Versace

The creme de la creme of fashion designers at Milan Fashion Week chose the modest and demure over the extroverted and provocative in their womenswear collections for next spring, with some of the big names sticking to their roots and what they are best known for to win over crunched buyers.

With the warmer months revealing more skin, designers in Italy’s fashion capital ensured their pieces bared flesh with bare backs, one-shouldered outfits and high hemlines – from small dresses and skirts to 1950s-style high-waisted culottes.

Giorgio Armani, known for his classically elegant lines, looked to body art for his spring/summer 2010 collection, using linear cuts to show off bare shoulders and legs.

He sent out models in short dresses – for both day and night – and slit skirts that revealed shorts. Rounded-shoulder jackets were paired with loose ankle-length trousers. All models wore flat shoes, a rarity on the catwalk.

Miuccia Prada continued with her deconstruction theme – grey silk jackets were stitched together at different lengths and white knickers peeped out from baggy boxing champion shorts. She threw a net of chandelier drop glass beads over a white mini shift to emphasise a contemporary and nostalgic feel.

Donatella Versace, inspired by Tim Burton’s film Alice in Wonderland, presented a collection fashionistas said recalled the lively spirit of her late brother Gianni Versace.

She used candy pink and acid green for slinky print mini dresses and mixed stretchy knit tight-fitting tops with skirts covered in metallic triangle patches. Cream leather was worked into pleats and then stamped with rivet-like emblems. Chiffon versions of the prints in floaty folds came out for the evening.

Milan’s woman for next spring has banished black so as to not focus too much on “today’s gloomy situation,” a show note said.