This Milan Fashion Week would’ve gone down as the one in which Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons announced a new partnership to co-creative direct Prada, but for one thing: the spreading anxiety about the coronavirus. As the shows were taking place, worry over an outbreak of cases in small towns across the Lombardy region overshadowed even this most monumental of fashion developments. And so a season that started with Alessandro Michele’s merry ode to the fashion spectacle for Gucci ended with a Giorgio Armani show inside a teatro entirely emptied of spectators.

“Don’t panic” is the message we’re hearing from officials, and, aesthetically speaking at least, Milan’s designers had their backs. Talents as different as Bottega Veneta’s Daniel Lee and Luke and Lucie Meier at Jil Sander landed on fringe as one of the season’s key motifs, sending the message that whimsy and frivolity are as essential as a jacket, shirt, and tie. “We can be strong and feminine at the same time,” is how Miuccia Prada put it.

Handcrafts can provide a different kind of satisfaction in a troubled time. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana saluted the craftspeople so integral to their success with handmade clothes that conjured warm feelings of home. Marni’s Francesco Risso was off on his own trip, but he too was turned on by the hands-on act of making. The collection was collaged from beginning to end, and had an appealing earthy quality. Maybe because many of the pieces were patchworked from remnants, the clothes look like they had already lived interesting lives. Risso should keep pushing in this direction; in the future, the circular economy will depend on vivid imaginations like his.

Elsewhere, the sweep of the Moncler Genius project continued to impress. But it was the intimacy of Silvia Venturini Fendi’s collection for Fendi that charmed. Having worked side by side with Karl Lagerfeld for many years, she articulated with this hyper-feminine and size-inclusive show (the sole example in Milan) that she has her own vital contributions to make.

Gucci Fall 2020Photographed by Corey Tenold

Gucci

“Inserting viewers in the action would seem a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon, but Michele found himself connecting it with childhood. Last season he paid tribute to Gucci’s Tom Ford days; there were slip dresses, exposed bras, and ’70s-by-way-of-the-’90s pantsuits—the clothes that made Michele fall in love with fashion. Here, he looked further back, taking cues from “the perfection” of little girls’ clothes—pinafore dresses, school uniforms—and, it seemed, from the outfits of those little girls’ minders, nuns to nurses included.” —Nicole Phelps

Prada Fall 2020Photographed by Corey Tenold

Prada

“As ever, Prada can be depended on to connect with our cultural moment, and to synthesize where women are at. But as obvious as all this sounds, outside the Pradasphere and our industry more generally, her theory of femininity is more problematic. Consider the remaining female Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency, who have abdicated all interest in fashion. For what? Fear that it would be trivializing? That it would weaken their candidacies? Prada, for her part, sees glamour as ‘something that makes you optimistic, that lifts you up.’ It’s tempting to wonder: If Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar thought like Prada, even in the slightest, where would they be now? Also, where’s Kamala Harris when you need her?” —N.P.

Marni Fall 2020Photographed by Corey Tenold

Marni

“‘It’s our version of Alice in Wonderland,’ said Francesco Risso backstage at his Marni presentation, as the fabled hair artist Julien d’Ys added magical gold and silver dust to the faces and lacquered hair of the girls in the lineup. The collection, as Risso explained, was ‘collaged from the beginning to the end—from macro to micro to fractal. It’s about putting together remnants.’ This meant coats and tabards worn over mini- or maxiskirts or boot-cut pants, all pieced together from scraps of leather and the calico that dress toiles are made from. There were also what appeared to be fragments of existing garments, such as a cardigan dress seemingly created from several different pieces of knitwear, each element linked with the crude stitchery of a child in a craft workshop.” —Hamish Bowles

Fendi Fall 2020Photographed by Corey Tenold

Fendi

“Fendi mentioned liberation, and that was the spirit of a show presented on a fittingly curvy, pink upholstered runway. The spectrum of that freedom ran from the liberatedly libidinous to the glass-ceiling smashing, or “from the boudoir to the boardroom” as the show notes flaccidly put it. The pieces that combined executive chic with a sexual tweak were effectively overpowering: cashmere overcoats with the imprint of corsetry boning (ahem). The sleeve shape at the top was something Fendi termed ‘pull off’ and the half-undressed effect was markedly different in a pink satin version with lace back-paneling (ingenue) compared with an identically cut example in black velvet (vamp). This was a collection that embraced the double standards of male-eye categorization and short-circuited them via disassembly and disguise: dressing up for self-gratification rather than that of others.” —Luke Leitch

Bottega Veneta Fall 2020Photographed by Corey Tenold

Bottega Veneta

“Previewing the accessories at a showroom appointment, Lee extemporized about Bottega Veneta: ‘When you look at the brand’s beginnings, everything it made was so soft. I find that super-inspiring.’ That thinking informed the ready-to-wear he put on tonight’s runway. But equally, so did the fact that at 34 Lee is part of the streetwear generation, a cohort that came up wearing Nike trainers and clothes that put an emphasis on cool and comfort. Explaining his approach to fall at BV, he asked, ‘How do we put ourselves together in a considered, elegant way but still feel comfortable?’ ” —N.P.

Moncler 1 JW Anderson Fall 2020Photo: Courtesy of Moncler

Moncler Genius

“In total there were 12 collections on show in tonight’s third installment—is Genius going to keep on growing? Said Ruffini: ‘Maybe not in terms of designers, but in terms of energy I want it to get bigger and bigger and bigger. I think the brand has changed thanks to the energy this project has given us. If you walk into the store today it is totally different than two years ago—the crowd is having fun and enjoying the programs we have. It is a totally different way to work but it brings us energy. . .’ What we got [from JW Anderson’s collection] was a glorious confection of J-Dubs lite: not in mental calories but in down-delivered weightlessness. Anderson melanged pieces his eponymous label has done over the last decade, from his seasons as an outlier in the BFC’s old Somerset House space (those were the days) to his position of prominence now. It was a delightful trip-down-memory-lane collection for fans of the designer but one that will also doubtless bring many new acolytes to him.” —L.L.

Jil Sander Fall 2020 Photographed by Corey Tenold

Jil Sander

“Purity, not minimalism, is the way they describe their aesthetic. Which is fair considering the workmanship that goes into the silk fringing and the chenille knitting and the extensive pleating we saw here. A botanical print erred on the anonymous side. The most compelling pieces were the ones that had a substance to the hand, be that a robe coat in a looped bouclé or blanket dresses for evening that encircled the shoulders in fuzzy wool. That silky black chenille keeps coming back to mind. These are elegant, smart-woman clothes designed not to challenge but to flatter. There are eager customers for that, and more and more it is the Meiers that are capturing their attention.” —N.P.

Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2020Photo: Gorunway.com

Dolce & Gabbana

“Following a tumultuous weekend dominated by coronavirus panic, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana finished Milan on a grace note, with a celebration of the artisans they depend upon to make so many of their clothes. Black-and-white videos of il calzolaio (the shoemaker), la sarta (the seamstress), la magliaia (the knitter), la tessitrice (the weaver), la cravattaia (the tie maker), and more played on video screens, and in the Metropol’s foyer artigiani sat at work benches and posed with guests. ‘It’s very Italian, like the menswear,’ Gabbana said of the collection in a preview. ‘It’s a tribute through our eyes to tradition.’ ” —N.P.

By Nicole Phelps.

The Top Collections of Milan Fashion Week Fall 2020