Peer through the January smog that currently carpets the streets of Milan and you will spot dapper men in wool suits and leather gloves making their way about the city for the autumn/winter 2026 edition of Milan’s menswear fashion week, which concludes on Tuesday 20 January.
With a lean show schedule (Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Fendi have been notable absences), the talk has inevitably turned to whether holding separate fashion weeks for menswear and womenswear still makes sense when resources could be optimised by combining them – as is already the case in London and New York. Low, single-digit sales continues to have an effect on the industry, despite a headline-grabbing 2025 marked by the debut of numerous creative directors, as well as some reshuffling of executive roles.
But this is Milan, a city where fashion-week attendees are hard to discern from Italian bankers on their afternoon cigarette-and-espresso breaks. Immaculate menswear is not a biannual celebration here – it’s a year-round way of life.
Luxury fashion house Zegna kicked off proceedings with a family-wardrobe-inspired runway on Friday afternoon. On Monday, we saw Giorgio Armani’s first-ever collection that was designed free of direct input from the brand’s founder since his death last September. Beyond the catwalk, the showrooms of Italian family-owned businesses – Lardini, Santoni, Canali – have offered lessons in how a reliable Rolodex of makers and factories is the key to endurance, not social-media driven marketing.
Elsewhere, American designer Ralph Lauren brought some excitement to the lineup by returning to Milan for the first time in 20 years with a Western-inflected collection that we have come to expect from the brand. British houses Dunhill and Paul Smith both presented their take on typical English tailoring on Saturday. The former opted for a dapper collection of Lord Snowdon-inspired tailoring while the latter invited his new design director, Sam Cotton, to dig into the label’s archive from the 1970s to the 1990s to reimagine double-breasted jackets, belted trousers and Fair Isle knitwear made from alpaca wool. “It made me look at my collection with fresh eyes,” Paul Smith tells Monocle backstage after his salon-style presentation in his Milan showroom.
The 10 best in show
Zegna
The Italian luxury fashion house’s artistic director Alessandro Sartori describes his collection as a “generational passing of the baton” – a fitting remark considering the recent announcement that Zegna can now call itself a fourth-generation family-owned business after brothers Edoardo and Angelo Zegna were named co-CEOs in late 2025. Presented in Palazzo del Ghiaccio, models walked beside a large-scale installation of a closet containing pieces from the Zegna family archive. While Sartori evolves his visual language, leaning into long silhouettes, high collars and intricate layering, the focus on Italian fabrics remains a constant, from suede overshirts and felt-lined rain hats to tweed coats with woven-leather buttons.
Umit Benan
In his Via Bigli showroom, Milan-based Turkish designer Umit Benan is emerging as a name to know on the menswear circuit, thanks to his fuss-free and joyful approach to dressing that revolves around a sense of ease rather than manicured precision. This season, Benan’s focus is on a mosaic-like approach to dressing, achieved through tonal coherence, clean silhouettes and high-quality materials such as shearling, silk linings and nappa leather. It’s a welcome expansion to the designer’s portfolio – one that also includes bespoke tailoring – that is aimed to appeal at city-dwellers looking to seamlessly transition their wardrobes from the weekday commute to weekend mountain getaways.
umitbenan.com
Setchu
Japanese designer Satoshi Kuwata expressed surprise at how many people were in attendance at his show, held in his new Milan offices. The LVMH Prize-winner is establishing a loyal following for his brand, Setchu, by virtue of his story-telling abilities through unexpected details. Case in point is his latest collection, inspired by a fishing trip to Greenland. “I planned to visit a long time ago,” he says while styling models wearing quilted pieces informed by Arctic conditions. And, in what is perhaps the most unexpected accessory of the season so far, Kuwata designed a fishing rod to accompany his clients on their next angling mission.
laesetchu.com
The Stone Island Prototype Research Series 09
For its latest foray into material innovation and experimentation with manufacturing processes that have yet to be industrialised, Italian brand Stone Island is looking to knitwear. The result is a limited run of 100 chenille jumpers, each rendered in a different colour. These are made from an air-blown laminated knit – a technique that bonds a coating onto a fabric to make it waterproof. On show until 19 January at Via Tortona 31, the garments will then be available for purchase at select Stone Island shops.
stoneisland.com
Prada
“How do you talk about the world now and about fashion at the same time? Putting the two things together at this moment is uncomfortable,” says Miuccia Prada backstage after the Italian house’s show at the Fondazione Prada. “We don’t have the answers but we can be strong with a creative vision,” added her co-creative director Raf Simons. “We should not sit here frozen.” A sense of anarchy could be felt throughout the show, with models marching down the runway with hands in their pockets, oversized cuffs dangling. Trench coats and sou’wester-style rain hats implied the role that fashion can play in weathering a storm.
