Giorgio Armani tapped a Mediterranean vibe for his womenswear collection for next spring and summer on Monday, while D&G found inspiration in Glastonbury Festival for hippy flares and flounces.
Armani cropped loose satin Turkish trousers above the knee and tied them with bows in sand, rock grey and marine blue.
Models wore fine mesh nets over their hair and the fishing theme was extended to shawls and shoulder shrugs in a lattice worn with slim silk evening gowns.
To a backing track of typical southern Italian songs with more than a hint of North African drumbeats, models slouched down a black and light striped catwalk for a laid-back mood.
Armani used gauzy grey mini sarongs to offset sparkling vests or picked sea green to highlight grey silk on a long dress with a bustier bodice.
The designer took classic navy and twisted it with thin cream stripes for bias-cut skirts and shirts and kept up the uneven look for skirts with layers of varying lengths in black or silver.
Shoes were unusually high and glittery for Armani, while bags in midnight blue or black were held by one strap or clutched.
At D&G, the stablemate of Dolce & Gabbana, the designers went to Glastonbury Festival, a British rock festival, for a collection that abandoned their usual gold and animal print for a hippie mix of florals, fringes and patched-up jeans.
D&G swung models down the catwalk in big tent dresses with drawstring necks in a collage of gypsy reds, black and white.
Jeans had wide, wide legs which designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana described as "elephant foot", covered in enough patches to make a Tom Sawyer proud.
Men's pullovers in grey or chestnut worn with oversize white shirts made for an almost hand-me-down chic look.
And flat leather sandals with rope-ties at the ankle, or floppy leather hats completed the nod to the pop festival theme.
Gianfranco Ferre's womenswear collection - his last designs before he died in June - was full of flowing, billowing silks and loose fitting cottons that rippled with every movement.
Trousers were extra long over high-heeled, thick-soled shoes, and in soft silks or jersey that swung lazily as the models walked along a mirrored catwalk.
Echoing a trend at D&G and earlier shows, Ferre gave trousers wide legs, but added a high waist or cummerbund size belts for a 1940s film star swank.
An ivory satin pair sat easily beneath a ghost-like cream blouse with full sleeves and parchment texture lapels.
Ferre, whose successor has yet to be named, had shown his skills with leather, too, in intricate trellis-worked jackets in straw yellow or chocolate brown.
Evening gowns were great gulps of gauzy fabric, knotted at shoulder or breast, and seemed to eschew zips or buttons.
Miuccia Prada took her models down to the enchanted part of the garden where the fairies live, introducing them to a dreamworld that verged on nightmare and put dark circles round their eyes.
Prada, whose shows are seen as pivotal for fashion direction, used the themes of botanical prints, plaids and knitted jumpsuits she had put in her menswear spring and summer collection, shown in June.
Models with their hair in matted plaits moved through a maze of green concentric seating, against a backdrop print on the walls of elves with over-ripe fruits and just over bloom flowers.
Prada swirled the botanical prints across green silk for pyjama style outfits, or used a trellis design in green and white for a full, stiff skirt.
Prada's show echoed some trends from other collections, with wide-leg chiffon trousers and high, high-heeled shoes.
Emporio Armani and Gucci on Wednesday kept hemlines in their collections short and heels high - but there the similarities ended.
Giorgio Armani used jades, pale blues, violets and greys for his young Emporio Armani collection, with splashes of silver and sequins.
He took the loose, tied-at-the-knee trousers from his grown-up Giorgio Armani line show on Monday and puffed them out with a curt cuff instead, in what the designer called "an upturned tulip".
Armani put sparkle in the collection with ice blue and silver striped hooded tops over short silk skirts. Models carried huge silver laminated bags soft enough to fold in half and necklaces were a double loop of shiny stones and black.
The designer kept jackets short and tailored or stretched out a tuxedo model to let brief black shorts wink below the hem for a cheeky evening suit.
And he used black and white chequerboard prints for short full skirts teamed with tailored jackets or a halterneck top tied loosely to gap at the back.
Frida Giannini used a black and white base for the Gucci show but liberally splashed it with bright yellow and bubblegum pink in an echo of graphic art.
A bright yellow short tailored jacket was teamed with a brief, full and flirty chequerboard print skirt, while a mini biker jacket had an abstract floral design on the back in mustard, cream and black.
