BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH PDF

BACK TO THE FUTURE: the first fashion show of the PDF brand, allows us to witness the streetwear vision of the designer Domenico Formichetti.

Words by Anna Carraro + Lorenzo Mazzanti

Domenico Formichetti, founder of the PDF brand, recently made his debut at Milan Fashion Week for the Fall Winter 2025/26 collection. Born in 1993 in Abruzzo, he moved to Milan where he studied first at the Academy of Fine Arts and then at NABA. However, it is in the context of production factories that he found the true stimulus for his creativity, where ideas are transformed concretely into reality.

His collection, entitled “United Jam”, brings street style back to the catwalk in Italy, a combination that has long been missing in our country, but which is welcomed with great enthusiasm by the younger generations. Through his clothes, Formichetti allows us to enter his world, revealing parts of himself and his passions. Since he was a child, the world of snowboarding has had a strong impact on him, an influence that is also reflected in this collection, with loose-fitting pants and chunky shoes. Furthermore, the brand’s DNA clearly has a street influence that blends American culture with the rap and hip-hop music scene.

The set, initially simple and almost bare, features a brick wall that separates the two audiences, with an opening at the end of the catwalk. Accompanying this minimalist set are a road sign, a skateboard and fire hydrants, all painted optical white, which create an almost disturbing visual effect. If this aseptic and glacial environment is not immediately convincing, it changes completely with the entrance of the writers in white overalls, who, covering the set with graffiti, transform the space into a real canvas for street art. The scene, therefore, teleports the audience to a suburb of New York, but with a tricolor sound. The soundtrack of the show, in fact, is entirely curated by Italian artists of the trap scene, all friends of the designer.

Attending this fashion show is a leap into the past, Formichetti blending look, music, set and an intriguing play of lights, without forgetting the attitude of the models, wanted to recreate a music video of some American rapper that we could have come across twenty years ago watching television and stopping on the MTV channel. Those who watched the fashion show online could see a further reference to the imagery of those years, that is when the models who were parading were framed by a camera that recalled VHS.

But despite this, it was not a banal nostalgic act, but rather it was the designer’s desire to bring garments from the past into the present so as to create something new that makes them futuristic. The intent is to open a cultural dialogue between the influences he experienced as a young man and the youth of today. All this happened through the fusion of two apparently distant worlds such as hip hop and snowboarding, mixing symbols of the first such as timberland and oversized jeans with garments closer to the second, such as Napapijri jackets.

The result is a collection that blends the practicality and functionality of outdoor sports with the liveliness of 2000s hip hop style and therefore with continuous references to stripes, checks, bandanas, camo prints and bright colors. Thus the jackets vary from oversized bomber jackets to mountain cargo jackets, up to Dainese jackets, customized with paint. Furthermore, we have seen some out of the ordinary pieces, such as the tank top made entirely of cardboard. The cast perfectly recalls what Formichetti wants to tell, both for the faces and the attitude. With a street attitude that seems arrogant and challenging, the models perfectly embody those American kids for whom their way of dressing was not just for aesthetics, but was an armor to challenge the world and therefore an act of rebellion.

The fashion show was a meeting of fashion, music and street art that gave a powerful and immediate result, a show, a real immersive experience that brings to light the talent of Formichetti, who manages to tell a story of passion, experimentation and authenticity through his clothes. A breath of fresh air that demonstrates the designer’s ability to speak to the new generations by combining the past and the present.

At the same time, it is true that this was the first fashion show and as such it went more than well, but the brand has already existed for a couple of years and is more than established. Its aesthetics and its imagery are now well known, so there is a risk that from the next fashion show it could be a bit repetitive. Curiosity remains high and the message that Formichetti leaves us with after this first fashion show is the question that will accompany us until the next one: what’s next?