GUCCI

From the moment she took the helm at Gucci five years ago, Frida Giannini knew what kind of aesthetic would sell to a new generation of rich, young, post-Tom Ford Gucci customers. Since then she hasn't deviated from that skinny trouser+ boyish tailoring+micro+mini+ major shoe+ generous-garnishing-of- bling equation. Giannini works on the basis that most women are looking for updates on trusted favourites rather than an image overhaul every six months, and refuses to be distracted.

Now those skinny pants have loosened slightly at the top into a slouchy, pegged waistline, and the minis have become belted tunics, some of them with tilted, off-the-shoulder necklines, most in dark colours. The major shoe has become a major boot, in skin-tight stretchy leather that climbs all the way up to the crotch and all but disappears under those tiny skirts. At night our new waver raves in impeccably crafted beaded variations of the above, and Lurex leggings. Long red carpet dresses have been replaced by teeny ones.

It's a look that millions of teenagers working their American Apparel and Topshop metallic leggings and T-shirts would adore . Whether enough teenagers and post-teenagers can afford these luxury versions is another question. Still, Gianni is a shrewd operator: perhaps from this we deduce that there are.LA

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MARNI

Given that it initially made its name with a kind of shabby boho chic, there was a pleasing contrariness in Consuelo Marni's response to the economic downturn. This was probably one of Marni's most lavish-looking collections to date, notwithstanding the sombre hues of at least half the clothes: tweed-effect brocades, metallic checks, panels of shiny studs and jewels adorning shoulders and sleeves, huge neck-collars of gold flowers and Swarovski crystals and, everwhere you looked, swathes of fur.

Perhaps the last of these is inevitable: in Italy fur is the sartorial equivalent of comfort eating. Even when the clothes were ostensibly muted - those wool felt jackets and skirts, for instance - there was enough sophisticated fusing of fabrics (wool sleeves bonded to crinkled silks, painted prints on tweed jackets) for every piece to qualify as an “investment” item.

Cleverly mixed in with these were more robust, machine-washable “basics” (quite a rarity in Milan) which, without making a big deal out of it, just happen to sell at a lower price point.

Maybe it's the way all those rectangular shapes can be layered on top of one another in endless, more or less fail-safe permutations that keeps this brand selling. Where Marni excels is in its ability to create an interesting, directional fashion look that can be worn by all ages and shapes. Now that the season's breast-plate jewellery and structured shoulders have been Marni-ised (which is shorthand for appearing modern without being scary), they look do-able. LA

BURBERRY PRORSUM

Click here to see Lisa Armstrong's post-show review with Christopher Bailey

One can't help feeling that if Christopher Bailey were left to his own devices, his preference for understated, beautifully poetic clothes would always involve a melancholic colour palette - so it's inconvenient that there are also a few emerging markets to cater to, which, recession or no recession, don't quite understand the “undone” appeal of Vanessa Bell or Virginia Woolf but totally get that fur or rhinestones, preferably in the same jacket, walk the talk.

Bailey's achievement is to marry these opposing aesthetics. Bookish heroines in off-white, silk-chiffon dresses teamed with clompy black biker boots were a pleasing modern take on grunge. Ditto the longer-length cable-knit cardigans and tweed dresses. Yet, lest anyone mistake this for anything other than high fashion, out came the black fur coats and shoulder shrugs. To add a little richness to textures, he mixed pressed bouclé tweeds with gauzy wool crepes, velvet brocades or plissé velvet jersey in inky blue or faded amethyst. Meanwhile, the beanie had morphed into a gardening hat. It would be easy to pass this off as a sombre take on recession dressing - but in Bailey's hands, oversized, mannish coats or boyish trousers with their nonchalant feel become so much more than that. CA

GIORGIO ARMANI

The Eighties - the other decade that style forgot - is fast shaping up as the biggest influence on this season's catwalks. Of course, Giorgio Armani was there the first time around, pioneering the idea of softly tailored power dressing, and knows better than most how streamlined and unforgiving this look can be. So, to a soundtrack that included Grace Jones and Tina Turner, there were skirt suits aplenty (mostly in every permutation of grey from pewter to charcoal) and rather lovely one-button jackets in glossy fabrics. His use of flat-fronted ski pants (sans stirrups) proved the most challenging, and his adventures in volume were no more successful: a cape coat teamed with a knee-length A-line skirt looked clumsy. The idiosyncratic headgear that is such a mainstay of his collections appeared as pillboxes or shiny, patent biker caps. Coupled with patent leather gloves, it was a style that looked more “street” than five-figure fashion. Thankfully the eveningwear didn't shout as loudly as the daywear: he could have gone all Joan Collins ruffle-tastic or Dynasty super-bling on us, but he didn't. Gauzy, beaded, to-the-floor gowns that were slashed at the back (tastefully rather than tartily) made a pleasing antidote to Eighties-style excess. They also reminded us why this designer is still a Hollywood mainstay (see his impressive showing at last week's Oscars) - whatever the spin he puts on a particular collection, the fact remains that Armani is a safe pair of hands when it comes to making women look red-carpet elegant and glamorous. CA

JIL SANDER

There was a lot of subtext to this show. First the opening sequence of unlined cashmere fitted dresses and minimalist seamed coats, which, although beautiful and wearable, could, in the light of what followed, be read as the designer Raf Simons making an obligatory gesture towards the commercial, which he has previously eschewed.

Second, the finale bow in which Simons, whose catwalk appearances are normally fleeting, lingered with his arms wrapped around Christel von Kiedrowski, the head of Sander's Hamburg ateliers for more than 20 years. The latest owners of Jil Sander, Onward Holdings and GIBO Co SpA, are rumoured to be closing those ateliers: a cost-cutting exercise, no doubt. And no doubt, either, what Simons thinks of the plan. The magnum opus of this collection, a succession of black, sculpted dresses and pearly white leather jackets that curved around the body, twisting and unfolding at the neck, back or hips to reveal a neon flash of orange or yellow and tiny glimpses of skin, took tailoring to a new level: it was a breathtaking demonstration of what state-of-the-art manufacturing and fabric technology can achieve. Without those ateliers, it is doubtful that the heart of this collection will ever see the light of day. LA

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