PRADA

Do you see feminism when you look at these clothes? Miuccia Prada wants you to. Here is a transcript of some of the stream-of-consciousness things she said backstage when bombarded with questions about the girls on her runway. “I saw them as strong, visible fighters. We need to be fighters in general. There is this debate about women again, and I want to interpret it. My instrument is fashion. I use my instrument to be bold. I had this idea that if you wear clothes so exaggerated and out there, people will look, and then they will listen.” She chuckled. “It’s a sort of trick.” Then she added, “I want to be nasty.”

FENDI

Given his cultural voracity, it’s no wonder that Karl Lagerfeld chose to line the walls of the Fendi venue with panels in different shades of gray. There wasn’t quite 50 of them, but there were plenty of tonal variations. Of course, it could be that Lagerfeld decided that gray’s cool austerity would be the perfect backdrop to his and Silvia Venturini Fendi’s spring collection, with its endless graphic configurations of organza in pure bright colors—orange, cobalt, red—mixed with equally constructed (but lightly and deftly so) leather and shaved mink. However, a quick peruse of the show notes reveals that Lagerfeld was interested in the witty use of language in the digital world . . . though to be honest, I don’t really have a clue how that exactly manifests itself in this collection.

MAXMARA

Few people when they hear “late seventies, early eighties New York” think “oh yes, restraint.” But, as MaxMarahead designer Ian Griffiths says, “We always look at the other side of the coin. We don’t see disco in that era. We see chic.” It’s the right approach for this house of ultimate discretion. Gilded excess wouldn’t work.