The same Italian photographer screams at the front row seconds before nearly every show here. “Lay-deece and gen-tel-men,” he bellows. “Please UNCROSS YOUR LEGS!” This is no seduction technique, but a plea to ensure the clearest shots for his whirring bank of colleagues.

Sadly, even Chris Moore’s forensic lens can’t quite do justice to the macro-intricacies of Missoni’s knitwear. The odd flash of pink or blue notwithstanding, this was not a show about vibrant colour. There was a washed-out lime, some silver, some beige, some white, some dun stuff. Yet the kaleidoscopic rippling of these dizzying weaves is, up close, spectacular to see, especially when layered (as here). There were crop tops over skirts, boob tubes over bandeaus, open midriff dresses under vests. Accessories included funky Pocahontas-fringed bags and plenty of silver, in arm bracelets and chains wrapped around the models’ ankles and necks (from which little silver whistles dangled).

These super-light knits were inspired, said the notes, by sylphs and Isadora Duncan. Yet the models bounced down the medieval flagstones to pounding old-school hardcore and housed-up Soul II Soul. Only when one model started blowing her whistle along with the music did the penny drop: this is rave knitwear. Or as Ms Missoni said afterwards: “She is young, she goes to Ibiza.”

True whistle crew would love these trippy knits. Pity, though, that there wasn’t a bit more colour: it would have heightened the experience.

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