Milan Fashion Week: MaxMara autumn/winter 2012

Warm military-style coats top slim-line tweed shorts and light-weight sweaters at MaxMara autumn/winter 2012.

There was a time - quaint to imagine now - when putting military-inspired clothes on a catwalk might have been viewed as an act of slightly questionable taste, given all the real military uniforms being worn out there. But fashion can't wait for ever, and since there's no sign of our politicians growing tired of staging wars all over the place, what can a trend-lover do but simply get on with accessorising her very own khaki felted wool coat with a peaked cap and leather trimmed gaiters?

nd these coats were great, both in the sense of harking back to the outerwear worn by soldiers in the First World War and being rather fabulous. They were also immensely, reassuringly swaddling, with stiff collars that can be turned up to cocoon the neck and long, sweeping hems, some of them fur or sheepskin trimmed.
Indeed the main message of this collection seemed to be that far from being cumbersome, a huge, serious coat frees you up to wear something cute and slim-line underneath - in this instance, checked tweed shorts, three quarter-length trousers with braces and lots of stripy light-weight sweaters.

Posted in: Autumn-Winter,MaxMara,Milan Fashion Week