Church’s
British shoe brand Church’s staged an imaginary orchestra in Milan’s Palazzo Barozzi to unveil its latest collection. By placing flutes and violins in dialogue with the Prada-owned label’s monkstraps, Oxfords and boots, the show emphasised the art of creative exploration and the meticulous discipline that underline both the act of composing music and the craft of shoemaking. A notable addition to Church’s range includes shoulder-season sandals that come in a waxed suede or three different wool varieties – Herringbone tweed, tartan and knickerbocker. But it’s hard to look past the cornerstones of the brand’s offerings, from sleek Chelsea boots to elegant Oxfords.
church-footwear.com
Santoni
This season, family-owned Italian shoe brand Santoni looked to its home territory of Le Marche, specifically when dawn begins to illuminate its winter landscape. The collection, titled Aurora, features the house’s signature Velatura hand-colouring technique, a process in which pigment is applied to the leather shoes in multiple layers. The result is a distinctively Santoni look, with silhouettes enhanced by chromatic variations. A new development for the brand comes in the shape of soles with a technical tread component that can be twisted and snapped into place for extra grip on early morning walks through a frosty Italian forest.
santonishoes.com
Armani
A new chapter begins for Armani. At its Brera headquarters, the quintessentially Milanese house showed its first collection without the direct input of its eponymous founder, who died last September. On a brightly lit runway, described by the brand as a return to the late 1980s, models were dressed in mostly monochromatic suits in the house’s signature palette of silver grey. There was also plenty of snow-ready outerwear, a nod to Armani’s role in dressing team Italia for the upcoming Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics.
The show ended with eveningwear, with plush midnight-blue velvet jackets and crisp shirting. While succession plans remain under wraps (rumours suggest that French designer Hedi Slimane is poised to come on board as creative director), Giorgio Armani’s partner in business and life, Leo Dell’Orco (pictured), is leading the team and providing a sense of continuity for one of Italy’s most beloved brands.
armani.com
Brioni
Roman house Brioni is putting the focus on its eight decades of artisanal heritage following the departure of the brand’s Austrian creative director, Norbert Stumpfl, last December. Its autumn/winter ready-to-wear 2026 collection is a reaffirming of house codes, from functional knitwear intended to be layered under reversible coats to more traditional eveningwear such as deep-red velvet smoking jackets and tuxedoes. Owned by French luxury conglomerate Kering since 2011, Brioni has also undergone a change in management with CEO Federico Arrigoni coming on board in May. While the house regroups, what remains certain is Brioni’s deep-rooted connection to Italian savoir-faire.
brioni.com
Canali
Cashmere knitwear, voluminous trench coats and shearling bombers – Canali’s vision of menswear for the upcoming winter evokes the wardrobe of a modern-day Milanese gentleman on his commute to the skyscrapers of Porta Nuova or a weekend escape to the woods of Lombardy. It’s an uncomplicated approach that has established a loyal following for the family-owned business since it was founded in 1934.
After a year of growing the brand’s global footprint with new retail outposts in South Korea and the US, Canali is now putting the emphasis on functionality (think four-pocket jackets, ultra-light merino layers and denim) – a strategy that will appeal to a cross-generational market.
canali.com
Maduro who? It has been a little over (checks calendar) two weeks since Donald Trump’s raid on Venezuela and yet you would be forgiven for struggling to remember the full details of the US’s abduction of that country’s president. South America is old news; today it’s all about the Arctic. Over the weekend, the US president announced (Truth Socialed?) a new round of 10 per cent tariffs (potentially rising to 25 per cent) against eight European countries (France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) until they change their minds about supporting his designs on Greenland.
Cue a global poring over of the 1951 Greenland defence agreement between Denmark and the US to find out what exactly those designs might look like. In this regard, I speak from experience – I too was buffing up on my Greenlandic history. As you read this sentence, depending on where you are in the world, I am either in Nuuk or on an Air Greenland A332 over the North Sea. All week, I and two of my colleagues, Andrew Mueller and Lily Austin, will be reporting from Greenland, speaking to the Danish territory’s leaders, business owners and ordinary residents to find out what Trump’s threats might mean for the world’s largest island and its people.
Before we hear their views, we must ask the question about what the US president’s calculus is when it comes to Greenland. In one way, this is easier than it might be with any previous holder of his office. Trump appears to conduct all of his negotiating in public and often via social media. Since the 1951 agreement puts no barriers on Washington increasing its military presence on the territory – and it is highly likely that Copenhagen (or Nuuk) would kowtow to any American efforts to be granted favourable extraction rights of the supposed treasure trove of oil, gas and rare earth minerals buried beneath its frozen scape – it must be that Trump wants nothing short of annexation. Indeed, he has essentially said as much.
At the moment, the leaders of those aforementioned European nations are taking a stand, somewhat shakily, against Trump’s calls, while Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, continues to insist that, were they given such a binary choice, his people would choose rule from Copenhagen over Washington. The view from the ground, however, seems to show majority support for an eventual move towards full Greenlandic independence. A small contingent of troops from European countries including France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK arrived in Nuuk last week, though the numbers are hardly enough to fill a commercial flight, let alone defend a vast landmass against the world’s most powerful military.
Would it ever come to that? Probably not. Europe seems not to have the strength to even engage in a war of words with Trump, let alone actual combat, and its dispatching of soldiers is merely a gesture meant to satisfy Washington’s claims that it requires Greenland to counter the Chinese and Russian threat in the Arctic. And yet, the European move seems to have provoked Trump more than it has assuaged his apparent concerns. Could it even cause him to do the unthinkable? A US invasion of Greenland, constituting as it would an attack by one Nato member on another, would spell the end of the world’s largest military alliance, and would surely be a gift to America’s rivals. Even if Europe caves in before then, the humiliation that it has endured might have damaged Nato beyond repair. In two weeks, we could well all be looking back on the furore around the Nicolás Maduro kidnapping as a moment of quaint serenity.
Alexis Self is Monocle’s foreign editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
1.
