Do you love cats? The Cure does, and that playful 1983 ditty (“The Lovecats”) was on the soundtrack at MSGM, where cats are something of a mascot.
Founder Massimo Giorgetti told WWD an MSGM sweatshirt with a black cat embroidered on the chest sold 3,000 units back in 2012. For fall 2026, the black cat was upgraded to a life-size print peeking out from a silk duchesse shirt and skirt – and a fuzzy face on slipper-like shoes.
Backstage, the designer rattled off a list of recent exhibitions he’d seen, including ones for Leonor Fini and Stanislao Lepri, surrealists who both painted cats because they were obsessed with felines and each other. But we digress.
In fact, the main springboard for this zesty MSGM effort was the art world, which gives Giorgetti energy as much as inspiration.
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“I have to be honest — I study a lot the women and girls around Frieze, around art galleries, and I like this kind of woman because they put colors together, they put prints together,” he said. “They are quite weird, but quite cool.”
The show took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Milan, known as Fondazione ICA, the models whizzing between the audience and the Marina Rheingantz paintings on the walls.
Like those daring dressers orbiting the art world, Giorgettii was also agnostic about what’s activewear, what’s bourgeois and what’s just plain wackadoodle, yielding a fun, frisky MSGM collection.
Tweed or knit pencil skirts went with everything from track jackets and high-neck blouses to filmy tank tops, bringing to mind the eclectic style of New York art-world darling Ella Emhoff.
Giorgetti brought back strong colors like orange and lime green – for terrific, oversized windbreakers – and let loose with nearly garish rose prints, metallic Tyvek and animal patterned faux fur.
Incidentally, as much as the designer loves cats in his work, he goes home to two Jack Russell Terriers, named Pane and Coda.
