Miuccia Prada's show for Miu Miu is always a much-anticipated moment on the final day of the international ready-to-wear schedule. And the designer was on fine form.
If nostalgia has ruled the runways for almost a month now, this was a rather different - and typically maverick - take on that.
Here were nods to her own archive: the sludgy, belle/laide tweeds at Prada in the mid-Nineties; roses embroidered in brightly coloured wools across high-waisted pencil skirts.
The surprising fabric juxtapositions both Prada and Miu Miu are loved for also loomed large: tartan comforters with ruffly bib fronts were worn with high-waisted, cropped cocktail trousers in duchesse satin; a rib-knit vest with a silk evening skirt. Bra tops, meanwhile, this time in lace and just a little bit wrong, were pure dirty/pretty the way only this designer knows how.
There were nods to Seventies Saint Laurent also. Miuccia Prada loves it. Think Belle du Jour but in a colour palette that was far more cool - and crazed. Even the nursery seemed to figure: swing coats in sugary shades were trimmed with doll-size frills and stamped with equally diminutive garden buds.
As for the shoes... Spike heels might have been more overtly sexy than might be expected here but that too was undercut by crushed bows and the fact that what appeared at first sighting to be a classic court was actually a sock boot. And that is very Miuccia Prada.