Much as I admire the discipline and laser focus of Parisian chic, every time I visit Milan I’m reminded why the women here are the ones to study. This is truer with every passing year. I’m less interested in following a Parisian diet (one bite for every two cigarettes) and Parisian rules (skinny jeans still hold sway there, and when they’re not wearing those, they’re in eye-wateringly tight flares). Give me some pasta and lots of grilled veg, a Milanese colour palette (cream, grey, caramel, chocolate, plus splashes of colour and metallic, the latter is practically a neutral in Italy) over a Parisian one (black, black, black) any day or night. 

And the sensuousness of it all. Italian fashion is all about the Feel Good, or as they would doubtless call it, la dolce vita – not just the visual but the tactile. It always has been. “Texture, texture, texture, those are ingrained in the Italian psyche,” says Ian Griffith, the Brit who has been head designer at Max Mara for almost three decades (Italians like continuity, even if that isn’t always reflected in their politics).