Some projects don’t really end, they close like a circle completing itself. It’s not a finale, but the moment when energy stops being spectacle and becomes a tangible trace. LAUD END PRAUDknows this well, which is why on July 9, at Fondazione Sozzani, something will happen that feels less like an event and more like a restitution.
On June 20, at BASE Milano, eight designers turned as many planets into collections. It wasn’t just any fashion show: it was a solar system without a centre, where every identity followed its own orbit and no celestial body commanded the others. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune became surface, colour, texture, but also a political statement. Because when fashion and activism meet, the result is never merely aesthetic.
From symbol to action
Now those garments—born from different hands, different stories, different visions that range from Be Nina‘s upcycling to BERGIE‘s experimentation, from Pecora Nera‘s knitwear to Simon Cracker‘s reinvention—will leave the runway and enter another dimension. That of a charity auction. And the entire proceeds will go to the Trans Desk of ALA Milano Onlus, a resource that every day accompanies transgender people through psychological support, job placement, legal aid, and social inclusion. A way to ensure that what was imagined as a symbol becomes tangible support.
The evening will open with a talk that tries to make sense of this creative chaos. Federico Poletti(NextGen) will moderate a dialogue between Sara Sozzani Maino (Creative Director Fondazione Sozzani), Simone Botte (Founder Simon Cracker), Maria Aminta Daniele (PWC Milano, Casting Director), Antonia Monopoli (Head of the Trans Desk of ALA Milano Onlus), and Andrea Semeghini (VANADIO23 and creative director of LAUD END PRAUD), to unpack the meaning of a project that never wanted to be just fashion, but cultural space, community, resistance. Then, the floor will pass to Medusa Lapesciua, who will call the auction itself.
Beyond the object
Some will buy a garment, others will buy a piece of that queer solar system that for one evening made Milan spin on a different orbit. But everyone—even those who simply show up, listen, bear witness—will take part in something that goes beyond the object. Because the most radical gesture, sometimes, is to take what was meant to be fleeting and make it lasting. Transforming a dress into a right, and a runway into support.
