Business & Finance Club - Fashion : Milan fashion continued its love affair with block colour on Friday as Versace presented its latest collection.

Donatella Versace pitched her show, Opposites Attract, as a playful struggle between long and short, dull and bright, and, perhaps inevitably given the brand's reputation, fabric and flesh. The focus was on narrow, below-the-knee dresses in bright turquoise and tomato red, cut to reveal a slither of midriff. Short, printed dresses with fringing and PVC inlays completed the look.

But short vs long is not the only battle at Milan fashion week. Milan, once the powerhouse of international fashion and the spiritual home of the superbrand, has seen its influence dwindle in the past five years. London Fashion Week is arguably more creative, Paris more influential. The impact of the recession and the current taste for cool minimalism — not an obvious trend in Milan, where brash and bold is often the defining look have added to Italian woes. Last season the event was cut to four days because Anna Wintour, the influential editor of US Vogue, only planned a short stay in the city.

The Camera della Moda, Italian fashion's governing body, backed by Prada's CEO Patrizio Bertelli and Giorgio Armani, decided to reinvigorate the calendar by spacing out the major powerhouse labels to make it the longest schedule in years. They dumped several brands and moved the hub for the first time in 30 years to stave off complaints about traffic jams and delays.

The new schedule has already caused controversy — brands dumped from the original programme included plus-sized label Elena Miro, prompting criticisms of the wrong type of exclusivity. But fashion chiefs remain steadfast. Mario Boselli, the head of the Chamber, told trade sheet Womenswear Daily that the schedule revisions were justified. He said it was a return to "a calendar that is representative of the best, highest, designer ready-to-wear".

Evidence of brisk tourism and stores opening again in major cities would seem to suggest that Italian fashion is seeing a tentative economic recovery. So far this purposeful approach has been matched by exuberance on the catwalk, where bold and bright is already shaping up to be the defining trend.