Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Armani, Gucci, Versace, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana... see what the world's top fashion designers have in store for summer 2008. Hint: there's a love affair with romance.

Miss Bikini LUXE
Naomi Campbell set the tone for a sparkling start to Milan's spring and summer 2008 womenswear shows featuring over 80 designers. Wearing an emerald-sequined swimsuit, Campbell launched the "Miss Bikini LUXE" collection.

The LUXE collection, which departs from Alessandra and Francesca Piacentini's traditional swimwear line into dresses and wraps, mixed skimpy bikinis with floaty seventies and animal print wraps. Wide leather studded belts and armbands provided a clashing contrast.

Valeria Marini used underwear as outerwear for her Diamond Seduction collection, with elongated lace bodices worn as cocktail dresses and chiffon evening wraps that could easily slip into negligees.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Rocco Barocco
Barocco used jagged-edged metal pieces to create a broken mirror effect, while his short dresses in black or sparkling white lattice weave won applause from the audience. Models sported big sunglasses and had swept up their hair into exaggerated French pleats.

Barocco's collection stuck primarily to black, white and silver but there were prints with splashes of petrol blue or cherry pink, used in a pleated panel to flip cheekily over black shorts.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Gianfranco Ferre
Gianfranco Ferre's womenswear collection – his last designs before he died in June – was full of flowing, billowing silks and loose fitting cottons that rippled with every movement.

Evening gowns were great gulps of gauzy fabric, knotted at shoulder or breast, and seemed to eschew zips or buttons.

Trousers were extra long over high-heeled, thick-soled shoes, and in soft silks or jersey that swung lazily as the models walked along a mirrored catwalk.

Echoing a trend at D&G and earlier shows, Ferre gave trousers wide legs, but added a high waist or cummerbund size belts for a 1940s film star swank.

Ferre, whose successor has yet to be named, had shown his skills with leather, too, in intricate trellis-worked jackets in straw yellow or chocolate brown.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Giorgio Armani
Giorgio Armani tapped a Mediterranean vibe for his womenswear collection, cropping loose satin Turkish trousers above the knee and tied them with bows in sand, rock grey and marine blue.

Models wore fine mesh nets over their hair and the fishing theme was extended to shawls and shoulder shrugs in a lattice worn with slim silk evening gowns.

To a backing track of typical southern Italian songs with more than a hint of North African drumbeats, models slouched down a black and light striped catwalk for a laid-back mood.

Shoes were unusually high and glittery for Armani, while bags in midnight blue or black were held by one strap or clutched.

Armani also presented his new mobile phone – a sleek, black model designed with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Burberry Prorsum
British designer, Christopher Bailey channelled a "luxury warrior" for Burberry Prorsum's spring collection, revealing military embellishments in the form of metal, mesh, and braiding. The majority of pieces focused on nude and light colors with tulle, silk chiffon, and taffeta, the light feminine textures contrasting with the toughened leather belts and jackets studded with bronze discs.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Emporio Armani
Giorgio Armani used jades, pale blues, violets and grays for his young Emporio Armani collection, with splashes of silver and sequins.

He took the loose, tied-at-the-knee trousers from his grown-up Giorgio Armani line show earlier that week and puffed them out with a curt cuff instead, in what the designer called "an upturned tulip".

Armani put sparkle in the collection with ice blue and silver striped hooded tops over short silk skirts. Models carried huge silver laminated bags soft enough to fold in half and necklaces were a double loop of shiny stones and black.

The designer kept jackets short and tailored or stretched out a tuxedo model to let brief black shorts wink below the hem for a cheeky evening suit.

And he used black and white checkerboard prints for short full skirts teamed with tailored jackets or a halter neck top tied loosely to gap at the back.

Armani also used the opportunity to promote his new fragrance, Diamonds, which is promoted by pop singer Beyonce.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Prada
Miuccia Prada took her models down to the enchanted part of the garden where the fairies live, introducing them to a dreamworld that verged on nightmare and put dark circles round their eyes.

Prada, whose shows are seen as pivotal for fashion direction, used the themes of botanical prints, plaids and knitted jumpsuits. Models with their hair in matted plaits and dark eye make-up moved through a maze of green concentric seating, against a backdrop print on the walls of elves with over-ripe fruits and just over bloom flowers.

Prada swirled the botanical prints across green silk for pajama style outfits, or used a trellis design in green and white for a full, stiff skirt.

Huge petals of tissue-like silk hung on the hip of a dress or were draped across the shoulders, while necklines were jigsaw-shaped and hems were uneven.

Prada's show echoed some trends from other collections, with wide-leg chiffon trousers and high, high-heeled shoes.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Gucci
Frida Giannini used a black and white base for the Gucci show but liberally splashed it with bright yellow and bubblegum pink in an echo of graphic art.

A bright pink short tailored jacket was teamed with a brief, full and flirty print skirt, while a mini biker jacket had an abstract floral design on the back in mustard, cream and black.

Chevrons of black and white patent were mixed with yellow or pink for 50s style full skirts, and the bright colors turned up in checks as well.

Shoes – following a trend this week – were high and gold, lace-up or patent, while belts either played the cummerbund or were finger-width to offset layered skirts.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Versace
Donatella Versace used vivid colors for a twist to a flowing, languid look in dresses in her show – which started by paying homage to Luciano Pavarotti who died earlier this month with his trademark Nessun Dorma aria from Puccini's Turandot.

The designer took hot pinks and oranges to sharpen up softly pleated gowns that seemed tied together rather than tailored.

She used a classic shirtdress style for daywear, or shorts and a shirt, again ringing the changes with bolts of color.

Shoes were just as bright with sculpted heels, while handheld bags were art-folder sized in white or metallics.

Necklines were high and demure, elongated into a slim scarf that was thrown over the shoulder, while at the back, dresses were scooped low.

Versace rounded off the show with variations on a long, slim, soft evening silhouette, using a palette of colors that included jade, yellow, pink and electric blue.

Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 08

Dolce & Gabbana
Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana turned out artists' paint-spattered canvases as gorgeous gowns in a finale to their spring and summer womenswear show.

The black background dresses were splashed and whirled with white and daubed with magenta, or bright green, pink and purple. The canvas-like fabric was bundled into ball gowns that seemed as if the models had swirled themselves in the cast-off canvas of a painter's studio.

According to designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the idea for the collection came from the hall of the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, where baroque divans are set against a background of huge contemporary paintings.

The gowns were preceded by more paint-spattered outfits, ranging from T-shirts through slim-fit short dresses and even high-heeled shoes.

The baroque divans turned up in heavy crimson brocade or green velvet and gold fabric, which was used for short skirts that flared fully from the waist, or for a square-necked straight dress.

Bags were also oversized, hanging from models' hands to finish at ankle height and sporting a purse-like pocket, or the size of business envelopes in turquoise and beige, hanging from a gold chain.

Source: Reuters
Pictures: AFP