Designers and fashion brands celebrated Milan’s pre-eminence in textile production and rich history of artisanal workmanship in their fall/winter 2023 collections. For instance, Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy continued testing the limits of leather, creating incredible illusions of manila rope, brown paper bags and blue jeans. In the same vein, Diesel’s Glenn Martens took distressed denim to a whole new level.

Led by Ferragamo and Prada, the back-to-basics movement was in full swing in Milan—making a statement on the importance of the teams which execute designs with technical skill and meticulous attention to detail. Some brands went as far as to plan their staging around this message, from Sunnei inviting their staff to crowd surf in its latest collection to Avavav orchestrating for clothes and accessories to fall apart down the catwalk to reflect how the pursuit of ‘looking rich’ comes at a cost.

Read more: Daniel Lee pulls off what Riccardo Tisci could not in his debut for Burberry

In case you missed it, here are all the best fall/winter 2023 looks from Milan.