Sustainability once again took center stage at Milan Fashion Week 2025, underscoring the city’s ongoing effort to balance fashion’s heritage of craftsmanship with its responsibility to the future. The Green Carpet, officially the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards, set the tone by celebrating excellence in areas ranging from circularity to climate action, while honouring the designers and brands that are reshaping the industry’s values. It was not only a red carpet moment but also a reminder that sustainability is now a defining benchmark of creative and business success.

On the runways, major houses and independent voices alike embraced that mandate. Diesel advanced its “Denim is Diesel” project, diverting nearly fifteen tons of denim scraps into bold new silhouettes that proved upcycling can be both industrially scaled and creatively daring. At the other end of the spectrum, Simon Cracker pushed the language of sustainability further into the avant-garde, working with salvaged and even flood-damaged fabrics to produce a collection that questioned waste while making the aesthetics of imperfection its strength.

Equally compelling was Stella Jean, who returned to Milan with a collection created in collaboration with Bhutanese artisans. The work, which included nettle fiber textiles and hand-woven fabrics, made a case for sustainability not just as material innovation but as cultural preservation, defending artisanal practices that are in danger of disappearing.
Together, these initiatives reflect the multifaceted approach now defining Milan Fashion Week: awards that spotlight systemic change, large brands redirecting their production chains, and independent designers who challenge conventional ideas of beauty and value. Sustainability in Milan is no longer a side conversation, it is becoming the very grammar of fashion’s future.