Armani, Burberry bring cool nostalgia to Milan

At Burberry, designer Christopher Bailey revived the clean lines of the 1960s in neutral shades and washed pastels, inspired by photographer Cecil Beaton and his pictures of that era's stars, such as Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg.

"Cecil Beaton photographed the icons that encapsulate everything I love. There was a certain lightness in his pictures, yet the girls were very feminine with a disheveled elegance," Bailey told reporters backstage.

His show of mini-dresses with fitted bodices and full skirts, bell-sleeves and silver embellishments lost its tranquil rhythm only once, when three animal rights activists stormed the catwalk and unrolled posters saying "Burberry Fur Shame," injecting a dose of reality into a nostalgia-filled day.

Armani's models could have stepped straight out of The Great Gatsby, dressed in floating silk trousers with cummerbunds or liquid rippling dresses, their classic poise underlined by the designer's signature palette of beige, black and white.

Fashionistas moan that Armani rarely invents something new, but the veteran designer shrugs off criticism by pointing to his enduring success with the buying public.

The spring/summer 2007 collection celebrated the decadent glamour Armani does best, with models slowly, slowly sashaying along in fluid evening gowns with crystal details and wide-brimmed hats, while trousers were worn with flat sandals.

"It's a calm, elegant aesthetic, an easy chic," white-haired, perma-tanned Armani told reporters after the show, adding that he wanted to recall "a time when a girl wearing a hat at a rakish angle would be something new."

Armani is also a shrewd businessman with a keen sense for wearable clothes that sell.

"We sell a lot of evening gowns, there's a public that wears evening gowns ...and women love trousers, everyone can wear them -- beautiful legs, ugly legs, short legs, long legs," he said.

Wearability was clearly not on Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana's minds when they designed the fetish-inspired leather corsets, stiletto-heeled boots studded with metal spikes and zebra-print leggings for their D&G label's disco show.

Dominatrixes in clinging dresses with cinched waists, sprayed-on shiny black trousers, hairbands in shock colors and towering platform shoes stomped down the catwalk to the disco beats of "I just feel like dancing."

Visitors at the show looked a bit puzzled by the combination of neon colors with zebra-print leggings -- some were overheard sighing at the thought of yet another 1980s revival.