Simon Cracker: Listening as a Radical Act

The Fall/Winter collection presented by Simon Cracker at Milan Fashion Week unfolds as a reflection on the present, between memory, rupture, and reconstruction.

Hosted within the cultural space of Fondazione Sozzani, the show sets the stage for a kind of fashion that refuses immediacy, choosing instead to work through time, layering, and transformation.

From the very beginning, the show introduces a shift in rhythm. In an industry driven by speed and constant visual consumption, Simon Cracker makes a countercultural gesture: slowing down. Listening before responding.

Punk aesthetics are revisited through upcycling, not as a sustainability statement, but as a cultural and political act. Punk here is not nostalgia nor quotation—it is a living language, reassembled, stitched back together, marked by reality. Imperfection becomes a value, not a flaw.

Garments are intentionally irregular: broken silhouettes, unconventional layering, volumes that move across the body rather than following it. Oversized T-shirts, men’s skirts, deconstructed kilts, and jackets composed of heterogeneous materials create a visual grammar that is fragmented yet coherent. Visible seams and worn fabrics carry traces of previous lives.

Nothing is hidden. Everything is declared.

This approach also redefines the relationship with the body. Starting from classic menswear, the collection progressively dismantles traditional tailoring codes, creating flexible forms that adapt to different bodies and identities without imposing rules.

The color palette remains controlled and deep—blacks, military greens, dusty greys, earthy tones—absorbing light and reinforcing a suspended, reflective atmosphere. Styling follows the same logic: heavy socks, functional layering, urban elements stripped of polish.

Sound design plays a crucial role, amplifying the sensation of deceleration and fragmentation. It invites the audience to pause, observe, and reconsider the logic of fast fashion consumption.

Upcycling becomes an aesthetic language without slipping into rhetoric. These garments do not look sustainable, they are sustainable through process, construction, and intention.

The collaboration with Dr. Martens strengthens this narrative. The boots act as a statement rather than an accessory, grounding the collection in ideas of resistance, durability, and subcultural identity.

More than a seasonal presentation, this show is a clear position. In a saturated system, Simon Cracker chooses consciousness over noise, time over immediacy, and listening over spectacle.