I spoke too soon. It was all going beautifully last Saturday afternoon as Swiss flight LX160 to Tokyo Narita prepared to push back from the gate. If you caught last week’s column, I laid out the plan for mom’s first visit to Japan in more than a decade and, to safeguard against a dodgy in-flight satellite connection, I decided to hit send on this column before the doors closed. Soon afterward, the captain came out of the cockpit to introduce himself and run through the flight details. It was going to be about 13 hours to Narita, the conditions would be generally smooth and he was hoping to push back shortly. I pulled out the newspapers, clinked glasses with mom across the aisle and watched the snow blowing gently outside.
About 15 minutes later, the captain announced that there was a queue for de-icing and it was hard to determine when we’d get away. I watched as narrow and widebody aircraft rolled into position to be blasted with hot chemicals and reckoned that we’d be airborne in 30 minutes or so. It would be a tiny delay into Tokyo but wouldn’t impact lunch plans and all would run to schedule. How wrong I was. While snow continued to gently flutter around the fuselage, an hour became two, then three and after four hours of champagne we finally turned onto the take-off runway and headed east to Japan. Lunch at Shiseido Parlour had to be rescheduled to Wednesday but it did mean that we discovered an outstanding new burger joint in Hiroo. You’ll likely read more about Teddy Brown in our special Monocle 100 issue in March.
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On Tuesday, we checked into the newly renovated Park Hyatt and I am very, very happy to report that very little has changed. If you’ve been a loyal customer of a hotel across a number of decades, talk of an overhaul of a familiar lobby and regular suite can be a cause for serious concern. Thankfully, Hyatt and the owner (Tokyo Gas) were careful not to upset their loyal base and made only a few gentle adjustments. The beds are a bit higher, the bathrooms have been completely changed (mostly for the better), Alain Ducasse is running one of the kitchens and the New York Grill is as delicious as ever. It would have been a delight to extend the trip into the weekend but the LX161 beckoned on Thursday morning and it was nearly 15 hours for the return journey.
3.
At about the 12-hour mark of the flight, I peered outside and spotted the east coast of Greenland slipping away as we began crossing toward Norway. What was going on down there? With Nato nations rallying to send observers to the territory, I peered down and wondered what people in remote communities were thinking? Would a change in ownership matter much? Would life carry on as always? Would the US be as generous with subsidies as Denmark? Or was all of this going to blow over by the time I landed in Zürich? On Friday, things became even more absurd with Trump calling for fresh tariffs on nations who didn’t support his claim on Greenland. It was at that moment that I fired off an email to our editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, and suggested that it was time to deploy our own team to gauge the temperature in Nuuk. By the time you read this, Andrew Mueller, Alexis Self and team will be on their way for a week of radio shows and dispatches from Greenland’s capital. If you have any questions that you’d like answered, please send them my way and I will ensure that they’re passed on and hopefully answered on air. You’ll find me at tb@monocle.com.
Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.
There’s a festival-like atmosphere at Parc des Expositions de Paris-Nord Villepinte, where the furniture and homewares trade fair Maison&Objet is in full swing until Monday. Some 60,000 visitors and 2,300 brands are packing the halls in Paris. That’s a lot to take in, so here are some key observations from Monocle’s team on the ground.
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Arrival experiences matter. Adding to the drama at Parc des Expositions are a host of scalpers selling half-price tickets to the fair (down from €80). Their shouts, combined with the chatter of attendees, added to the sense of anticipation.
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“Our challenge, like that of the sector as a whole, is to defend demanding, high-quality design in the face of fast furniture,” says Tolix co-owner Antoine Bejui. The French heritage furniture brand, which Bejui revived in 2022 with Emmanuel Diemoz, is presenting a tight curation of its best works at the fair – a benchmark for other brands more broadly. “The focus is no longer on multiplying new releases but on strengthening strong, coherent identities capable of standing the test of time and remaining relevant to contemporary uses.”
3.
Paris-Nord Villepinte can feel a little like an airport at times. Interior designers, architects and developers can often be seen lugging carry-on sized suitcases packed with samples for furnishing any kind of space. There is, as a result, a sense of constant motion.
4.
There are plenty of art deco references from brands – and across Paris – as the design and artistic style continues to be celebrated after reaching its centenary in 2025. At the exhibition dedicated to the movement at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a note that one of its proponents, Eileen Gray, composed spaces rather than designing them feels like good advice for anyone seeking to curate a particular atmosphere in their own home.
5.
There’s an ongoing blurring between art and design, as exemplified by Giopato & Coombes, an Italian brand known for its sculptural lighting. It blends traditional Venetian craftsmanship with modern technology and art research. “We see the continued development of the art segment as a key area of cultural exploration and growth,” says Cristiana Giopato, who established the brand with Christopher Coombes. “Here, design can operate beyond function and production, engaging more deeply with research, expression and narrative.”
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French silverware specialist Christofle is presenting a new collection, Malmaison Riviera, that is defined by soft, sun-washed yellow hues. It successfully translates a feeling – the summer spirit of the sunny Mediterranean – through colour rather than imagery, no easy feat.
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Indoor-outdoor boundaries will continue to blur in coming years – at least according to Ethimo CEO Gian Paolo Migliaccio. “The continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces is now an integral part of contemporary living,” he says, referencing the Italian brand’s new collection, defined by robust materials. “In 2026, the priority is to strengthen this dialogue through collections that place the relationship with nature at their core, balancing aesthetics and function, and embracing a design approach that goes beyond trends.”
