Louis Vuitton

“Madame Beyoncé” read the name card and after much anticipation, the Madame formally down as Bey made her entrance alongside her (currently much maligned) husband Jay Z at her friend Pharrell Williams’ spring summer collection at Louis Vuitton.

The superstar, who has been line dancing her Cowboy Carter tour through Europe, arrived dressed in suitably Western-themed attire. It was pertinent that she took her place front row after two years since she first appeared to watch the debut collection from Williams, when he took over the Pont Neuf in Paris and shut down the city.

Louis Vuitton Menswear 2025/6

This time it was the Pompidou Centre in the midst of screaming tourist scrums and bullish security guards (maybe Pompidon’t?), but unlike his maximalist grand unveiling of “everything and the LV Damier print”, this time Williams scaled things back to focus on tailoring and low key everyday attire. That’s “everyday attire” in very much inverted commas, but the mood was much more focused on grown up clothing rather than streetwear.

Saint Laurent

Forgive a journalist for labouring a point (consider it my Watergate), but the extreme heat across Europe and the men’s collections taking up place in Milan and Paris can’t help but drum up conversations about how we dress for weather that’s never been hotter (and frankly, in the face of climate change, pretty terrifying).

Saint Laurent Men's Show 2025/6

For Saint Laurent, the Paris house that loves to lend a subversive twist to proceedings, it was airy, barely there, flyaway and oh-so-fluttering short shorts mixed with transparent layers (and the odd suit, for good measure).

Short shorts at Prada were knitted – granted, a touch of the adult nappy aesthetic, unless you’re one of the narrow hipped youths Mrs Prada employs – but at Saint Laurent they were as come hither as you’d expect cf the brand founded on potent notions of sensuality.

Designer Anthony Vaccarello last season created another bold talking point – the thigh high leather waders last season causing headlines on Brad Pitt, Pedro Pascal and Alexander Skarsgard. This time around the legs were yet again part of the focus, but in the soft, silky shorts. They were, said Vaccarello, a nod to images of Yves Saint Laurent in the Seventies wearing blousy pyjamas, hence the PJ tops, styled with ties for a corporate-meets-come-to-bed twist.

Other references included the heady days of New York’s gay mecca Fire Island in the carefree 1980s and a generation of that community’s artists, such as Larry Stanton, which perhaps translated to the flyaway, translucent shirts and those shorts, that sense of languorous lounging on summer days when the air is treacle thick.

There was also more lightness and colour than the after-dark playbook of Saint Laurent usually allows for (normally an “any colour as long as it’s black” dress code), in the form of spice shades, citrine, magenta and tangerine.

The sunlight dancing across the water in the cylindrical pool that the house had created in the middle of the Bourse Commerce near the Marais added to that sense of ease (not usually a word applied to the nightclubby, high-voltage aesthetics of Vaccarello’s YSL.

For all the theatrical elements, the tailoring was a stealthy reminder of just how slick, sensual and powerful the Saint Laurent suit is, as you’d expect from the house that first created the Le Smoking tuxedo for women in 1966. The suits, strong of shoulder with blousy, double-breasted jackets, were a masterclass in sculptural finesse. Trousers came with exaggerated, paper-bag waists, all the better for emphasising that cigarette-slender silhouette.

The formal wear also laboured the point that serious shirting – worn with a tie, which is a novel notion in 2025 – is worthy of consideration. The flyaway trenchcoats in shades of chocolate and berry were the only concession to outerwear; who wants to cover up when you can lounge in silken shorts to try and see out the sultry heat?

For the lightness at work – both in fabrication and the subject matter of easy breezy PJs and the like – the machinations of the fashion business is a serious and increasingly heavy going business. Kering, Saint Laurent’s parent company, are in the midst of a seismic shake up and Francis-Henri Pinault has recently swapped and switched his designers around like players in a transfer window to try and shore up the ailing Balenciaga and Gucci.

Let’s hope that Saint Laurent suffers no such fate, because Vaccarello’s interpretation makes his collections amongst the most chic, seductive, luxurious and – that most elusive of notions, cool – offerings in the business. The thigh’s the limit.

Models walk the runway during the Giorgio Armani collection show at Milan's Fashion Week Menswear Spring / Summer 2026, on June 23, 2025 in Milan

Such is Mr Armani’s standing in Milan that news of his recent illness – and his subsequent absence from both his Emporio Armani and main Giorgio Armani shows – made headlines in the Italian press. The 90-year-old is the elder statesman of Milanese style, a pontiff in his own right, with a following just as fervent and a worldview just as devotional – one of soft-power minimalism and discreet luxury. But the show must go on, and so it did, with a Giorgio Armani collection that stood as a testament to his unwavering commitment to a singular vision and sense of continuity – a formula he has followed throughout his 50 years in fashion.

Giorgio Armani

The collection nodded to the Mediterranean ease of Pantelleria, Italy, where Armani has a home, with its volcanic landscape evoked by glittering black rocks dotted along the catwalk. That soft-focus holiday feeling came through in the clothes, too, with lightweight fabrics, airy proportions, collarless jackets and kimono-style tops.

The signature Armani silhouette – blousy yet still masculine – felt as welcome as a cool breeze on a sultry night. The colours, meanwhile – chalk, stone, thundercloud grey and burgundy – were nuanced and elegant, a welcome antidote to the more casual, “dress-down” approach to summer style.

Occasional flashes of vivid bougainvillaea-bright fuchsia and electric lilac brought a jolt of energy, while raffia straw slippers looked especially inviting in the searing Italian heat.

