Smoking and high fashion have always been deeply intertwined.
From paparazzi photos featuring ‘90s celebrities pairing vintage handbags with Marlboro Golds to modern campaigns sporting them as the season’s chicest accessory, cigarettes have been a recurring prop in fashion’s visual language.
Smoking — a historically male practice — juxtaposed with a feminine high-fashion setting, marked it as the ultimate symbol of rebellion and effortlessness.
But according to fashion capital Milan, Italy — home of Milan Fashion Week, which occurs twice a year — smoking in 2025 is so out of style!
As of Jan. 1, smoking has been banned in public spaces and outdoors by Milan’s City Council. The measure is the city’s strictest ban on smoking to date, and violators will be subjected to fines ranging from €40 to €240.
The law is part of a 2021 initiative launched to improve the city’s air quality, signaling a larger cultural shift — smoking is now more of a public nuisance than a fashion statement.
There was a time when smoking inside bistros, cafes and even airplanes was a common occurrence. While recent laws have made smoking indoors feel worlds away, fashion — which has always been driven by rebellion — carried on as usual.
In 1985, French designer Yves Saint Laurent went as far as pasting the infamous “YSL” crest in gold on cigarette packs in a campaign for a new brand, Ritz.
The Ritz campaign was marketed to “fashion-conscious female smokers,” according to a 1985 Los Angeles Times article by Betty Goodwin. The campaign, shot by fashion photographer Helmut Newton, featured women and couples smoking whilst luxuriating on yachts, sleek sports cars, and well-adorned hotels.
Newton himself described the cigarettes as having “a lot of chic,” exemplifying a broader acceptance of smoking in the fashion world.
Since then, smoking on runways has only become more prevalent. In 2011, Kate Moss smoked while strutting down the runway for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week, blowing smoke into the crowd around her. By violating French anti-smoking laws and doing so on the U.K.’s “No Smoking Day,” Moss sparked a controversy in an industry already notorious for promoting unhealthy habits.
Gone are the days when smoking was synonymous with sophistication.
Today, there is a wealth of information on how smoking cigarettes affects both human and environmental health. A recent jarring study by researchers at University College London found that a single cigarette can take 20 minutes off of life.
In recent decades, a widespread wellness movement driven by celebrity culture and social media has emphasized longevity, clean eating and healthy daily habits, such as cutting back on alcohol consumption and abstaining from smoking.
Celebrity wellness brands like Goop, founded in 2008 by American actress and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow, and Poosh, founded in 2019 by Kourtney Kardashian, are two examples of the broader shift toward wellness culture.
Today, celebrities are much more likely to be spotted clutching a matcha or green juice outside a Pilates studio than stealing a few puffs outside a restaurant, begging the question — will smoking ever be cool again?
If for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, the same can be said for cultural trends. As wellness culture remains popular in the new year, we can be sure there is an underground movement brewing to counter it.
In a recent article for The Independent, journalist Olivia Petter asked whether smoking is becoming a trend again, referencing a recent spike in smoking cigarettes depicted in media and fashion.
At 2024 fashion week, Petter commented, “Cigarettes were so present at shows that attendees began to wonder whether health experts had ruled that actually smoking is good for you.”
This revival of smoking imagery seems to validate a broader cultural pushback, where anti-wellness sentiments are being channeled through symbols of rebellion and nostalgia.
Well, Milan has spoken! Il fumo è finito — smoking is over. But in an industry like fashion, where reinvention lies at its core, will smoking ever truly go out of style?