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Big names can play a significant part in unearthing unheralded talent. Case in point is legendary French designer Pierre Yovanovitch, who has played an active role in the revival of Ecart, a French furniture house known for reissuing works from the early 20th century. The brand, which had been dormant until its relaunch this week under Yovanovitch’s guidance, has reissued 10 pieces by Paul László that were originally produced for interior projects.
9.
Give the people what they want. That’s the message from the president of French furniture firm Fermob. “A priority for us is simply to make products that people keep and use for a long time,” says Bernard Reybier. “That means designing pieces that are solid, easy to repair and well thought out from the start.”
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“Engage your core.” It’s not a command that you expect to hear at a trade fair. But, at the stand of Cesena-based Technogym, trainers have been hired to instruct curious passersby to test out its new equipment, including a Pilates machine – a reminder to bring your grippy socks to Maison&Objet’s September 2026 edition.
Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor. For more of his insights, click here.
Savills, the international property-services company, puts out an annual Tech Cities report that ranks the 30 metropolises best at luring companies (which pay handsomely for real estate) in this sector. It’s a meaty piece of work that explains how the availability of talent remains the number-one pull for such companies (San Francisco unsurprisingly triumphs). This year, however, Savills has added a new metrics set: a Matcha Index. This is because, they say, “matcha is prized for its slow-release energy and perceived health benefits, aligning with tech workers’ growing focus on wellness”. On this metric, Tokyo triumphs (affordability, quality and good café culture) and London comes in second. I concur with matcha’s dominance – hello, it has taken over in The Monocle Café.
Personally, I despise all types of tea and everything associated with this habit. People who collect teapots, own a tea cosy, “put on a brew”, leave teabags in sinks (or left slunk like a dead mouse in their discarded mugs), folk who say “Ooh, that feels better” as they two-handedly hold a cup of tea – all of these people should be sent on a coffee-conversion course. If regular tea drinking isn’t stamped out early, it can be a gateway to matcha. And suddenly people who were once spotted holding a glass of rosé are chugging down what looks like mown grass and preaching about their health regimes.
But the Matcha Index itself is fun because it is often these odd sets of statistics that unpack how a city functions and reveal the health of its urban fabric (for Monocle’s Quality of Life Survey, for example, we look at the number of bookshops and the ease of procuring a glass of wine at 01.00).
So, I have made up my own new and very insightful urban barometer: the Poodle Index. Now this is a simple and foolproof barometer for predicting whether a neighbourhood is a safe place to live and, to create one, all you need to do is count the number of large men with small dogs. The greater the number of buffed gents parading fluffy poodles (especially if they – I mean the dogs – are sporting miniature raincoats and matching bonnets), the safer the ’hood.
The Poodle Index is also an indicator of property prices. High-scoring Poodle Index zones tend to be occupied by people with large amounts of disposable income and home to numerous pocket parks and well-kept green spaces. If I was a property investor, especially one not too worried with the tech sector, I would rely on the Poodle Index.
But unfortunately, it’s the tech players that every property developer seems to have their hearts set on luring into their projects, not poodle man (or woman).
I spent a big chunk of this week visiting new office projects across London and repeatedly the first tenants to take up acres of space were AI businesses and tech investors. So, sadly, it looks like the days of the espresso bar are numbered – soon every corner of this city, and at least 29 more, will be turning matcha green.
To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.
Sitting on Monocle’s design desk means the start of January is typically spent contemplating the architectural direction that I’m anticipating will come to the fore in the next 12 months. My process for doing so is, usually, twofold. First, I ponder the challenges that architects should be addressing. In 2026, this means creating buildings that are in step with their locale, that pay respect to their immediate surroundings and use materials that are local to or appropriate for the immediate environment. Second, consider those who I think are doing it well.
In recent years, Nigerian architect and curator Tosin Oshinowo has written beautifully – and at length – about how architects in the global south are creating work that is balanced with the local ecology and environment, pulling from their region’s built traditions and amplifying them to create outstanding modern architecture. In a similar vein, Maltese architect Richard England continues to promote the idea that “architecture doesn’t travel well” – that the best work belongs to a place, and also its time. Appropriately, in Monocle’s December/January issue, we also featured the outstanding home of architects Ueli Brauen and Doris Wälchli (pictured), who transformed a traditional Savoyard agricultural building into a beautiful, contemporary home that respects the building’s indigenous traits – boxy structures with mostly windowless façades. While not explicitly saying it, these designers are seeking out a vernacular architecture.
As a term, vernacular architecture first emerged in the 19th century, when it was used pejoratively to describe common, non-monumental buildings. But it was flipped on its head by Austrian-American architect and curator Bernard Rudofsky, who wrote Architecture Without Architects, a book that accompanied a 1964 exhibition of the same name at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was groundbreaking, transforming the term’s perception.
The show featured about 200 images of structures ranging from rock dwellings and tents to houseboats and village designs. It was a celebration of architecture that addressed local needs by using traditional building techniques and local resources. The effect? A showcase of structures deeply connected to place, reflecting local climate, lifestyle and culture. “The beauty of this architecture has long been dismissed as accidental,” wrote Rudofsky. “But today we should be able to recognise it as the result of rare good sense in the handling of practical problems.”
While the work might’ve been considered simplistic, it provided an ethos – a guiding principle – that, if employed today, would create architecture that addresses many of my most pressing concerns for the year ahead. By embracing such an approach, practitioners can create architecture that, in Rudofsky’s words, “is nearly immutable, indeed, unimprovable, since it serves its purpose to perfection.” Oshinowo, England and Brauen Wälchli Architectes are already doing so, and, by my marker, are showing that it’s a worthy pursuit for 2026.
Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor. To learn more about Ueli Brauen and Doris Wälchli’s house at the eastern tip of Lake Geneva, pick up a copy of Monocle’s December/January issue, on newsstands now.
On 15 January 1834, London’s Royal College of Surgeons invited the public to a special event, where renowned surgeon and antiquities expert Thomas Pettigrew would give a lecture on ancient Egypt and unwrap a real mummy. All in the name of science, of course.
Such presentations soon became fashionable: in France, in Germany and particularly in Victorian Britain. Members of polite society who consider it improper for women to remove their gloves in public watched with delight as the wrappings fell away and the naked body of a millennia-old corpse was revealed to them. Thomas “Mummy” Pettigrew became a star of the unwrapping scene. At first, he performed his shows in university lecture halls and later at dinner parties as well. The combination of morbid eroticism, education, Egyptian romanticism and shiver-inducing entertainment fascinated aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois alike.
It was the era of European Egyptomania and this obsession extended to mummies. In the 19th century, preserved bodies were not only ceremonially unveiled; owning one became a status symbol. “It would be quite unrespectable to return from Egypt without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other,” wrote the Austrian nobleman Ferdinand von Geramb in 1833. Artists painted with pigments made from ground mummy remains. And the dead were literally consumed: the sick and injured ingested powdered mummy as medicine; health-conscious parents sprinkled this “mumia” into their children’s porridge for strength.
The first embalmed bodies had already been brought to Europe during the Middle Ages, mainly for the production of mumia. The powder was believed to have healing powers for several reasons. One being that since antiquity, scholars had trusted the medicinal qualities of bitumen. This tar-like substance – along with resins and oils – was used in ancient Egypt to preserve bodies.
The excellent state of preservation of mummies also encouraged the belief that the bodies possessed mysterious powers. Thus not only bitumen and remnants of embalming materials were crushed into mumia but also the bodies themselves. In 1574, German doctor Joachim Strupp recommended this “useful gift of God” for more than 20 ailments, including sore throats, dizziness, heart pain, trembling and kidney problems. Other physicians and apothecaries prescribed corpse powder for broken bones, toothaches or even as an aphrodisiac.
Body parts at vegetable stalls
In the 19th century, following Napoleon’s campaign, an increased number of Europeans travelled to the glorified land of the pharaohs. And those who could afford it visited the pyramids to see mummies. The interest in human remains became so great that enterprising locals transported mummified remains from remote areas to more impressive burial sites to satisfy tourists. Traders even offered mummified bodies and limbs at fruit and vegetable stands as souvenirs for wealthy European visitors who already had everything else.
The supply appeared large enough. In ancient Egypt, embalming was widespread; not only among members of the elite but also among ordinary people. It was believed that only a body that resisted decay could be prepared for the afterlife. Embalmers opened the abdomen, removed the internal organs and extracted the brain through the nose. The empty and dried body cavity was often stuffed with sawdust or sand and coated with bitumen, resins and oils. The skin was meant to appear lifelike and embalmers tried to preserve facial features so the soul could recognise the body upon its return to the tomb.
But such religious beliefs mattered little to 19th-century Europeans. They imported mummies in huge quantities and were not deterred even when the government intervened. In 1835, Egypt’s governor, Muhammad Ali Pasha, issued a decree prohibiting the export of antiquities without official permission. The preface noted that the passionate interest of European travellers in ancient Egyptian artefacts had caused “true devastation”.
Despite the ban, plundering continued and smuggling boomed. Some travellers had mummies sawn apart and hid hands or feet in their luggage. And locals were enticed by the lucrative opportunities available in the flourishing black market.
A unique shade of brown
Traditionally, mummification in ancient Egypt took 70 days and more than 100 metres of linen were used to wrap a body. The bandages were repeatedly coated with bitumen and liquid resin, which glued the strips together and hardened when dried.
Connoisseurs in the 19th-century greatly sought after the label mumia vera aegyptiaca – “genuine Egyptian mummy”. Even though experts estimate that more than 70 million people were mummified in ancient Egypt, by around 1850, the vast European demand could hardly be met. Swindlers exploited the shortage, creating “instant mummies” from recently deceased bodies and selling them as ancient originals. Some supposedly ancient body parts were even later revealed to be camel meat wrapped in burial cloths.
Even still, the powder remained a popular medicine and tonic, and mummies continued to provide entertainment at unwrapping parties. Since the 18th century, a popular artist’s colour had also been produced from mummified remains: “mummy brown” – a pigment prized for glazes and soft shading. Eugène Delacroix, creator of the famous 1830 painting “Liberty Leading the People”, loved mummy brown as did the English landscape painter William Turner.
The colour also became popular among the Pre-Raphaelites but not all members of the artists’ group realised what the pigment contained. When a colleague informed painter Edward Burne-Jones, he was horrified. He went to his studio, took a half-used tube and buried it ceremoniously in his garden. However, at London’s Roberson & Co, one of the largest suppliers of paints and pigments, whose clients included celebrated artists and amateurs such as the future prime minister Winston Churchill, “mummy brown” remained on sale until 1933.
Cats turned into fertiliser
In the second half of the 19th century, many Britons of means dreamt of owning an ancient Egyptian mummy – or at least receiving an invitation to an unwrapping party. That was especially if Thomas “Mummy” Pettigrew – the grand master who mingled with learned men such as writer Charles Dickens – was hosting.
