Miuccia Prada's influence knows no bounds. While her husband is preoccupied with winning the America's Cup in New Zealand, she is back in Milan pioneering new territory for fashion.
Last season Prada embraced a ladylike chic that bordered on the bourgeois, leaving sportswear designers standing in the blocks. Prada says it was the only way to go and now all the Milanese designers agree, as they give their collections a splash of slick grown-up sophistication. Prada, however, is moving on.
Her autumn collection has a whimsical, eccentric elegance picking up on vintage themes from the 1940s and 1950s such as Donegal tweed princess coats with little fur cravats and pretty sun flower and pansy print silk chiffon dressmaker dresses. Their gross grain waistbands move the waistline up to the ribcage.
There are still last season's librarian touches like the cashmere V-neck sweaters in red worn with practical camel box pleat skirts and the circle skirt worn with thick wool wrap-front blouson. The way she puts it together makes it so appealing, with its repressed sexy undercurrent. However, Prada fans will really want to lay their hands on the new Gladstone-style bags and Forties peep-toe sling-back shoes with little wooden platforms.
London-based but Italian-backed designer Antonio Berardi picked a 1920s theme for his collection - his third in Milan. Models in marcel-waved hair and necks draped in pearls wore pleated chemises with drop waists and deep scoop necks.
They appeared in a pretty arts and crafts-style peony print or a fluid jersey with little rosettes of ruching, featuring on shoulders or hips to serve as an elegant alternative to the corsage. The look was glamorous and sexy and the lovely silver lace Twenties dresses suggests there lies deep in Berardi a desire to be the next Galliano.
