The rioters, Milan and the luxury crisis

Whilst we await further developments in the story and the accountability of, let’s call him, Youssef 2 – the 30-year-old from Brescia who was the ‘mastermind’ behind the events of 17 October (not to be confused with Yousef 1, the blue-eyed 11-year-old from Barona, who has probably already been forgotten in a ‘news cycle’ faster than fast fashion) – it is worth looking at the ‘glass half full’ and the positive side of the looting in Milan ten days ago.

One might venture to say that the weekend of 17 and 18 October in Milan was, despite itself, not only a blow to the city’s and the nation’s sense of style, but also a small market survey – useful even for understanding what experts have been saying for months, namely the major crisis in the luxury sector.

Many have noted the differences between the protests in Milan and those in France in political terms, though less so in terms of style. In Paris, over the same weekend, the rioters’ marches targeted the entrance to the Dior boutique on Place Vendôme, as well as the shop windows of Céline and Rolex; in Marseille, the local Hermès and Vuitton shops were ransacked; in Milan, however, the focus was on budget brands.

The youths who took to Piazza Duomo, Via Torino, Piazza Castello and Via Dante did not, in fact, touch a single high-fashion shop window: instead, the rioters stormed a Decathlon, ransacked a Foot Locker on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, smashed the windows of a Levi’s, an Under Armour, a Perlier perfumery and La Rinascente, cleared a Carrefour of food and alcohol, and then made off with the till from a tailor’s, snatched a large tub of ice cream, smashed the windows of a Vodafone shop and even an Enel Store.

Meanwhile, on the stock market the following week, the global fashion industry suffered an even heavier blow. On Friday 23rd, Kering, owner of Gucci, fell by almost 12 per cent in Paris following a further drop in sales. On 12 October, it was the turn of LVMH, Bernard Arnault’s group: sales for fashion and leather goods fell short of estimates. Milano Finanza reported that luxury stocks are trading at “fast-fashion prices”, to the extent that, relative to expected earnings, LVMH is now “trading at a 30 per cent discount compared to Inditex, the owner of Zara”.

The Financial Times highlights how the six largest publicly listed European luxury goods companies, including Richemont, Prada and Moncler, have collectively lost €251 billion in market capitalisation since the start of the year.

It is easy to say: perhaps the disaffection with luxury brands is such that people would not even want them for free. A bit like books (it is all very well smashing up Feltrinelli bookshops, as in Turin, as a gesture, but the books remain there: long gone are the days when the chain founded by Giangiacomo kept a reserve stock for raids by comrades who were on the wrong track – but at least they were reading).

Today, it is more telling that Enel’s shop window has been smashed to smithereens, because by now paying an electricity bill is a greater luxury than buying a Prada rucksack or a Meridiano Mondadori book. But the twenty-year-old Italian – whether second- or third-generation, rioter or not – evidently has other desires. Some are hidden, others are not.

A brand considered budget-friendly such as Uniqlo has enabled its parent company, Fast Retailing, to close the financial year with a record operating profit of 4.6 billion euros (up 32 per cent); Decathlon ended 2025 with revenue of 16.8 billion (up 5.6 per cent) and a net profit of 910 million (up 16 per cent). Vinted, the Lithuanian second-hand platform, exceeded one billion euros in turnover in the last financial year, up 38 per cent on the previous year: this is where the Youssef generation now spends a great deal of time buying (including stolen goods), selling and photographing items, in ways and with an energy expenditure that remain a mystery even to us boomers – haggling like at a bazaar and selling rags and unsightly odds and ends of little value that we, coming from generations of serial hoarders, with social anxieties about making a fool of ourselves, and parents famous for keeping drawers labelled ‘elastic bands too old to use’, would never have dared to give away, let alone sell.

In short, where sociologists fell short, the ‘Maranza’ of Fashion Week were enough. We will need to establish a ‘Youssef index’ to understand market trends. And perhaps the protests of 17 October will prove as useful – if not more so – to the sector as a conference at the Ambrosetti Forum, while Youssef 2 may well have a future as a trendsetter, among a generation of ‘new faces’ and brand ambassadors straddling the humanities, fashion and geopolitics: alongside a Francesca Albanese in Loro Piana, and the many literary figures who complement the luxury sector, explaining the importance of fashion and trends amongst intersectionalist philosophers and performance poets of the body and bodies.

And certainly the ‘petits casseurs’ should be re-educated, not in the prisons feared under the new security decrees – which, as we know, serve little purpose; what matters is the certainty of punishment, not its severity, as the Milanese Beccaria once said – but perhaps instead at leading brands, even local ones: the young Yousef 1 could work as a page, for example, at Luisa Beccaria, and then undertake a compulsory work placement in Solomeo, within the splendid, iconic and inclusive setting of Brunello Cucinelli’s factory, with supplementary and remedial lessons in humanistic ‘slow fashion’ and ‘Made in Italy’: with academic credits and benefits for the entire sector, and for the supply chain – which is fundamental, as everyone knows, from Arnault to the ‘casseurs’ – oh well.