A pattern is emerging

From left: Burberry Prorsum, Gucci, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Versace

Life, Lawrence Durrell used to say, was too important not to be taken lightly, and this week, during the Milan men’s wear shows, designers took this aphorism to heart and applied it to fashion. A palpable enthusiasm for clothes and their ability to lift the spirits resulted in the most colourful season in eons, complete with absurdist prints, giddy styling and an overall sense of capricious chic.

At Prada, Miuccia Prada’s inspiration was the bourgeois sport of golf – though there was nothing bourgeois about the multi-coloured, spiked and tasselled golf shoes she showed, nor the trousers decorated with fruit cocktail prints and British 1960s comics. “When you look at how many professional players actually dress, they are pretty weird and wonderful, and I love that,” said Prada, adding that “its eccentricity is liberating and joyful, which is what a lot of men really need right now”.

She’s not the only one who thought so. Usually known for more traditional styles, Canali looked to India for inspiration and staged a dazzling Ganges grand finale of Nehru jackets, crushed silk pants and paisley slip-on loafers, all in the spicy hues of Rajasthan. Meanwhile Jimmy Choo went Yves Klein blue in reptile-skin loafers and Haight Ashbury flower-print docksiders. Bottega Veneta’s Tomas Maier opted for gaudily painted Mark Rothko jeans and tourmaline seersucker suits, and Calvin Klein embraced citron jogging pants, silvery jackets and cerulean pants made of a distressed, hyperwashed and waxed denim.

It sounds extreme, but when a combo of zebra-meets-yellow-gold pants and matching shirt appeared on the Versace catwalk, after disco dragoon pants and a shirt printed with a blend of swirls and zebra stripes, the audience actually burst into applause.

The mood culminated in a collection by D&G (Dolce & Gabbana’s younger line), where prints ran riot, from Napoleonic military icons and doctored paisleys to equestrian motifs and folkloric fantasies. “I saw Stefano [Gabbana] in the nude and thought, ‘I really need to cover him’ – and what better for that than some big prints?” Domenico Dolce said backstage, referring to his long-time design partner. At mainline Dolce & Gabbana, leather jackets were cut into a mesh effect with one-inch wide holes.

This being fashion, there was of course a yin for every yang, and one monochrome riposte to the riots of colour came courtesy of Jil Sander, where the mood was modern-day film noir in a Berlin nightclub. Similarly, Giorgio Armani’s favourite hues for spring were pale greys, putty and powder blue. But even at Armani such sobriety was leavened by a casually upbeat new jacket – truncated, narrow, tight-sleeved double-breasted – that displayed a deconstructed relaxation that marked the entire season (all the better to laugh in, you know).

Thus at Brioni an unpadded shoulder injected youthful insouciance into beautiful seersucker jackets and linen cricket blazers; at Salvatore Ferragamo, Massimiliano Giornetti reimagined supple linen in a strikingly loose silhouette. Even Caruso offered deconstructed seersucker and Ermenegildo Zegna combined the new lightweight streamlined suit with some remarkable crushed silk fabrics. “We want silk to be the cashmere of the summer,” announced CEO Gildo Zegna.

Elsewhere, music provided the jazzy lift. Costume National went 1960s rockabilly via micro jackets and houndstooth teddy-boy drapes, while at Gucci designer Frida Giannini “got Carter”, with modern looks inspired by the theme of the 1971 Michael Caine film. Jackets were cut short and nipped in at the sleeves in a late swinging 1960s silhouette, all paired with skinny Tuscan dandy pants. Think Savile Row in Portofino.

Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton summed it up when she described her thinking as “A baby band in early shows, a little later rock decadence, and Mick Jagger in glory at the finale.” See, for example, her red-and-white stripe redingote complete with Gimme Shelter fedora, matching boots and top.

But it was Burberry’s Christopher Bailey who let the sun shine in by recrafting the house’s classic trenchcoats in raffia and finishing them with “haute hippie” beaded collars. Asked if he seriously thought a grown man would wear a straw coat, Bailey shrugged. “I think it was time for a little whimsy,” he said. And really, it was hard not to smile.