Milan fashion week, the dedicated to what hopefully will wear the man in the next winter, is over, and the men’s edition, in my humble opinion, was reconfirmed interesting, bearer of that change, stylistic yet conceptual, which women’s collection often find it hard to demonstrate. To be clear, it was not the turn of the “wow factor” … not that one that monopolizes the web and print media by establishing an essential trend for the addicted. Yet great events, from even before the start of the week itself, have punctuated the five days that Milan dedicates to the men’s collections. I think of Marni, which already from Pitti came back after five years of absence from the catwalk, staging a perfect collision of fashion and art in the breathtaking scenery of the Marino Marini Museum in Florence, sculptural frame for garments where the luxury of materials and the formality of the concepts have been reinterpreted with a relaxed and lightweight look. It is here that it is set the mood of men’s fashion. The formal elegance, a measured style that makes everything except to turn a nostalgic look to the past. Never more suitable Giorgio Armani’s reflection about his Emporio line: “the new generations will never buy a British outfit”. And so rather than abandon the traditional elegance that distinguishes the menswear, he offered new interpretations, replacing the stiffness with soft jersey materials, all to build the 2.0 suit.

MSGM did it too, translating its colorful and bright creativity in structured and sophisticated outerwear, where are the detail and the perfect fit are the ones to make a difference and to dictate the way the head should be worn. Canali, the formal suit par excellence, has also changed its codes to meet who will wear the suit tomorrow, coloring and damping the stiff appearance of the classic three-piece suit. Via Andrea Pompilio, with a review of sportswear yes, but 50s inspired, by definition then in perfect dialogue with tailored constructions so much dear to the young designer. To arrive at Brioni, master of tailoring which brings back, after having invented it itself, the men’s fashion on the catwalk: the first, 70 years ago no less, and now again with a wonderful event at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. The concept is that of a more traditional fashion than the recent past, where is the substance to count, but that each has defined according to his own very personal stylistic vision. Ferragamo has set his men in an enchanted forest, full of delicate flying animal that lay down on a long trench-coat, almost invisible if not to the most attentive more eye. Etro instead, with a show perfect from start to finish, imagined the historical Italian palaces, where each glance captures new details: so also in the garments, in which the print is there, but you can perceive it only by the shimmering velvet of the velvet field jackets and soft dandy-inspired suits. And in this hymn to men’s elegance, subtle and discreet, but even not that much, another trend, the one of eternal dichotomy between male and female: a vision, that of these collections, so free to refuse the restricted male codes for major forays into her wardrobe, especially in the proportions, which increasingly alternate the skinny to the oversize, in the delicacy of materials, and the frivolity of some decorations. Most of all: Gucci. The eagerly awaited catwalk, the stage of a collection built in just five days the full style team, after the premature farewell by Frida Giannini, was a succession of alternating men and women where you could hardly distinguish one from the other. The wardrobe of a boy on the first day of school, beardless but already confident and comprehensive of the sophisticated luxury of who always has breathed it, from fur slippers-moccasins to silk blouses with bow at the neck. Maybe they trod a little too carried away, but surely the statement was clear.

In conclusion to a distracted eye everything can be seemed undertone. Even outside the shows we have not seen over the screamed and provocative outfits of some web professionals. Yet in hindsight the forced transgression has given way to the well done, to personal style and to individual visions. In a word, to substance.