Chevrons of black and white patent were mixed with yellow or pink for 1950s style full skirts, and the bright colours turned up in checks as well.
Giannini ran her abstract and big flower designs through a variety of fabrics, from stiff cotton to silk to taffeta, to give different moods to the same prints.
And she boldly used block bubblegum pink for a short, strapless dress that was sculpted around the body, to then whisk the colour into chiffon for an entirely different, flowing look.
Trousers took a new line of loosely fitted at the hip and thigh, to be drainpipe tight from the knee down.
Shoes - following a trend this week - were high and gold, lace-up or patent, while belts either played the cummerbund or were finger-width to offset layered skirts.
Giannini's swimwear - a rare sight despite the theme of summer - was simple and one shouldered in sheer black.
Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana turned out artists' paint-spattered canvases as gorgeous gowns on Thursday in a finale to their spring and summer womenswear show.
The black background dresses were splashed and whirled with white and daubed with magenta, or bright green, pink and purple. The canvas-like fabric was bundled into ball gowns that seemed as if the models had swirled themselves in the cast-off canvas of a painter's studio.
The gowns were preceded by more paint-spattered outfits, ranging from T-shirts through slim-fit short dresses and even high-heeled shoes.
Dolce & Gabbana also kept with the wide-leg trousers that had debuted at their D&G line show on Monday, dubbed "elephant foot", but this time in beige brocade rather than denim.
Donatella Versace used vivid colours for a twist to a flowing, languid look in dresses in her show - which started by paying homage to Luciano Pavarotti who died earlier this month with his trademark Nessun Dorma aria from Puccini's Turandot.
The designer took hot pinks and oranges to sharpen up softly pleated gowns that seemed tied together rather than tailored.
She used a classic shirtdress style for daywear, or shorts and a shirt, again ringing the changes with bolts of colour.
Shoes were just as bright with sculpted heels, while handheld bags were art-folder sized in white or metallics.
Necklines were high and demure, elongated into a slim scarf that was thrown over the shoulder, while at the back, dresses were scooped low.
Versace rounded off the show with variations on a long, slim, soft evening silhouette, using a palette of colours that included jade, yellow, pink and electric blue.
Armani cropped loose satin Turkish trousers above the knee and tied them with bows in sand, rock grey and marine blue.
Models wore fine mesh nets over their hair and the fishing theme was extended to shawls and shoulder shrugs in a lattice worn with slim silk evening gowns.
To a backing track of typical southern Italian songs with more than a hint of North African drumbeats, models slouched down a black and light striped catwalk for a laid-back mood.
Armani used gauzy grey mini sarongs to offset sparkling vests or picked sea green to highlight grey silk on a long dress with a bustier bodice.
The designer took classic navy and twisted it with thin cream stripes for bias-cut skirts and shirts and kept up the uneven look for skirts with layers of varying lengths in black or silver.
Shoes were unusually high and glittery for Armani, while bags in midnight blue or black were held by one strap or clutched.
At D&G, the stablemate of Dolce & Gabbana, the designers went to Glastonbury Festival, a British rock festival, for a collection that abandoned their usual gold and animal print for a hippie mix of florals, fringes and patched-up jeans.
D&G swung models down the catwalk in big tent dresses with drawstring necks in a collage of gypsy reds, black and white.
Jeans had wide, wide legs which designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana described as "elephant foot", covered in enough patches to make a Tom Sawyer proud.
Men's pullovers in grey or chestnut worn with oversize white shirts made for an almost hand-me-down chic look.
And flat leather sandals with rope-ties at the ankle, or floppy leather hats completed the nod to the pop festival theme.
Gianfranco Ferre's womenswear collection - his last designs before he died in June - was full of flowing, billowing silks and loose fitting cottons that rippled with every movement.
Trousers were extra long over high-heeled, thick-soled shoes, and in soft silks or jersey that swung lazily as the models walked along a mirrored catwalk.
Echoing a trend at D&G and earlier shows, Ferre gave trousers wide legs, but added a high waist or cummerbund size belts for a 1940s film star swank.
An ivory satin pair sat easily beneath a ghost-like cream blouse with full sleeves and parchment texture lapels.
