Prada

With genus banker held up for universal opprobrium, what better time for Miuccia Prada to run an elegy on the female of the species? Not that any woman in the City or Wall street has worn something this conventional, or come to that, this sexy (in that prim-but-on-fire way) for at least a decade. Imagine what Angelina Jolie would wear to play Miss Marple, and you have the gist. As Miuccia Prada said backstage, “the conservativism was what made it radical”.

Suits were the core of this collection. Not even mismatched suits, but sensible, Princess-Margaret-circa- 1948 matching tweed ensembles composed of cinched-in jackets with generous peplums and full, knee-length skirts, slashed and with flaps. Sleeveless dresses were tweedy too, beautifully cut and terrifyingly scratchy looking, although some of the velvet linings might ameliorate the hair-shirt effect. At night the dresses - exceptionally crafted strips of silk or studded leather (as Prada remarked, “this started out as a leather company”) - paid homage, like Christopher Kane's collection in London, to Modernism and Constructivism. And looked terrifyingly expensive.

Prada may not have to answer to shareholders, but she's no ingénue when it comes to economics. Everything about this collection seemed to have been designed to represent old-fashioned values of durability, quality and traditional womanliness. The redingote coats, also tweed and in the same palette of rust, mustard and curry brown were clearly built to withstand the cold and passing fads, notwithstanding the sly thigh-high slits. As for the shoes - after last season's debacle when models slipped and tumbled on the catwalk, Prada was taking no chances: these were high, but with enough traction on their rubber soles to double as JCB tyres.The handbags, top-handled classics and just the right size to carry documents and a laptop, closed the deal.

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Prada said that her original vision was slightly eccentric and sure enough, there were thigh-high wader boots accompanying tweed shorts worn over a knitted romper suit, but they were an obvious sop to the photographers. Perhaps the eccentricity lay in offering City-slicker wear to a world that is having profound doubts about the purpose of the City. LA

Roberto Cavalli

Where would we be without the never-ending soap opera of Roberto Cavalli's life off the catwalk? Fashion would surely be a duller place. One year it's tax-evasion scandals (he was given a jail sentence but later cleared), the next it's the launch of his own credit card just a few days after he has been forced to halt the presentation of his diffusion line, Just Cavalli. The news last weekend was that Ittierre, Just Cavalli's distributor, is suing the designer for breach of contract.

“Pah!” as Cavalli would probably say: little seems to faze him. Puffing nonchalantly away on a cigarette at a press conference last Friday, he gleefully reminded journalists that Just Cavalli has 100,000 fans on Facebook.

Still, he has his serious side too, and this appeared on the catwalk. With not even the slightest whiff of animal print, he presented an uncharacteristically pared-down mainline collection - an assortment of riveted and studded suede miniskirts worn with cropped jackets and over shiny spray-on leggings. Gone were the cling 'n' bling cocktail dresses and the trailing mink, to be replaced by what a Milanese girl-about-town might wear at the weekend. Commercially speaking, he's not deluded as to what will sell: important, this, as Just Cavalli seeks a new financial partnership. CA

Bottega Veneta

With so much focus on trouser shapes lately, it doesn't hurt to hear from a champion of the dress. Especially when that champion is as assured as Bottega's Tomas Maier. Starting with deceptively simple ivory silk rectangles, slashed at the neck, Maier played with his theme gently, working his way through a subtle colour palette that took in truffle (at this level you can hardly call the shade pinky-brown), mouse, mauve, cream and black, pulling in a bodice here, tweaking a shoulder there, adding a capped sleeve or subtracting sleeves and shoulders altogether, incorporating a jewelled strap, some artful folds or a full-length, Fortuny-style pleated skirt for evening. The subtlest but surest of internal corsetry was inserted into his wool jersey dresses.

Maier has beaten the drum for quiet, personal luxury for years: now, surely, is his moment. Not that there's anything understated about wearing a snow-white silk day dress with matching double-face cashmere coat. But Maier is all about the art of the pragmatic; designer sackcloth and ashes might play well to the inner fashion circle, but he is catering to the woman who's looking for discreet rather than invisible luxury. She may not want to holler about spending a small fortune on a dress, but she's not averse to a soft whisper. LA

Dolce & Gabbana

It is a quaint fashion show custom that front-row celebrities wear something that gives an indication of their host's artistic intentions. Thus the normally classically dressed Claudia Schiffer's black silk jacket with leg o' mutton sleeves the size of saucers was an indication of just how deeply Milan is in the grip of shoulder mania. If Schiffer's suit seemed wild before the show started, by the end it looked like the starter-kit version. On the catwalk, the models looked as though they had a French beret pinned on either side of each arm. Ladle on some crystals, fabulously ornate necklaces, shocking pink wedges and fling a pair of long metallic gloves round your neck in a gesture towards multi-tasking scarf-wear, and you have a look that doesn't fall under most people's definition of dressing down. In Dolce Land fox fur and crystals fall from the sky and settle just so on the shoulders, where normal people have to put up with light dustings of snow or dandruff.

As an exercise in how to make the skirt suit - Milan's new obsession - look fun and exciting it was mostly successful. And there is a precedent for such flamboyance. Elsa Schiaparelli's Cadillac-sized shoulders, fitted dresses and eponymous shade of pink (all of which were referenced here) dominated fashion in the Great Depression. Think pink, my darlings, and all will come right. Or not. LA

Emilio Pucci

One would imagine that forging a modern and relevant viewpoint at Pucci, the print house inextricably linked with the jet-set, would be an imperative for anyone taking over the creative helm. Peter Dundas (previously at Emanuel Ungaro), who showed his first collection for the label, had clearly been digging in the Florentine aristocrat and founder Emilio Pucci's archives.

But what he showed the fashion press in the heady opulence of a Milanese palazzo had nothing to do with the splashy patterns found on the £200 towels and bikinis that grace the beaches of Porto Cervo or St Tropez each Ferragosto picking up instead on Renaissance heraldic symbols.

There was a considerably darker bent to the lean, mean Goths that stalked the catwalk in their oversized, shaggy fur jackets, ruched jersey minidresses and nightclub-trashed evening gowns. Where, you wondered, had the print gone? In its place was a twentysomething party animal in flashes of Baroque gold, thigh-high boots or skin-hugging dresses . Instead of the usual vibrant colours there were dull, faded metallics. All might have been well if the cut hadn't been so unconvincing: the leggings were on the baggy side and the few graphic swirls that did appear looked like a child's doodles. Modern, yes. Original, not particularly. CA

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