Milan's SS27 message: the body is the outfit

Maria Grazia Chiuri's second ready-to-wear collection for Fendi, shown September 23 inside a mirrored box inspired by Luciano Fabro's Cubo di specchi, felt like the moment she stopped proving herself and started enjoying the house.

The wardrobe begins with underwear: sheer slip dresses, lace-trimmed bras worn with matching shorts, shirts left open across the chest. Then it keeps going. Fur stoles, baggy denim, relaxed tailoring and a scaled-down Baguette built for little more than a phone pull the sensuality back to earth.

The muse was Raffaella Carra, the 1970s Italian pop provocateur, and her spirit is everywhere: visible underwear, plunging necklines, trailing dresses, clothes comfortable with being a little excessive. After a careful debut last February, this is Chiuri dressing with freedom.

Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons opened Milan Fashion Week with the most disciplined provocation of the season: 63 looks, every single one built around the skirt. No dresses. No trousers. The invitation was a swatch of Velcro loop with no hook, a material about attachment presented incomplete.

Inside the Fondazione Prada, the skirt did everything: severe wrap skirts with slits up to there, sheer knife pleats in faded Easter pastels, kilts with raw edges and enlarged hooks, pencil skirts swaying under glass rhinestone flowers. Up top, the tiniest bandeau and bralette tops, some with mini bags attached at the collarbone.

The styling trick to steal is the tension: pretty disrupted by tough. A psychedelic micro-floral skirt held together with a white bow; leather pleated sets in bleeding acid colors alternating motocross pads with Peter Pan collars. Where Prada leads, the high street follows, and this one is already walking.

Fausto Puglisi called his Spring 2027 collection House of Prints and staged it as a night out: a mirrored room, bass you could feel, 45 looks drawn from Los Angeles and the pleasure of dressing to be seen. After five years of flirting with the archives, he committed.

Leopard that looks wet, tiger, devore velvet catching light like smoke, dense embroidery, all spiked, shredded and clubbed up. The collection lived in separates: halter tops tied high, lace-trimmed camisoles, miniskirts cut to barely exist, low-rider jeans with thong straps riding above the waistband as part of the look.

The front row did its share of the work. Cardi B arrived thronged by photographers in an animal-print coat and dark sunglasses; Naomi Osaka and Olandria completed the tableau. This was also Puglisi's first show since the Marquee Brands acquisition, and he answered quiet luxury with heels, skin and movement.

While the week shouted, Jil Sander whispered, and the whisper carried. The house's Spring 2027 detail carousel, a quiet study of seams, hardware and fabric, pulled more than triple the account's usual likes. In a week of leopard and lingerie, restraint became the contrarian flex.

It fits the broader street style picture in Milan: the strongest off-runway looks are built on considered pieces rather than loud ones. A perfect trench, a sharp sunglass, leather worn soft. The details do the talking.

For shoppers, the takeaway is permission to buy less and choose better. One immaculate coat beats five statement tops, and the numbers this week agree.