Ferre, whose successor has yet to be named, had shown his skills with leather, too, in intricate trellis-worked jackets in straw yellow or chocolate brown.
Evening gowns were great gulps of gauzy fabric, knotted at shoulder or breast, and seemed to eschew zips or buttons.
Miuccia Prada took her models down to the enchanted part of the garden where the fairies live, introducing them to a dreamworld that verged on nightmare and put dark circles round their eyes.
Prada, whose shows are seen as pivotal for fashion direction, used the themes of botanical prints, plaids and knitted jumpsuits she had put in her menswear spring and summer collection, shown in June.
Models with their hair in matted plaits moved through a maze of green concentric seating, against a backdrop print on the walls of elves with over-ripe fruits and just over bloom flowers.
Prada swirled the botanical prints across green silk for pyjama style outfits, or used a trellis design in green and white for a full, stiff skirt.
Prada's show echoed some trends from other collections, with wide-leg chiffon trousers and high, high-heeled shoes.
Emporio Armani and Gucci on Wednesday kept hemlines in their collections short and heels high - but there the similarities ended.
Giorgio Armani used jades, pale blues, violets and greys for his young Emporio Armani collection, with splashes of silver and sequins.
He took the loose, tied-at-the-knee trousers from his grown-up Giorgio Armani line show on Monday and puffed them out with a curt cuff instead, in what the designer called "an upturned tulip".
Armani put sparkle in the collection with ice blue and silver striped hooded tops over short silk skirts. Models carried huge silver laminated bags soft enough to fold in half and necklaces were a double loop of shiny stones and black.
The designer kept jackets short and tailored or stretched out a tuxedo model to let brief black shorts wink below the hem for a cheeky evening suit.
And he used black and white chequerboard prints for short full skirts teamed with tailored jackets or a halterneck top tied loosely to gap at the back.
Frida Giannini used a black and white base for the Gucci show but liberally splashed it with bright yellow and bubblegum pink in an echo of graphic art.
A bright yellow short tailored jacket was teamed with a brief, full and flirty chequerboard print skirt, while a mini biker jacket had an abstract floral design on the back in mustard, cream and black.
Chevrons of black and white patent were mixed with yellow or pink for 1950s style full skirts, and the bright colours turned up in checks as well.
Giannini ran her abstract and big flower designs through a variety of fabrics, from stiff cotton to silk to taffeta, to give different moods to the same prints.
And she boldly used block bubblegum pink for a short, strapless dress that was sculpted around the body, to then whisk the colour into chiffon for an entirely different, flowing look.
Trousers took a new line of loosely fitted at the hip and thigh, to be drainpipe tight from the knee down.
Shoes - following a trend this week - were high and gold, lace-up or patent, while belts either played the cummerbund or were finger-width to offset layered skirts.
Giannini's swimwear - a rare sight despite the theme of summer - was simple and one shouldered in sheer black.
Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana turned out artists' paint-spattered canvases as gorgeous gowns on Thursday in a finale to their spring and summer womenswear show.
The black background dresses were splashed and whirled with white and daubed with magenta, or bright green, pink and purple. The canvas-like fabric was bundled into ball gowns that seemed as if the models had swirled themselves in the cast-off canvas of a painter's studio.
The gowns were preceded by more paint-spattered outfits, ranging from T-shirts through slim-fit short dresses and even high-heeled shoes.
Dolce & Gabbana also kept with the wide-leg trousers that had debuted at their D&G line show on Monday, dubbed "elephant foot", but this time in beige brocade rather than denim.
Donatella Versace used vivid colours for a twist to a flowing, languid look in dresses in her show - which started by paying homage to Luciano Pavarotti who died earlier this month with his trademark Nessun Dorma aria from Puccini's Turandot.
The designer took hot pinks and oranges to sharpen up softly pleated gowns that seemed tied together rather than tailored.
She used a classic shirtdress style for daywear, or shorts and a shirt, again ringing the changes with bolts of colour.
Shoes were just as bright with sculpted heels, while handheld bags were art-folder sized in white or metallics.
Necklines were high and demure, elongated into a slim scarf that was thrown over the shoulder, while at the back, dresses were scooped low.
Versace rounded off the show with variations on a long, slim, soft evening silhouette, using a palette of colours that included jade, yellow, pink and electric blue.