Not everything always went smoothly at these events. Sometimes the bandages refused to come off, and on one occasion, the mummy of a supposed Egyptian princess turned out to be that of a man. Pettigrew’s reputation nonetheless remained intact, eventually being elected to the Royal Society. A Scottish duke admired him so much that he asked Pettigrew to mummify him after death. And in 1852, after the death of the nobleman, Pettigrew obliged. The embalmed duke was laid to rest in Hamilton in the sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian princess.
The long wrappings of genuine mummies often concealed jewellery, artefacts or valuable documents – offerings intended to ease the deceased’s journey into the realm of the dead. For guests at European unwrapping parties, however, the relics mostly arouse greed. “The brown, well-preserved body of a maiden who had died in the bloom of her life was revealed to the eyes of those present,” wrote German author Theodor Fontane in 1883 of an unwrapping at Dreilinden Castle in Brandenburg. But “No amulet, no piece of jewellery, no papyrus scroll was found with the body of the holy temple servant. The disappointment was universal.”
Commercial motives also kept interest in mummies alive. In 1850 in the US, paper shortages hampered newspaper production and some considered using mummies as raw material. According to one geologist’s calculation, the linen wrappings of embalmed Egyptians could supply the US with paper for roughly 15 years.
Whether such “mummy paper” was ever actually produced in the US is disputed. It is clear, however, that in Britain large quantities of animal mummies were processed industrially – especially mummified cats, which were used as fertiliser.
£200 for a pharaoh
It must also be acknowledged that descendants of ancient Egyptians were not always respectful of their ancestors’ remains. In the 1800s, mummies in North Africa were often used as firewood: soaked in resin, they burned extremely well. Mark Twain noted in his 1869 travelogue, The Innocents Abroad, that embalmed bodies were used as fuel for steam locomotives in Egypt.
Some travellers found the pushy sales tactics of street vendors offensive. “I was very annoyed by an Arab who offered for sale the hand of a mummy,” wrote an American visitor in 1894. “He followed me, held this horrible object before my face again and again and urged me to buy it cheaply.”
For many travellers, however, acquiring looted antiquities or mummies remained a perfectly normal part of an educational trip to Egypt well into the early 20th century. The Australian Daily News reported in 1907 that a high-quality pharaoh could be purchased for £200 (about CHF30,000 [€31,943] today). The mummy of a priest sold for £12 to £15 (about CHF2,000 [€2,129]) and that of a commoner for just £1 and 10 shillings (CHF200 [€212]). And as late as 1924, German pharmaceutical company Merck was selling mumia vera aegyptiaca at 12 gold marks per kilo (approximately CHF600 [€638]).
Mummy parties fell out of fashion around 1900, as it then seemed tasteless to use human remains as entertainment. Later the legend of the vengeful mummy would find its way into horror films, perhaps rooted in feelings of guilt over the mummy mania that had gripped Egypt enthusiasts in the early 20th century.
A booming black market once again
None of this prevented the next great wave of looting and trafficking roughly a century later. After the Arab Spring of 2011, criminals exploited political instability and armed gangs raided archaeological sites and museums across Egypt. Though unlicensed export of antiquities had been banned repeatedly since the 1830s, and a 1983 law imposed prison sentences and fines of up to EGP1m (CHF16,000 [€123,503]), the black market was flooded with artefacts. Unauthorised trade continued even after president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi tightened laws in 2013: smuggling antiquities now carried a 25-year prison sentence.
Smaller items often left the country in suitcases accompanied by a receipt from a bazaar vendor attesting that an alleged “imitation” had been sold to a tourist. Larger objects were wrapped in bubble wrap and shipped by container to Genoa, Marseille or EU customs warehouses, stored among similar-looking cheap goods. Customs officers could hardly tell the difference at first glance. Experts say that the bonded warehouses of Basel, Geneva, Bern and other Swiss trading hubs are also centres of smuggling, as illegal objects can be stored there securely and tax-free under customs supervision.
Dispute over Schepenese
Meanwhile, critics have been calling upon curators and private collectors in Europe to return ancient Egyptian objects, mummies and sarcophagi that were imported long ago. It is unacceptable, they argue, to continue displaying cultural heritage and human remains that were most likely obtained under dubious circumstances. In Switzerland, the debate is best known in connection with the mummy of Schepenese – a priest’s daughter born around 650 BCE in Luxor – whose embalmed body has been on display for more than a century in a glass coffin in the Abbey Library of St Gallen.
Theatre director and political activist Milo Rau sparked controversy in 2022 with an open letter. Schepenese had been brought to Switzerland illegally, he wrote; her rest had been disturbed; her “display” was disrespectful. The mummy should therefore be returned to Egypt, her “spiritual home”. Roughly 100 people signed the manifesto, which included prominent figures such as Adolf Muschg, Sibylle Berg, Jean Ziegler and French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, a renowned expert on art theft.
But the demand has also met resistance, including from experts. Salima Ikram, archaeologist, mummy specialist and professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, expressed surprise. She stressed that the Egyptian state has not requested the mummy’s return and Schepenese appears on no repatriation list. And for good reason: she is interesting but not particularly spectacular. Finding a suitable place for her in Egypt – still rich in antiquities – would be difficult. Ikram argues that the mummy should remain in Switzerland as a kind of cultural ambassador.
