Light and gentle: the new Armani signed by heir Silvana

Milan Fashion Week ended on Sunday with one certainty: it is time to sell out and be concrete, without too much running away. Closing the games, as always, was the Giorgio Armani fashion show. Here everything has changed, or almost. In fact, it is Silvana Armani's official debut as creative director of women's prêt-à-porter, after the Parisian couture preamble in January.

The new Armani is lighter, pragmatic, a no-frills vision of dressing offered by a woman who dresses women with a decidedly Milanese ease. What is immediately striking is the opacity: the otherworldly, artificial sheen that King Giorgio had fervently promoted in his last years finally disappears. The opening look sets the tone: a loose-fitting men's suit, in grey flannel, worn over a silk shirt and jumper - also grey, not greige.

A second glance, and the apparent perfection reveals welcome imperfections: the jumper is a little too short, the trousers a little too baggy, and the model's hair is loose instead of up. From here the proposal unfolds as an ode to normality, Armani style: precious fabrics, low tones, fluid volumes. The insistence on the catwalk proposal as something possible in real life rather than a distant fantasy is the real message. Even the typical exotic hints are toned down: barely noticeable kimono shapes for daytime and tunics over trousers for evening. There is a return to the Armani of the origins, but the insistence on normality is all too pragmatic. A hint of illusion is necessary, given the name, and this is what Silvana Armani could refine further, starting with this reset collection, in the coming seasons. The path is marked out. There is only room for improvement from here.

Louise Trotter's second fashion show at Bottega Veneta decisively reaffirmed the maison's identity as a temple of experimental craftsmanship: Kering's spearhead in terms of authentic luxury. On the catwalk is a repertoire of superlative workmanship that explores ideas of the natural and the artificial. Although the garments appear very light - as Trotter explains backstage - the effect is at times visually weighted down by volumes and overlays that drown the body. But this is limited to the women's collection. The men's collection, on the other hand, is traversed by a tension and unruliness that promise well: the preamble to an interesting direction to follow perhaps with greater intent. As a pure spectacle, in any case, the show is a joy to behold: 80 histrionic looks, with an unbalanced harmony, presented at a brisk pace in a brutalist room immersed in sensual red carpeting. The contrast between brutalism and sensuality is the theme, reflecting the typically Milanese opposition between austere facades and gentle interiors in which Trotter is now immersed having moved to the city. The interplay of counterpoints gives breath: severe and wild, sober and exuberant. All with a couture level of craftsmanship: an understandable choice, given that at Bottega the trade is in accessories, not clothes, and this allows the prêt-à-porter to soar into territories of pure research. The message is convincing. The only drawback is the insistent echoes, again, of Phoebe Philo. Trotter has talent. He just has to find the courage to break this pattern.

At Fila Milano, the new fashion incarnation of the historic sportswear brand, creative director Alistair Carr makes a convincing debut under the banner of graphic electricity and a dynamic metropolitan spirit. The collection is precise, taut. The only flaw is such an approach to sport, mixed with the formal, inevitably brings the results dangerously close to Miu Miu, and it is a misstep.