Benetton will for the first time show during Milan Fashion Week

Benetton will open the next Milan Fashion Week. Tuesday 19 February the Italian brand will unveil the FW19 men's and women's collection with a co-ed show that will be held at the Area 56 in via Savona. The event, included in the calendar will be an opportunity to learn how the pop and irreverent heritage of the historic company will be interpreted and perhaps revolutionized by the new creative director Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, French designer already working for Iceberg, Max Mara, Ellesse, Courrèges, Rossignol, Le Coq Sportif and until 2016 for its maison of the same name.

A veteran of fashion, the French designer is a versatile and versatile character who throughout the course of his long career has successfully spaced from design to painting, from advertising to street art, weaving close relationships and collaborations with artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, M.I.A. and Lady Gaga. Its stylistic trade mark is also for this reason a mix of punk and pop, strong colors and eccentric touches, made special by the continuous contamination with the art world. Many hope that de Castelbajac will bring the same freshness and modernity that has always characterized his approach to fashion in Benetton's new proposals and that, perhaps, his extravagant creativity, free from patterns and preconceptions re-elaborate in a more street key the multicolor pop of Treviso brand also thanks to the partnership with some contemporary artist. Last October, at the time of the appointment, the designer had declared:

"United Colors of Benetton and I have always been united by a similar DNA: the passion for knitwear and love for pop and rainbow. Today, thanks to social networks, everyone can see fashion but few can afford it. My project with United Colors of Benetton is to create the wardrobe of tomorrow, bringing beauty and style into everyday life, at prices that everyone can afford."

Luciano Benetton, recently returned to the top of the company he was the founder of, hopes that the partnership will help to bring his creature back to the top of the last years, thus raising the hype around the show that, among the news, marks also the first time of the Venetian brand at MFW.

A curiosity: among the many affinities that unite Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Benetton is the figure of Oliviero Toscani. The photographer, the designer and Maurizio Vitale were the founders of the jeans brand Jesus in 1971, became famous for the iconic photos (the close-up of a female backside wrapped by a pair of denim shorts) of the advertising campaign  “Chi mi ama mi segua”.