Prada

It's not improbable that in 100 years' time, today's 10-in heels will be viewed with the same morbid fascination that we reserve for panniers and powdered wigs. Yet for the moment, women seem wedded to them, despite being unable to run - or, since you ask, even walk at a moderately fast pace in them.

The Unwalkable Shoe was out in force at Prada and at least one poor model nearly took a tumble, almost certainly spraining her ankle. This was a sight even we hardened fashion witches found excruciating to watch, but backstage after her show, Miuccia Prada dismissed it, blaming the little shoe socks the models had to wear inside their sandals (you know, the kind you can buy in Boots that are supposed to be “invisible”).

Making a luxury fashion item out of something formerly worn by nerds is Prada's stock in trade. Which was why it was so odd to see her making luxury fashion items formerly worn by, um, luxury fashion buyers. She said the collection was about “going back to primitive times and seeking out what has always been desired by women”. On the basis of what she showed, make that sex, precious metals and shoe socks.

Milan Fashion Week: the glitterati master understatement

In a city renowned for its bling, it was a shock to see a more toned-down look

Milan Fashion Week revels in the detail

Fashion houses played around with their classic looks, adding ruffles, fringing and bright colours

Multimedia

• Pictures: Burberry Prorsum, Jil Sander and Alberta Ferretti

• Pictures: Moschino, Just Cavalli and Emporio Armani

To be completely honest, it looked as though she'd gone only as far back into primitive times as 1961. The sight of Miuccia Prada curled up in front of the TV is somehow incongruous, but it's hard not conclude that she has been addicted to Mad Men these past few months. The cult US series, set in the tail end of the Eisenhower era, surely gave the template for those sexy, tapered-below-the-knee skirts, cropped, flyaway silk jackets and bustiers, some in sombre pinks, others in bronze.

Of course, being Prada, it was subverted with bondage-y ribbons, cut-away panels, looped-up sections and a general air of crumpled yet glamorous deshabillé. Skirts and jackets had metal in the seams so that they could be moulded into different shapes, fitted sheath dresses were printed in python, apron skirts were open over Forties-inspired silky underwear.

There were many beautiful pieces in this collection, though who knows how it will be modified for the shops, since you'd be sectioned if you wore some of this on the streets. And if it's too altered, it might look too period. As for those shoes, well, the French Revolution put paid to powdered wigs. Maybe the economic one can wipe out hobble-some heels. LA

Missoni

Presumably it's not easy to take the key trends each season and fuse them with your own style DNA. If it were, every label would be doing it.

But at the Milan show this week, Angela Missoni, daughter of the house's founders, Tai and Rosita Missoni, made it look effortless. Slightly tulip-shaped skirts that finished below the knee, kimono-shaped silk tops, sleeveless belted coats, tunic tops - it had them all.

Yet she never gets so side-tracked that she forgets what gives this house its appeal - namely, those knitted zigzag patterns. They were there again - in a raised-waist dress with butterfly sleeves, and on a tulip skirt that was mis-matched with a larger-scaled swirling print (clashing patterns is another trend next spring, along with clashing colours).

There was enough here to appeal even to non-devotees, although the preponderance of chartreuse and mustard was a bit mystifying. These might be fashion colours next season, but only Italians can wear them. But at least they will look good in Hotel Missoni, due to open in Kuwait 2009. Tough times call for diversification. LA

Marni

Marni is a label that could never look retro, even though it has an ongoing romantic love affair with the past - this time a sort of mythical Sixties, when prints were bold and geometric, the mood was sunny and fearless and there seemed to be a mad obsession with circles. It was probably the drugs back then.

This time round, those circles were laser-cut from felted wools and made into tunics that were either worn by themselves for a risqué (for Marni) peek-a-boo effect, or layered over other patterns for maximum kook factor. Dresses were sometimes worn two at a time, or at least a dress was piled on top of a longer skirt and belted at the waist.

The prints were as nostalgic as Marni got. Everything else - the styling, the deliberately clunky cuts, the elegantly shambolic juxtapositions, the oversized resin jewellery (clusters of funnels dangling round collarbones), the neon flashes - was pure 2009 Marni. Although come to think of it, by the time 2009 actually arrives, everyone else will have ripped them off.

This is always the way with Marni, but then it is one of the most (re)inventive houses around and this was a particularly fresh collection, full of clear, uplifting colours (trimmed with beiges and donkey browns for that essential “off” feel).

Marni doesn't venture out too much at night-time - it's probably busy re-reading a Rosamond Lehmann novel for the 37th time. But when it does, it's delightfully idiosyncratic: this spring it will wear one of those silky cut-out circle skirts, possibly embellished with a patchwork of purple, fuchsia and daffodil sequins, along with a matching tunic-top that's loose enough to stuff a Penguin paperback down. LA

Roberto Cavalli

If there's one thing Milan's designers are famed for, it's their ability to put on a “show”. An extravagant stage set, usually depicting a scene from some aspect of Italy's dolce vita, is de rigeur.

The audience at Roberto Cavalli were treated to a 360-degree photo montage of a palazzo's landscaped gardens. Disappointingly, the clothes didn't live up to the grandeur of the foliage. Where was the independent (and modestly dressed) woman that Cavalli has been championing of late?

Ruffle miniskirt-suits in baby pinks and blues were definitely not odes to 21st-century power-dressing. Nor were floral-print, thigh-skimming PVC cocktail dresses or Tudor-style bodices with mini, ruffled bustle skirts in painted chinoiserie.

Cavalli returned to more credible ground with billowing stripe kaftans and some pretty halterneck dresses in a pastiche of monochrome patterns. But sadly this was short-lived. Eveningwear in saccharine shades of peach and grey, and an unappealing punched suede, broderie anglaise trouser suit followed. Even a return to his signature animal prints would have been more welcome. CA

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