Luxury brands started six-day catwalks in fashion capital Milan on Wednesday amid hope and concern for slow recovery of the Italian economy.

The Autumn-Winter 2014-15 Woman Fashion Week features 143 ready-to-wear collections and a full calendar of events including presentations, workshops, exhibitions and parties.

The Milan-based fashion chamber, the organizer of the event, said the novelty of this edition was the emphasis on young talents beside established brands such as the likes of Gucci, Armani and Fendi.

Not only up-and-coming designers as Stella Jean and Fausto Puglisi will present their collections, but fashion students will also have the possibility to show their creations in special activities.

A creative installation by students from Istituto Marangoni, a prestigious fashion school based in Milan, will be displayed during the week to highlight the important role of youth in the fashion world.

The fashion chamber described the young talents as a "chance for recovery" of a sector which has always driven the Italian economy but was not spared by the country's longest recession in 40 years.

Italy has given some signals of slight recovery with 0.1 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2013 but structural impediments to growth have rendered the economy vulnerable.

The fashion sector's turnover was expected to increase by more than 5 percent this year after a fall of 1.8 percent in 2013 and a 5.4-percent decline in 2012, fashion chamber president Mario Boselli said.

Strong export sales in recent years have helped protect the sector from further loss, he noted.

There was still deep concern, however, that the sector could meet many obstacles in a recovery that Italy's leading industrial association Confindustria described again on Wednesday as "dramatically slow."

Fashion brand Paola Frani has decided not to take part in the catwalks to better focus on clients.

"In the ongoing difficult times, Paola Frani has preferred to give though to customers by lowering the price list by 20 percent while maintaining the usual high quality," the Italian company said in a statement.

"The fashion world has always been a life line for the Italian economy, but since 2008 there has been a dramatic drop of consumption," the brand's stylist Paola Frani noted.

Another brand that has made the history of Italian luxury fashion, Gianfranco Ferre, will be absent in the Milan Fashion Week for the first time since 1978.

The Dubai-based Paris Group that acquired the iconic brand in 2011 "has officially said that it intends to disinvest entirely in Italy," Italian union organizers were quoted as saying by local media on Wednesday. Endi

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