens when fashion adopts the codes of the art market? The answer: a speculative theater where nothing is really for sale, even if everything seems that way.
Upon arrival, the 150 guests received a silver card. Scratching it revealed a number: the maximum amount of fictitious “dollars” to bid during the evening. A gesture that placed each attendee in the role of collector, speculator, or investor. The stage was designed as an ambiguous and surreal theater. On the platform, Cristiano De Lorenzo, Managing Director of Christie’s Italy, hosted the auction. Members of the SUNNEI community, wearing SS26 looks, played the role of telephone operators.
The first lot was a monumental wooden box that, when opened, revealed a colossal SUNNEI logo. A symbolic sale: the logo, the brand itself, as the first object of desire transacted. The second lot took the metaphor to the extreme: another box contained Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo, creative directors and founders of the brand. The brand presented the possibility of selling not only its graphic identity, but also its minds. The guests responded with bids, and the scene took on a touch of acidic irony.
Each performer, each telephone operator, embodied the looks from the uniqueness of their own identity. It wasn’t about viewing garments in a series, but rather observing how clothing transforms into language when integrated into a larger script. The collection thus functioned as a visual grammar of the staging, without claiming prominence. SUNNEI chose to dilute the fashion object within a broader narrative ecosystem, underscoring that, in this context, what matters is not the dress, but the interplay of values and desires that surround it.
Hours after the show, Messina and Rizzo announced their resignation. What had begun as a metaphorical gesture—the creative directors being put up for sale—became a tangible fact. The announcement, published in Business of Fashion, added an unexpected layer of interpretation: the performance wasn’t just critical, it was also a self-fulfilling prophecy. A distorting mirror that exposes the contradictions of the system: symbolic value versus financial value, desire versus ownership, authenticity versus commodification.
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