An indie designer staged a runway show on the street outside the Bottega Veneta show Her name is Gabrielle Venguer and we need more people like her

It was a fun guerrilla marketing stunt staged on Saturday evening in Via Vigevano in Milan by Gabrielle Venguer: the emerging, off-schedule designer took her models to the street, outside the Bottega Veneta show, and improvised a runway presentation for passers-by right there on the spot. An ironic and self-aware gesture, it was a direct response to the situation faced by so many emerging designers who lack the budget and official platform within the Milanese system, and who increasingly rely on virality and the creative occupation of public space to get noticed.

Gabrielle Venguer is a Mexican designer who founded her eponymous label in 2020. Trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in London, she has spent years developing a dreamlike, experimental and provocative aesthetic centred on the creation and manipulation of her own fabrics. Her garments combine fluid silhouettes, unconventional materials, artisanal processes and a strong performative sensibility: one-of-a-kind pieces that engage in dialogue with the body and with space, often presented in contexts that fall outside institutional frameworks.

The improvised "show" in Via Vigevano is in fact part of an approach the designer has been exploring for some time — so much so that From the Runway to the Streets is almost the name of a concept that drives her work. Venguer has already experimented with runway-performance formats (in Mexico City and Paris), turning the street into a catwalk and fashion into a collective moment. Here, just a few metres from one of the major shows on the official calendar, she reaffirmed — with lightness and precision — that attention can be won without a budget, provided you have clear ideas and a coherent vision.