Fendi Puts a 1970s Pop Legend at the Centre of Milan

Maria Grazia Chiuri's Fendi collection, shown during Milan Fashion Week, took the 1970s Italian pop star Raffaella Carrà as its presiding figure, according to The Guardian. The show, the paper reported, was full of diaphanous dresses and visible bras, and framed Carrà as an "incredible feminist" of her decade.

The Guardian noted that Chiuri has been having more fun with clothes since leaving Paris for her native Rome to work at Fendi, and quoted her saying she has "less of a uniform these days." The collection's centre of gravity, the paper wrote, was the skirt.

The Guardian's sister dispatch on Prada, published the same week, found Miuccia Prada and the Belgian designer Raf Simons likewise building their Milan collection around skirts rather than trousers or dresses. Two of the city's biggest houses converged on the same garment.