Italian designers turned the clock back for menswear during Milan's fashion week, which ended on Wednesday, and pulled out pocket handkerchiefs, neck scarves and waistcoats to create timeless styles for next spring.
Gucci designer Frida Giannini also stepped back in time for her spring sartorial thoughts, with a playful collection which drew on films of some 50 years ago.
Models walked out in strides sporting a variety of checks from gingham to Prince of Wales, using a black and white base with splashes of red, orange and vivid yellow.
There were flat, peaked caps - also in checks - and monochrome spot ties to contrast.
Frida Giannini, in her third menswear collection for the brand, ran the check mood into beach shorts, teamed with gauzy floral tops in the same colours, or with a bright red canvas jacket that looked fit for a lifeguard.
Red ran into evening wear in slim, low-slung cummerbunds shocking against white evening suits and black silk shirts.
But even in her formal wear, Frida Giannini eschewed waistcoats which have featured in many other shows during Milan's spring and summer 2008 menswear season.
Italian designer Valentino scarcely bothered to dress the women in his menswear show, putting five topless dancers behind a mock-up cocktail bar in his presentation for spring and summer 2008.
The dancers - who wore red sparkling thongs and black and red feathered wings - took some attention from the line-up of designs which 75-year-old Valentino Garavani suggested for next spring.
Valentino is better known for his trademark red evening dresses and sweeping gowns, worn by stars like Sophia Loren.
The only unexpected glimpse of male flesh was a bit of ankle on the models who were all smartly turned out without socks.
Valentino, celebrating 45 years as a designer this year, stuck to a classic, colonial look for his boys for the next hot season, decking them out in creams, beiges and petrol blues.
The presentation kept models posed and chatting while the audience moved past them, the reverse of a catwalk event when models strut past seated reviewers.
The mood of a previous era was evoked in pocket handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs - in patterns of beiges, creams and a dark vintage racing green.
Suits were pinstriped or Prince of Wales check. The designer gave his evening wear a spin with black polka dot shirts or geometric design jackets, while he used ice cream-colours to band cashmere jumpers that peeped from under pinstripe suits.
Italian designer team Dolce & Gabbana took a military theme to kit out men next summer, ranging from fatigues with tiny lights that glowed in the dark to camouflage patterned swim trunks.
On the first day of the collections, Dolce & Gabbana's signature line show was coloured in army-inspired khakis, navy, black and white.
Models had tattoos and military-style haircuts, and wore baseball caps or square-crowned peaked soldiers' hats.
Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce loaded fatigue-style trousers with pockets and webbing holders for phones or hip flasks, adding a kit bag in black leather and mud-tone canvas to carry any extras.
They stretched and squared classic camouflage print and used it on T-shirts and mini swimming trunks - a style of beachwear the duo are currently using in a white version for eye-catching adverts for men's perfume range Light Blue.
Dolce & Gabbana suggested bermuda shorts in prints of blue and white florals with beige and maroon broad striped shirts.
Formal wear focused on single-button single-breasted black suits and white shirts, with ties trim and uniformly black - reining in from Dolce & Gabbana's penchant for gold which sparkled through their winter men's collections in January.
Waistcoats were back, while shoes were pointed crocodile lace ups for formal wear or black patent wide-strapped sandals.
Waistcoats were on show at Versace as well, as Donatella Versace pared them down to a T shape.
Trench coat shapes stopped short at the waist, shirts were long enough to double up as jackets and there were silky pastel coloured cowls on T shirts.
The collection, which had no shorts, no beachwear and no swimwear, stuck to a formal, tailored theme in single-breasted suits and pleat-front trousers.
Donatella Versace, known for her glitzy designs for womenswear, fished for fabrics worn by oystercatchers 70 years ago to dress her men, painting silk protein on cotton for a waterproof shine.
The platinum-haired designer, who took on design for Versace after the death of her brother Gianni 10 years ago, has just brought Russian Alexandre Plokhov onto the menswear design team.
Down at the beach, baggy bermudas or drill cotton shorts with turn-ups were in vogue. Designers plumped largely for classic summer colours - creams, whites, pale greys and pastels, with splashes of summer sky blue and sun yellow, while fabrics were focused on cottons and linens.
Miuccia Prada was an exception, turning out her models in wool and silk for botanical prints and purpled plaids.
She used wool and silk for her collection and said she was "fed up" with commercial requirements to have seasonal fabrics.
Models walked out in a garden maze setting wearing botanical print knee-length jackets with short sleeves over trousers in the same prints, tight at the knee and bootleg at the feet.
Jumpsuits in small-squared or plaid silks coloured in pinks and purples were worn with flat wide-strap sandals - which came in vibrant red or peacock green.
Miuccia Prada, known for her individual style and innovative use of fabrics, dressed her models in green marbled knitted trousers and tops that were somewhere between romper suits and thermals.
Gianfranco Ferre's parting gift to men with more money than space was a capacious leather bag that folded into a flat rectangle to hang snug against the hip.
A line of children looking like angels ended Ferre's menswear show to a standing ovation, just a week after the Italian designer died at the age of 62 after a brain haemorrhage.
To applause from journalists and buyers at Ferre's headquarters in the bohemian Brera district of Milan, 30 children dressed in white overshirts walked the catwalk route models had just used to show the designer's last menswear line.
Gianfranco Ferre's long-time friend and collaborator on menswear, Giovanni Vidotto, took a bow after the show, which featured a finale full of Ferre's trademark white shirts.
Variations on Ferre's white shirts included loose silk versions carrying blue, red and green birds and flowers, or ones with shantung sleeves and gold embroidered fronts and shoulders.
