Milan, Grand Hotel Duomo, from our fashion correspondent Harald Nicolas Stazol

There is one big question in the financial crisis – yes, yes, haven´t we seen it all, the deserted boutiques on 5th Avenue, the lonesome shop-assisants on Via Gesù, the abandoned flagship-stores in the Faubourg – in the designers work: go for safety and do dark, black, grey well-tailored suits or, as the NYT put it: why buy something  – if at all – that you already have in abundance, lest something better should be under way? Or, as my esteemed colleague Godfrey Deeny from FWD put it at Armani: „Judging from Armani, this is going to be a long and deep recession; we had to wait some 50 looks before anyone appeared in working gear of a suit and tie. Nearly every model was attired for a gentlemanly dinner among friends or a brisk winter walk in the countryside.“

flashy colours, that multicoloured gucci jeans f.i. (though i bought mine in 2001, and it still is a orange-pink-flamed spectacular piece in summer)? Oh, that was spring, gaudy spring, when everything seemed in order and the money still in the vaults and had not gone up into thin air. but there remains this all-time-classic, the blue velvet suit  (again mine dates from 2003), ideal for formal occasions or that Dubstep-Party in London. At least a hue of the night, soft and alluring – though i beg to differ on the shirt and tie.

well, my advice: go to that impeccably tailored grey jil sander short coat in grey flanell, shaped like an hour glass, the best piece seen so far, if – and that´s a big if – if you have the body-mass-index for this. all´s well that ends well. i keep you posted….on to paris!

P.S.: what poor Oscar Wilde has done to deserve to end up as a print on a D&G T-shirt only the gods know!

all pictures wwd.com