Miu Miu: An apron for a new age

Why aprons? Why a symbol of women tied to the kitchen? Why now - when the return of the power woman has been a constant theme of the summer 2009 season? "I like them," Miuccia Prada said disingenuously of the mini pinafores of pleats wrapped around dresses. They mixed matte and shiny fabrics, with the first outfits in rough Hessian material, artistically torn as if the designer were looking at traditional shepherds in the fields.

Who knows the complex thoughts of Prada? Her Miu Miu presentation, which closed the international season, seemed like a metaphor for fashion now: individual, interesting and filled with oblique and obscure references. (Miu Miu's were Greco-Roman mosaic prints that produced a pixilated pattern.)

But on a lighter level, this Miu Miu show had appealing clothes and was different from both the sports scenario of last season, which has brought mesh and perforation into fashion; or the Prada show, with its crinkled, homespun fabrics.

The tailored dresses, with feminine shoes, some with a bow at the back of the heel, won the approval of Kate Bosworth, sitting front row along with Kirsten Dunst, while Miu Miu celebrities from advertising campaigns were projected on the walls of the gilded mansion.

The show was quintessentially Prada, ladylike with a hint of subversion, and clean and geometric in the graphic dresses with their additions of sharp pleats. Although it seemed an unlikely choice, perhaps the sack-like burlap fabric will have the same resonance as Prada's current guipure lace. And in one way, Miu Miu matched Prada: another model fell off her pin-heeled shoes.

Aggugini: A Scot meets French Boho

All strong collections for summer 2009 have a yin and yang - a balance or contrast between colors, textures or opposing inspirations. Kinder Aggugini, who last season imagined Coco Chanel meeting the punk rocker Sid Vicious, found another inspirational odd couple: the Scottish artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and a Bohemian Parisienne.

The mix enabled Aggugini to trace a geometric grid and, at the same time, to break away from it. The idea came to life in the designer's sleek tailoring with color at the hem bleeding away, as if the Bohemian madcap had taken a dip in the River Seine. The blend of intuition and craftsmanship is propelling the designer forward.

"It's a very old war," Igor Chapurin said backstage, as if he did not want anyone to think that the photographic flames engulfing his invitation and his runway were a reference to the currently belligerent Russia.

Yet this strong show, which was a departure from Chapurin's more familiar chic-in-the-snow luxury, must surely have absorbed the spirit of Russia present, as well as past.

The designer looked back to the Middle Ages, weaving armor into a shoulder guard or a sleeve, creating intricate protective surfaces - the short skirts and heaps of wild hair suggesting a battle of power women.

The color palette, especially dark for a summer season, included a rich brown of the wooden planks at the end of the runway. With this show, Chapurin captured a bold new energy to create a Russian fashion revolution.

"I've always wanted to do Alice in Wonderland," Antonio Marras said after his Kenzo show closed with the giant books as the back of the runway bursting into pop-up flowers.

It was the climax of a collection that reinforced the Italian designer's direction for the house: as youthful and optimistic as the original spirit of Kenzo Takada but with the poetic vision of Marras.

The initial outfits were bathed in a silver shine, as though reflected in Alice's looking glass. The dresses were simple but worked in multiple layers, often from raised waists and with decoration on the surface. Flowers came in bud and then in full bloom, as Alice stepped toward the other side of the mirror.

Kenzo has made a delicate transition with Marras as designer, offering credible young clothes, always in a surprise setting.

What is the summer equivalent of the frozen cold that instills an interest in fur? Why, ice cream, of course.

At Revillon, the designer Peter Dundas had all the sorbet colors - macaroon pink, mint green, vanilla, white and lavender. And it made for a cute collection of summer furs, where a focus on design geometry cut the sweetness.

"Constructed optimism," said Dundas, who used perforation to ward off perspiration. He pierced lightweight pelts and then filled the holes with dangling mink balls. From the hexagon patchworks to intarsia handwork creating splodges of color, this was a collection that both celebrated Revillon's masterly ateliers and made fur as fun as the 1960s-style, square-cut mini dresses underneath.