Waistcoats took inspiration from a traditional dress shirt or sat neatly under a linen suit.
Gucci designer Frida Giannini also stepped back in time for her spring sartorial thoughts, with a playful collection which drew on films of some 50 years ago.
Models walked out in strides sporting a variety of checks from gingham to Prince of Wales, using a black and white base with splashes of red, orange and vivid yellow.
There were flat, peaked caps - also in checks - and monochrome spot ties to contrast.
Frida Giannini, in her third menswear collection for the brand, ran the check mood into beach shorts, teamed with gauzy floral tops in the same colours, or with a bright red canvas jacket that looked fit for a lifeguard.
Red ran into evening wear in slim, low-slung cummerbunds shocking against white evening suits and black silk shirts.
But even in her formal wear, Frida Giannini eschewed waistcoats which have featured in many other shows during Milan's spring and summer 2008 menswear season.
Italian designer Valentino scarcely bothered to dress the women in his menswear show, putting five topless dancers behind a mock-up cocktail bar in his presentation for spring and summer 2008.
The dancers - who wore red sparkling thongs and black and red feathered wings - took some attention from the line-up of designs which 75-year-old Valentino Garavani suggested for next spring.
Valentino is better known for his trademark red evening dresses and sweeping gowns, worn by stars like Sophia Loren.
The only unexpected glimpse of male flesh was a bit of ankle on the models who were all smartly turned out without socks.
Valentino, celebrating 45 years as a designer this year, stuck to a classic, colonial look for his boys for the next hot season, decking them out in creams, beiges and petrol blues.
The presentation kept models posed and chatting while the audience moved past them, the reverse of a catwalk event when models strut past seated reviewers.
The mood of a previous era was evoked in pocket handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs - in patterns of beiges, creams and a dark vintage racing green.
Suits were pinstriped or Prince of Wales check. The designer gave his evening wear a spin with black polka dot shirts or geometric design jackets, while he used ice cream-colours to band cashmere jumpers that peeped from under pinstripe suits.
Italian designer team Dolce & Gabbana took a military theme to kit out men next summer, ranging from fatigues with tiny lights that glowed in the dark to camouflage patterned swim trunks.
On the first day of the collections, Dolce & Gabbana's signature line show was coloured in army-inspired khakis, navy, black and white.
Models had tattoos and military-style haircuts, and wore baseball caps or square-crowned peaked soldiers' hats.
Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce loaded fatigue-style trousers with pockets and webbing holders for phones or hip flasks, adding a kit bag in black leather and mud-tone canvas to carry any extras.
They stretched and squared classic camouflage print and used it on T-shirts and mini swimming trunks - a style of beachwear the duo are currently using in a white version for eye-catching adverts for men's perfume range Light Blue.
Dolce & Gabbana suggested bermuda shorts in prints of blue and white florals with beige and maroon broad striped shirts.
Formal wear focused on single-button single-breasted black suits and white shirts, with ties trim and uniformly black - reining in from Dolce & Gabbana's penchant for gold which sparkled through their winter men's collections in January.
Waistcoats were back, while shoes were pointed crocodile lace ups for formal wear or black patent wide-strapped sandals.
Waistcoats were on show at Versace as well, as Donatella Versace pared them down to a T shape.
Trench coat shapes stopped short at the waist, shirts were long enough to double up as jackets and there were silky pastel coloured cowls on T shirts.
The collection, which had no shorts, no beachwear and no swimwear, stuck to a formal, tailored theme in single-breasted suits and pleat-front trousers.
Donatella Versace, known for her glitzy designs for womenswear, fished for fabrics worn by oystercatchers 70 years ago to dress her men, painting silk protein on cotton for a waterproof shine.
The platinum-haired designer, who took on design for Versace after the death of her brother Gianni 10 years ago, has just brought Russian Alexandre Plokhov onto the menswear design team.
Down at the beach, baggy bermudas or drill cotton shorts with turn-ups were in vogue. Designers plumped largely for classic summer colours - creams, whites, pale greys and pastels, with splashes of summer sky blue and sun yellow, while fabrics were focused on cottons and linens.
Miuccia Prada was an exception, turning out her models in wool and silk for botanical prints and purpled plaids.
She used wool and silk for her collection and said she was "fed up" with commercial requirements to have seasonal fabrics.
Models walked out in a garden maze setting wearing botanical print knee-length jackets with short sleeves over trousers in the same prints, tight at the knee and bootleg at the feet.
Jumpsuits in small-squared or plaid silks coloured in pinks and purples were worn with flat wide-strap sandals - which came in vibrant red or peacock green.
Miuccia Prada, known for her individual style and innovative use of fabrics, dressed her models in green marbled knitted trousers and tops that were somewhere between romper suits and thermals.
Gianfranco Ferre's parting gift to men with more money than space was a capacious leather bag that folded into a flat rectangle to hang snug against the hip.
A line of children looking like angels ended Ferre's menswear show to a standing ovation, just a week after the Italian designer died at the age of 62 after a brain haemorrhage.
To applause from journalists and buyers at Ferre's headquarters in the bohemian Brera district of Milan, 30 children dressed in white overshirts walked the catwalk route models had just used to show the designer's last menswear line.
Gianfranco Ferre's long-time friend and collaborator on menswear, Giovanni Vidotto, took a bow after the show, which featured a finale full of Ferre's trademark white shirts.
Variations on Ferre's white shirts included loose silk versions carrying blue, red and green birds and flowers, or ones with shantung sleeves and gold embroidered fronts and shoulders.
Waistcoats took inspiration from a traditional dress shirt or sat neatly under a linen suit.