Two years ago you wouldn't have dreamed of putting anything brighter than grey in your wardrobe, or more complicated than a white T-shirt. Suits would have been no-nonsense and businesslike with anything as fussy as a fastening concealed or replaced by velcro, while accessories would have been paragons of discretion. Fashion was minimal, functional and frankly boring.
So, wow, what a difference two years can make to your tastes. It's amazing how quickly the eye becomes receptive to flamboyant colours, zingy patterns and ritzy rhinestones after a few years deprivation. The Milan spring collections were a feast of these forbidden fruits from the past. From Armani and Prada to Dolce & Gabbana and Versace, colour, pattern and femininity were feted.
Armani, renowned for his taste and discretion, and Jil Sander revelled in the joy of rediscovering colour, while Donatella Versace revived the exuberant printed silks and jersey that are so much part of the house's heritage. Versace, Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana, of course, can be relied upon to deliver the sultry, sexy glamour that has been an underlying feature of Italian fashion, albeit suppressed for much of this decade. Prada, meanwhile, made it all look so grown-up and sophisticated. There is nothing remotely utilitarian about fashion next summer as the Italians embrace a new sophisticated femininity.
Prada exemplified this mood with a look best described as conservative chic made risque. Miuccia Prada sent out elegant spotted chiffon dresses and sleeveless chiffon blouses with collars wrapped and tied high around the neck. Worn with neatly pleated skirts the look paid homage to the elegance of Seventies Saint Laurent. Somehow she has made bourgeois look cutting edge, whether it was a pleated skirt teamed with a cardigan, or an ostrich leather skirt with a crisp white shirt.
If there was a fabric of the season, then it would be chiffon. It came plain, with polka dots as large as saucers or small as a £1 coin, or printed with bright tropicals or faded paisleys which, according to Steffano Gabbana, might have been sitting in your mother's wardrobe for a few years.
Chiffon was slipped over sparkly bras at Dolce & Gabbana, or matching bras at Fendi where chiffon in bright colour combinations fluttered in wispy layers that featured amazing techniques like laser cutting and suede applique. It was worked into tiny Grecian pleats for empire dresses and sweet tops at Alberta Ferretti, or shaped into impeccably chic pintucked blouses at MaxMara.
The simplest garment of the season was the masculine white shirt which replaces the white T-shirt as a fashion basic. It made several appearances around the collections. For instance, it morphed into shirtdresses and rompersuits at Prada. In the Miu Miu collection it was slipped over a black polo-neck sweater and tucked into khaki trousers for a preppy look. At Ferre the collar and cuffs of the shirt were detached from the body and contrived into a single construction that wrapped the breast. Sportmax teamed it with a pretty tiered skirt, or it was used to counterbalance the bright paisley-print jeans and low-slung rhinestone hipster belts at Dolce & Gabbana.
Tight, sexy trousers, frequently cut as jeans, but in bright colours, printed patterns or trailed with sparkling rhinestones highlighted the return of the sassy rockstar look in Milan. Versace, Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana all produced sexy glamour that appeals to the diva in every girl.
Tom Ford at Gucci used sinuous snakeskin prints on trousers to go with plunging necklines and high-heeled sandals studded with rhinestones for his rock divas. Donatella Versace's clinging silk/cotton jeans and silk shantung trousers either traced coloured crystals in two rows curving around the hip and down the length of the outside leg, or came in azalea pink or bright green bamboo prints, reviving the house's tradition for bold prints.
Sometimes trousers were as tight as leggings which made a dubious comeback at Alessandro Dell' Aqua in black or gold, or were clingy lowslung styles that flicked out over boots at Dell' Aqua and Strenesse. Armani put pretty colourful chiffon capri pants edged with embroidered organza under skirts in his Emporio collection, but the look, in gentle pastels, was pretty and girlish rather than the sultry glamour shown by Gucci and Versace.
Armani still stands for elegance and restraint in Milan. His mainline collections showed the only sportswear to be found on the catwalk this season: little jackets fitted to the waist with jeans-cut silk trousers. He picked light, feminine colours of powder, ice, cloud-grey and periwinkle and flashes of fuchsia and lime and used them in Kandinsky prints across stretch tops, co-ordinated with long beaded skirts. They were just the sort of colours that you have been dreaming of filling your wardrobes again.