Burberry Prorsum
Just when you think Christopher Bailey has done everything that can possibly be done with a beanie, a trench-coat and a loosely fitted dress, he makes you fall in love with them all over again.
A couple of mitigating points. First, he tweaked his beloved style props slightly. The beanie is now a brimmed cloche, the shift dress is in gauzy, dip-dyed chiffon.
Secondly, he does what he does very well. When a model mooches wistfully down that catwalk in a sweetly subdued grey, gently flared coat, her sandy coloured chiffon dress fluttering slightly, her chunky wooden jewellery (this is a brand steadily evolving its accessories) nicely underplayed by her dun-coloured ankle socks, for a moment this almost looks like the fashion equivalent of cinéma vérité.
But the high-waisted tulip skirts and skinny long cardigans have been pre-crumpled, the muddy hems on those coats are an expensive trompe l'oeil, courtesy of state-of-the-art dyeing techniques.
So where next? Having successfully reconfigured Burberry for the über-luxury market, Bailey's personal preference for understatement sometimes seems to battle with the imperative to produce high-end luxe for the flash set. What we get is a charcoal snakeskin trench with a washed, lived-in feel that's embellished with metalwork and will cost a fortune: beautiful, but will muted bling prove too much of an oxymoron for Burberry's customers? LA
Alberta Ferretti
Searching for grittiness or even the remotest connection with reality on the catwalks of Milan is a bit like looking for sophisticated banter among the Harry and Wills set - unfair, because it's just not what they do. While Italy's designers privately express disquiet at current financial turbulence, there's little sense of sobriety in the shows, unless you count the sighting of some exotic skins dyed a depressing colour.
Combat pants did put in an appearance at Alberta Ferretti, but they were lined with satin and worn with rose appliquéd tops and chiffon wraps. The cocktail set will always need something to wear, and this is where they come for sweet and refined prettiness as opposed to the more direct T-and-A approach of Roberto Cavalli.
Ferretti loves chiffon and silks and glowing sweeps of purple, forget-me-not and petrol blue, oyster, burnt orange and raspberry sorbet. When she's at the top of her game - as she was for part of this collection - she makes poetic and lovely eveningwear, slicing chiffon into flyaway ribbons, twirling it into huge, lacy roses or pleating and gathering it into Fortuny-inspired lantern dresses.
Sometimes her very skilled workrooms seemed to get carried away into a land where nothing is too much trouble: a pleat, a rose, a spot of ruching, a fringe... But when it was kept under control - a grey satin bias-cut maxi skirt with a simple ruffle rippling up the back seam, a backless silk chiffon long dress twisted at the front, or those rose appliquéd tops with slim trousers - it came together beautifully. LA
Bottega Veneta
If London is the capital of conceptual, wacky invention then Milan is the filter through which next season's trends spring forth. Luckily for Moschino, its offbeat aesthetic means it has had more practice than most in redefining the ruffle and flounce that has been spotted on every catwalk this week.
While most of Milan has spent the past few years getting to grips with bondage-style dressing and mean, lean warrior machines, this is a label that has never been afraid to adhere to its signature detailing. And finally it has come into its own.
Swishy swing coats in monochrome with exaggerated bows were a strikingly confident opening statement. And the clothes only got louder. Next up were bright emerald, raspberry and cornflower blue drop-waist dresses featuring tiers of frills, and slim-fitting coats that were worn either as eye-popping colour clashes or left to stand alone as bold colour blocks - all the better for elongating the body.
Those seeking a neutral palette (stone, mushroom and black) were equally well catered for. The taupe, techno-fabric trench coat with its ruffled epaulettes succeeded in being quirky and yet still commercial. And which woman doesn't appreciate the forgiving cut of 1950s couture-ish shaped tops, skirts and cocktail dresses?
Overall, this collection was pretty and feminine. But certainly not for wallflowers. CA
Moschino
If London is the capital of conceptual, wacky invention then Milan is the filter through which next season's trends spring forth. Luckily for Moschino, its offbeat aesthetic means it has had more practice than most in redefining the ruffle and flounce that has been spotted on every catwalk this week.
While most of Milan has spent the past few years getting to grips with bondage-style dressing and mean, lean warrior machines, this is a label that has never been afraid to adhere to its signature detailing. And finally it has come into its own.
Swishy swing coats in monochrome with exaggerated bows were a strikingly confident opening statement. And the clothes only got louder. Next up were bright emerald, raspberry and cornflower blue drop-waist dresses featuring tiers of frills, and slim-fitting coats that were worn either as eye-popping colour clashes or left to stand alone as bold colour blocks - all the better for elongating the body.
Those seeking a neutral palette (stone, mushroom and black) were equally well catered for. The taupe, techno-fabric trench coat with its ruffled epaulettes succeeded in being quirky and yet still commercial. And which woman doesn't appreciate the forgiving cut of 1950s couture-ish shaped tops, skirts and cocktail dresses?
Overall, this collection was pretty and feminine. But certainly not for wallflowers. CA
Jil Sander
Raf Simons, creative director at Jil Sander, knows how to put on a seductive show, that's for sure. He even knows how to make fringing (rapidly emerging as a spring trend) look chic - no mean feat.
Still, for rigorous minimalism with a 2008 slant, he's the man. That means ruthlessly pared-down jackets, some cut away high over the shoulderblades at the back and worn - let's assume this was for dramatic purposes only - over ribbed wool catsuits, others with graceful asymmetric hems grazing short skirts or shorts. It means variations on the sleeveless shift dress, some in pearly white leather, most gently egg-shaped, some with a curtain of shiny fringing spiralling from the nape at the front to the hem at the back - a sophisticated alternative to the jewelled embellishment so common on Italian eveningwear. It means kimono-inspired wrap coats, unadorned apart from the slits beneath the arm holes. And it means a colour palette borrowed from uniforms: black, midnight, dark wine.
Problem is, it's unlikely that much of what made this a dramatic show - the bold cut-outs and fringed panels - will ever hit stores. We'll be left with a return to the skirt suit (at Sander at least) and more shift dresses, albeit superior ones. LA
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