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Miuccia Prada

Think of Warren Beatty in the Seventies cult film Shampoo - camp as Christmas, but a ladies man none the less - and there you have the inspiration behind Miu Miu's spring/summer 2002 menswear collection.

Prada's younger brother line walked the narrow path between the overtly feminine (spriggy, floral-printed shirts), and the boyishly sexy (stark, stovepipe jeans), without tumbling headlong into either male stereotype. Rather, the look was ambiguous with androgynous clothes that could be worn by either sex.

Of course, certain elements won't be every man's cup of tea. There was more than a whiff of the Seventies, with high-waisted, flat- fronted trousers - or rather slacks - that flared from the knee, like the sort last seen in a Seventies mail order catalogue. Some of the colours also hailed from the era that good taste forgot with egg yolk- yellow and tobacco shades. Then came the dungarees, in black and chocolate, which could be counted as the riskiest option, having been cut slightly too short in the crotch.

All of this was sported on effeminate-looking boys who, with their frail, skinny bodies and vulnerable, bony faces, resembled a class of 15-year-olds, circa 1978. They even carried floral drawstring gym bags in which to put their pale suede plimsolls - both items guaranteed to sell in the truckloads next summer, to boys and girls alike.

Nowadays, the minimalist orthodoxy is such that any appendage- even so much as a button or a shirt-cuff - registers to the fashionable eye as an accessory. Hence Miu Miu's minimal statement was to strip everything away and offer shirts with no collars or buttons. "Very chic, very now," whispered the menswear editors.

While these designs work beautifully on the catwalk, and despite the fact that they will inspire a whole batch of less innovative designers to copy the looks, stitch for stitch, they will remain unfathomable to the vast majority.