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Brits lead the way at the all-important Milan fashion shows
Bear on the loose
Vivienne Westwood sends "bears" down the catwalk in Milan
"Westwood has already made curves OK by designing the most gorgeous dresses that actually allow women to have breasts and waists and hips"
Leave it to British designer Vivienne Westwood to ring the changes when it comes to body shape, as she did in Milan at the menswear shows this week.
The grande dame of British fashion (and, let's not forget, the woman who went to Buckingham Palace sans knickers) has already made curves OK by designing the most gorgeous dresses that actually allow women to have breasts and waists and hips and now it seems she's doing similar things for men by actually sending a "bear" - that is a gay man who is heftier, hairier and generally more masculine - down the Milan catwalk to showcase her new swimwear.
While other designers were showing skimpier-than-ever Speedo-style trunks (pubic hair on display is in, in, in apparently) on models so think you could almost see through them, Westwood broke from the pack, as she tends to do, showing modest swim shorts (the male population of a certain age breathes a huge sigh of relief) on models with the sort of bodies you might actually expect to encounter on a real-life beach holiday.
Elsewhere in the shows, the highly accoladed Burberry Prorsum was leading with clothes so oversized they hung off the skeletal models, topped off with looked pretty much like someone's dad's gardening hat. Then there was D&G's monochrome collection of tuxedos in blacks, whites and blacks and whites; DSquared2's, erm, collection of tuxedos (if you buy one thing for next year, make it a bow tie!) and barely-there swimwear while Armani broke all his own rules by sending out a bunch of soft grey suits. Just like he has every year since fashion itself was born.