The decision lies with the administration of the Catholic church of St Gallen, which owns the mummy. And they have decided that Schepenese will stay, reasoning that, as far as current knowledge suggests, she left Egypt in 1820 before the first export ban in 1835.
But the question of how to handle Egyptian artefacts in European collections will not go away. Experts call for far greater transparency about the provenance of exhibits and propose partnerships with the communities or nations from which cultural treasures originate, including those of other ancient civilisations, to seek joint solutions. What is clear is that every artefact and mummy has its own history and what should happen to them today is rarely easy to decide, even with the best intentions.
Can we still say ‘mummy’?
One debate linked to these issues seems somewhat eccentric: some curators, especially in the UK, now consider the term “mummy” ethically problematic. They advocate “mummified person” instead to emphasise that these preserved bodies once belonged to human beings – people with feelings, personalities, lives and clear ideas about what should happen to them after death.
They argue that if known, the name of the mummified person should always be stated along with everything else learned about them. But the legacy of 19th-century mummy mania often leaves little room for this. In many cases, not even the burial place of a mummy is recorded, let alone the deceased’s family or profession. Such information might have been gleaned from tomb inscriptions had they not been lost. “It is almost impossible to say anything meaningful about a dead person when all you have, for example, is their left foot,” says Enrico Paust, curator of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Jena.
Whether mummies in Europe will continue to be referred to as mummies remains to be seen. One term that certainly would not be socially acceptable today is a slang expression from the 1990s: dance evenings for older people, where participants moved stiffly across the floor, called “mummy shuffles”.
Till Hein (27.11.2025). Tote Ägypter als Gag beim Dinner: Im Europa des 19. Jahrhunderts waren Mumien der letzte Schrei. Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Translated into English by Monocle.
Presiding over Pitti Immagine Uomo since 1995 is the affable Raffaello Napoleone. As CEO, he oversees the trade fair’s organisation and ensures its continuing relevance in Italy and beyond. He tells us more about evolving Pitti Uomo and his approach when it comes to personal style.
How do you make sure that Pitti Uomo stays relevant within the industry?
By being curious. Like everything else in life, if you want to maintain a position, you can’t rely on previous results. Season after season, fashion is a sensitive thermometer of social evolutions. The companies that are performing the best at the moment, generally speaking, are the ones that offer clothes that can perform and accompany the way that you move through your life. For example, I travel through cities by motorbike because it’s faster. Then, as an organisation, we keep track of what is becoming mainstream but also what is changing within the mainstream, from colours to the way that clothes are cut. We travel around the world 12 months a year to keep up to date. This is why Pitti continues to play a major role in the industry, because if you want to understand where fashion is going, especially when the market is difficult like it is now, you have to pass through Florence because it’s a completely different approach to the messages that are transmitted at fashion shows. A fashion show is one designer’s opinion; here you see hundreds of companies at once, from small brands to big names.
How do you achieve a balance between championing Italy while remaining a leading international fair?
This year, 53 per cent of the participating brands are Italian and the rest are from around the world. We’re in Florence, where Italian fashion was born. The city became rich from textiles [in the 12th century]. There are deep historic roots here: we have yarn production, tanneries, handmade craft. This has been passed down from one generation to the next. This manufacturing tradition now means that we have a deep relationship with, for example, Japanese brands that are close to the Italian concept of menswear. Chinese brands are producing their clothes in Prato now and using Italian fabrics. We’ve welcomed guest designers from Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto to Jean Paul Gaultier and Donna Karan. We invited Vivienne Westwood to relaunch her brand here after she parted ways with Malcolm McLaren. Raf Simons has exhibited with us three times. For brands it’s an imprimatur to come to Pitti. For anyone looking to understand menswear fashion, you have to pass through Florence. There are retailers and suppliers but also an international community that revolves around menswear.
What rules do you follow when it comes to your own wardrobe?
I’m 71. I was born in 1954. I’ve been dressing the same every day for a long time. I like velvet and a sariana in the summer because it has pockets. I’ve never really felt like a fashion person. I just dress in a way that is comfortable and suits my lifestyle. I’ve never bought anything because it’s fashionable. I have a personal tailor in Rome who is now quite old but I have enough suits for the foreseeable future – as long as I don’t change my figure, so I walk and play tennis and golf.
It’s a satisfying feat of historical continuity that Florence plays host to Pitti Immagine Uomo (or Pitti for short), the biannual menswear trade fair that concludes today. The Tuscan city first made its fortune in the 12th century by trading wool and later expanding its textile expertise to silk and brocade during the Renaissance.
Since the 1980s, Pitti has been taking place at the sprawling Fortezza da Basso, a former military fortress built by the Medici in the 1530s. It is here that a complex of pavilions is divided into loose themes and given names reminiscent of Eurovision Song Contest entries, including “I Go Out” for the outerwear brands and “Dynamic Attitude” for clothes that fall under the streetwear category. More than 750 brands have participated in the January 2026 edition, more than half of them hailing from Italy.
Pitti acts as a barometer for the attitudinal shifts that can be felt from season to season. This January, the existentialism surrounding Donald Trump’s tariffs and the luxury industry slowdown seems to have dissipated and turned to resolve. German, French and Spanish buyers have been out in force while the US and China no longer represent the market goldmines they once were. Meanwhile, Japan offers a curious case study: while the weak yen means the country’s economic might has somewhat waned, it still yields an outsized influence when it comes to aesthetic sensibility and reputation for excellence. Two of this year’s guest designers, Soshi Otsuki and Shinya Kozuka, are Tokyo-based.