There were also dressier elements – Armani being a titan of eveningwear – in the immaculate tuxedos, some with embroidered lapels or decorative pins dotting the jackets. But, true to form, it was all delivered with a softly-softly approach, never looking trussed up or overly “done”.That lightness of touch is something Armani has long specialised in – a stylistic riff that’s been adopted by countless menswear designers in the decades since, but one he made his own from the start. As sartorial winds shift and formality ebbs in and out of men’s wardrobes, it’s telling that his brand of easy insouciance has endured.

Mr Armani might not have been present, but his distinctive handwriting was as clear and confident as ever.

Prada by Stephen Doig

Watched on by Harris Dickinson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stormzy and Riz Ahmed, Miuccia Prada played with notions of holiday wear in a men’s collection of itsy-bitsy shorts and a luxe rendering of beachy clothes.

Prada

Sweltering temperatures in the city heat of Milan makes the promise of a breezy beach sojourn pretty damn appealing. And while the thoughtful, elegant Miuccia Prada isn’t one to stick a paper umbrella in a garishly-hued cocktail and declare summer season open, she gave her own intellectual take on the tropes of summer that come to mind, from beach geegaws to subtle nods to riviera style.

“We talked a lot about nature, the sea, the elements, what makes you feel healthy, balanced,” said Raf Simons, her collaborator and rumoured heir apparent. The kind of holiday trinketry that you’d pick up in some Grecian idyll were rendered in luxurious materials; flip flops, woven leather sandals, leather beings and straw hats, all of them given the signature Prada elevation.

Those lighthearted elements – boxy white shorts that sat away from the body, decorated in deliberate naive wave patterns, minuscule knitted shorts, floral tops and pastels – were subject to the Prada twist that makes her clothing so nuanced, the obvious being an ugly word for the 76-year-old Mrs Prada.

An industrial setting with abstract florals dotted across the concrete floor, and exacting shapes and crisp leanness in proportions rather than easy, breezy relaxed-on-the-lounger shapes.

The wider context of global politics is on everyone’s mind – yes; the front row does think of life beyond hemlines and harem pants – and the sense of escaping to a soft-focus world with lapping water and coral sunsets couldn’t help but draw to mind the frightening headlines of the recent days.

Mrs Prada was cryptic about discussing the political landscape, but spoke of a “a moment of much nastiness and useless, complicated ideas. There is a lot for the sake of a lot, so I did less. Something easy”.

There was also the sense of the freewheeling in the sporty tracksuits, oversized rucksacks and beaten-up leathers, a hint of festival attire as Glastonbury beckons.

There were also nods to the classic, somewhat staid formula of “Riviera” style – sky-blue trousers and a crisp blazer – but under Prada’s eye they were narrow of proportion and worn with a weathered suede driving shoe that was her own take of the Italian playboy signature look.

Cumberbatch and Harris Dickinson might not have braved the eensy-weensy short shorts, but if you’re shrunken-of-waist and of a certain Gen-Z persuasion Prada’s made them something of a calling card.

Where we’ll be in global terms by the time these spring/summer 2026 clothes come into store is anyone’s guess, but the overarching emphasis at the collections this season is on lightness and ease, as the world heats up physically and metaphorically and the idea of uncomplicated simplicity seems very appealing.

Dolce & Gabbana

Milan heat is hitting 30C – a reprieve from the 36-and-climbing temperatures in Florence. Britain is broiling and Europe as a whole is facing extreme weather. As a welcome antidote, Signori Dolce & Gabbana debuted a cool breeze of a collection during Milan men’s fashion week.

The duo staged a pyjama party, with PJs in every variation on the catwalk – a refreshing take on dress-down ease in a city where trussed-up tailoring still tends to dominate, even on the most sultry summer days. The achingly formal men’s fashion fair Pitti Uomo in Florence is a prime example of how to look painfully overcooked.

The emphasis at Dolce & Gabbana was on a sense of lightness and the kind of fluid, soft-fit clothing for a sleepy Puglian morning rather than a high-voltage Milanese night, where rigorous tailoring and structure usually apply alla moda Italiano. Pyjamas-as-daywear came in every variety – artfully crumpled, pristine, silken, spangled, bedecked and adorned, pinstriped and piped. There was a freshness and feeling of ease to the clothes, all the more welcome given the context of the sweltering climes. Colours of mint, lemon, raspberry and cherry were as delicious as a cold gelato.

That’s not to say the clothing was entirely informal; Dolce & Gabbana do decorative dress-up and peacockery better than anyone. Pyjamas – and the furry slippers alongside – were worn with soft-fit blazers or pieces decorated with embroidery and spangle, including an entire section of “sartoria” PJs rich with embroidery, erupting with blooms or winding with fauna. No one’s turning in for an early night in these.

Granted, there may not be many men with the chutzpah to carry them off with such aplomb, but Dolce & Gabbana’s ultra-high-net-worth male customers will – the anti-soft luxury approach for the fellow who wears his wealth – and his razzmatazz – on his (pyjama) sleeve.

There’s always a backbone of strict, rigorous tailoring at Dolce & Gabbana – the man who doesn’t do decoration can always find an exceptionally cut pinstriped suit – but this time the mood was softer and more unstructured. Suiting featured light linens and the occasional ritzy black-tie ensemble, but the clothes in general had long, languorous lie-ins in mind rather than upright polish and formality.

It’s also testament to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana that, after 40 years since founding their business, they continue to reassess and refine formulas for dressing men – and make it look appealing and contemporary. Their proposal this time around was as fresh, cooling and inviting as a dip in the Mediterranean.