The first model stepped onto a runway of transparent plexiglass, backlit by cold neon, wearing nothing but a cropped denim jacket against bare skin and a pair of lean trousers. There was no T-shirt, no layering, no ornament. At Prada’s spring/summer 2027 show, the jacket had become the shirt, and the gesture set the tone for a Milan Fashion Week that seemed determined to strip menswear back to its skeleton. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, speaking backstage, described the collection as a conscious break with the conventions of luxury — a rejection of what they called “useless design” and the exaggerated forms that have dominated recent seasons. Across the collection, a single trouser silhouette was repeated in endless fabric variations, while bags were hooked onto belts like functional pouches and silk scarves replaced traditional waistbands. It was, the designers insisted, not minimalism but a form of extreme focus, harder to achieve than it looked.

That impulse toward reduction rippled through other houses, though each found its own register. At Giorgio Armani, the Mediterranean was not a theme but a climate: unstructured jackets lengthened, trousers narrowed, and linens and shantungs absorbed the light of sun-bleached ports. The collection, developed by Leo Dell’Orco under the maison’s direction, treated continuity as a form of luxury in itself. Dolce & Gabbana, meanwhile, staged “Vacanze Siciliane” at the Metropol, a declaration of origins at a moment of corporate transition — Stefano Gabbana had just resigned the presidency, though he remains co-creative director and took his bow in a T-shirt printed with Madonna’s face. The clothes moved from pinstripe suits and flat caps to silk swim shorts printed with lemons and postcards, embroidered jackets glittering with coral motifs, and distressed jeans paired with lace shirts. The palette — Sicilian black, pistachio green, ocean blue — was, the designers said, a mosaic of the island’s contrasts. Ralph Lauren, returning to the Milan calendar for the second time this year, offered a different register of ease: impeccable Purple Label tailoring in soft neutrals and indigo, followed by a burst of colourful Polo pieces that reworked American codes through patchwork and textured fabrics. The show, held in the brand’s palazzo, drew Lewis Hamilton, Henry Golding, and Maluma; Golding later confessed to being transfixed by a navy tuxedo.

As the Milan schedule drew to a close, attention turned to Paris, where some 70 houses were preparing to show menswear for the same season. Editors in the French capital anticipated a continued interrogation of masculine codes. Jonathan Anderson’s third collection for Dior, moved to an early-morning slot because of a heatwave, was expected to push his improbable combinations further; Sarah Burton would present her first menswear for Givenchy, with tailoring and 3D pieces predicted; and Willy Chavarría, the Mexican-American designer and activist, was set to bring his chicano-inflected sartorial vision back to Paris for a fourth time. The broader conversation, according to GQ France’s Patrick Clark, was moving toward a “more hybrid” masculinity, one that borrows techniques and sensibilities long reserved for womenswear. This questioning of codes was already visible in Milan, where the season’s colour trends — from butter yellow to fresh mint and cherry red — appeared not as shouts but as deliberate accents, and where sunglasses, from oversized Gucci frames to sport-luxe Oakley shields, became the piece that completed a silhouette rather than merely accessorised it.

In the end, the most telling detail might have been a Prada bag worn at the waist like a marsupio, neither purely decorative nor purely practical, but something in between. It encapsulated a week in which luxury seemed to be learning to live without the need to impress, and to find its sophistication in what it chose to leave out.