Here’s the thing: in an era where fashion is reduced to mini bags and underwear, wrapped in conceptual overload, SUNNEI proves that there is a radical alternative. What you see is what you get. FW25 is not just a collection, it’s a statement in its purest form: the SUNNEI Formula. You can embrace it, or you can step back. That decision, in its most elemental form, is fashion in its rawest state: a transaction. A point where desire meets reality, where something moves from us to you. Today, fashion is obsessed with the idea of selling a narrative, with the promise of an unattainable concept. But often, that materialisation of the idea-and the very act of selling it-is diluted in the process.
Each season, brands present themselves as actors on stage, offering a new interpretation of their own role. If you’re here, we know you have at least some idea of what SUNNEI stands for, and therefore know that we’ve always liked to subvert expectations. This time, however, as we execute our act of ‘fashionista magic’, the moment calls for something different: a more authentic realism. A year of transformation, doors closing and doors opening. Literally. With its FW25 fashion show, SUNNEI invites you to enter its new universe: a renewed shop, a renewed proposal, a renewed vision. New customers who become an essential part of this experience.
Let’s not make it more complex. Fashion is an exchange, and there is nothing wrong with recognising that this is the basis of it all. SUNNEI’s founders define themselves as creators and entrepreneurs. But here, sales are not just numbers; they are a manifestation, a conversation, a form of expression. This season we are not here to ‘explain’ the meaning of our fashion. We are here to talk about something much more visceral: buying something because we simply like it, because we believe in it. FW25 is an act of stripping – not just physically, but conceptually. It’s stripping away layers, getting rid of the superfluous. What’s left? The clothes. The tent. The bodies. The crossed glances, the complicit gestures, the ideas floating in the air. Buying, trying on, observing, commenting.
The fashion show itself is a declaration of intent: models who, almost as if they were customers, blend into the urban environment, blurring the boundary between fashion as spectacle and fashion lived in our everyday lives. The catwalk becomes the street, and the public becomes an active participant, a witness to the collision between commerce and creativity. As the experience progresses, the models follow a calculated choreography, navigating a space that dilutes the city and the catwalk. The light changes, the sound beats to the rhythm of each step, and for a moment, retail is transformed into something else: something visceral, immersive, unavoidable. Nothing more. Nothing less. And no, we are not here to make a conceptual statement. This is a space without concepts.
NEW SPACE, NEW CONCEPT
‘A concept store without a concept. So reads the message on the posters adorning Milan, accompanied by the SUNNEI logo, the words ‘STORE – CAFE – GALLERY’ and an address: VIA PRIVATA PIETRO CIRONI 15, 20133 MILANO. This sentence encapsulates the essence of SUNNEI’s new space, which will open its doors on 1 March 2025.
After an emotional farewell to its first flagship store on Via Vela, SUNNEI also said goodbye to preconceived notions about retail. It was time to leave conventional expectations behind and create an experience that faithfully reflected the brand’s disruptive DNA, an approach that had already defined its runway shows and now finds its centrepiece in this space. Stripped of predefined standards and free from traditional retail logic, the result is the ultimate SUNNEI formula: risky and unique.
PALAZZINA SUNNEI AS THE BRAND HOME
Starting with the location, the new 150 m² shop is surprisingly housed within the brand’s headquarters. By integrating retail into its creative hub, SUNNEI blurs the boundaries between conception and consumption. Here, customers can shop just a few steps away from the people who designed the pieces. Do you have a question about a garment? It is possible for the designer to come down personally to answer it.
Palazzina Sunnei is not just a headquarters: it is the beating heart of the brand. This shop is the physical embodiment of sunnei.it, offering a gateway to SUNNEI’s multifaceted universe, from ready-to-wear to SUNNEI Objects to the immersive soundscapes of SUNNEI Radio.
A HYBRID SPACE DESIGNED BY 2050+
More than a shop, more than a café: this space aspires to become Milan’s new cultural hub. A meeting point where the community can interact with art in all its forms, from installations and exhibitions to listening sessions and live performances.
Visionary architecture studio 2050+ has translated the ideas of founders Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo into a hybrid space, defined by a ‘non-design’ aesthetic. The result is a meticulously curated yet understated environment, where various shades and finishes of white serve as a blank canvas, allowing SUNNEI’s vibrant universe to take centre stage.
2050+ devised an alphabet of geometric elements to structure the space: seen from above, the shelves appear as lines, the café as a series of squares, and the fitting rooms as circles and curves.
COLLABORATIONS
At SUNNEI, essentiality, functionality and form are guiding principles, from ready-to-wear to objects and now to retail design. Here, this philosophy manifests itself in the conscious rejection of superfluous elements. Instead of grandiloquent design pieces, the space highlights meaningful collaborations with creative partners.
A prime example is the mycelium-isolated sound system by bio-design brand Mycoaudio, designed to enhance the shop’s sonic identity, and the rugs created in collaboration with cc-tapis, an extension of the partnership that debuted with the expansive 72 m² carpet used in the FW24 runway show.
In collaboration with Campeggi, Emanuele Magini’s Sosia sofa features prominently in the space, one of the few design elements whose presence makes sense in this context.
The café is curated by Tommaso Vergano (Chinati Vergano, a family-run producer of vermouth and spirits, & Amore Liquido, a distributor of gastronomic non-alcoholic beverages) and Anastasia Posca (of Isola in Turin, a natural wine bar and cultural centre, and Dolphin Market, a concept store for food and design objects), both experts in the field. They have shaped a welcoming space where visitors can relax, connect or work while enjoying a meticulously curated selection of products and gastronomic projects.
The new SUNNEI shop is not just a place to shop: it is a living, breathing manifestation of the brand’s philosophy, a constantly evolving space where fashion, design and culture merge.
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