“Pitti is akin to the aperitivo before the men’s fashion weeks in Milan and Paris,” the founder of Paris-based accessories brand Bonastre (below, left), Fernando Bonastre de Celis, tells Monocle when we stop by his booth. “We don’t really receive orders here anymore but it’s a good way to make sure that there’s follow-through later down the line.” Many of the exhibitors echo this sentiment. The days of buyers signing off orders in Florence are almost over but establishing a presence at Pitti remains an important marketing exercise, one that lends prestige within a tightknit community of menswear enthusiasts.
Over a glass of chianti classico at Trattoria Cammillo, a collocutor at the neighbouring table tells me that he’s been coming to Pitti for more than 30 years to find new stock for his family-owned Chicago boutique, Burdi Clothing. Around us, Pitti veterans loudly greet each other over clanging plates. Cream cashmere jumpers remain miraculously unstained despite the copious amount of spaghetti alla carrettiera that is being consumed. Coats perched just-so on men’s shoulders finally come off, a signthat the 109th edition of the fair is approaching its finale. But it is these moments on the well-tailored hems of the trade show that represent Pitti at its best – stylish and besuited men gathering to see, sell and sport quality menswear away from the avant garde runways that dominate the season ahead. And while there has been talk of luxury market headwinds – a thriving Pitti is always an auspicious sign for the industry.
Want to know the spots frequented by Florence’s fashion crowd? Try these restaurants
This is Italy. Any deal worth making should be done correctly, meaning over a bistecca alla fiorentina with copious amounts of chianti classico. But which trattorias attract the Pitti set? Here are three industry favourites.
1.
Il Santo Bevitore
The Tuscan dishes at Il Santo Bevitore (pictured) are reimagined for the 21st century in an atmospheric setting complete with vaulted ceilings and dark-wood panelling. Make sure to stop by the restaurant’s lively enoteca, Il Santino, which is conveniently located next door, for an aperitivo or a digestivo.
Via Santo Spirito, 64/r
+39 55 211264
2.
Trattoria Cammillo
This family-owned restaurant is a year-round favourite of the fashion crowd – and for good reason. The trattoria has been serving up a straightforward menu of reliable Italian dishes including tagliatelle, fried zucchini and scaloppine since it opened its doors in 1945.
Borgo San Jacopo, 57/r
+39 55 212427
3.
Trattoria Sostanza
This pared-back trattoria might be small but it is mighty. Its butter chicken and strawberry-topped meringues have attracted high praise since 1869. Pitti pros know to book a table well in advance.
Via del Porcellana, 25/r
+39 55 212691
Wherever you look, from social-media snippets to politicians’ soundbites, the story is the same: London is done for. On its arse economically, socially divided and battered by a crimewave of unendurable brutality, the UK capital is written off as a fast-falling hellscape. Residents inhabiting this version of reality, we’re told, are more likely to have their bike stolen than be offered a cheery “hello”.
Well, perhaps the last part is true – it’s not always the friendliest – but most accounts of the city’s demise have been grossly exaggerated and the case against this misinformation is mounting fast. Even bike thefts have dropped by some 30 per cent over the past 15 years. London’s inbound tourist numbers and spending rose 4 per cent and 6 per cent respectively in the year to October 2025. Last year the capital gained 93,000 residents according to the Office for National Statistics and there’s increasing evidence to suggest that the abandonment of the UK by the tax-fearing wealthy (“Wexit”) is, at best, overstated.
This week the Metropolitan Police confirmed murders to be at a decade-long low in London (a rate five times lower than Los Angeles and half that of New York) and safer than Berlin, Paris and Milan. It’s better than Brussels for goodness sake (an argument that I’d say goes well beyond the murder rate). So why doesn’t it feel as though things are improving?
London has never been popular with the rest of the country but it’s not just homegrown grumblers or headbangers such as the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, doing it down. The US president, Donald Trump, found time to dub it a “warzone” and fret about the imminent imposition of Sharia law. That (bullshit) narrative hasn’t been helped by a rise in malicious social-media posts and AI-generated twaddle. Deeply suspect screeds, scant on detail but full of scorn for an imagined lawlessness, rose from the hundreds in 2013 to a peak of about 15,000 last year, according to new analysis by King’s College London.
Whether the capital is to your taste as a place to live and do business or not, it’s important to distinguish between real life and out-of-context online rubbish. So, here goes: violent crime is falling and already proportionately lower than any other UK city. Despite the headlines about knife crime, NHS data says that hospital admissions for stab wounds are at historic lows. Assaults have halved since 2000, even as the population has boomed. Abhorrent crimes against women and girls rightly make headlines when they happen but, hearteningly, the best, most serious long-term study suggests that women report feeling increasingly safe – a trend consistent over the past three decades. Air quality is up, road deaths are down and that’s before we risk naming some of the city’s pulls: opportunity, world-leading art, culture, science, history, hospitality, education and media.
Of course, the truth – as in any democratic, liberal city of a certain size – is messy and imperfect and there are issues: a rise in phone-snatching and petty shoplifting among them. There’s much still to fix in the city, from housing to the high street, but the story of London’s failure is wrong by most measures. Seeing nearly 10 million people getting on with precious little of the drama depicted online isn’t entertaining – it doesn’t serve the nonsense nativist narratives of decline – but at least it’s true. Winter can be gloomy but to understand what’s really wrong we can’t let bots, bigots and misinformation make the weather.
Josh Fehnert is Monocle’s editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
