And if you’re rolling your eyes at a publication extolling the merits of clothes you can actually wear, the difference came in the details that elevated them from mundane to magazine-worthy: a pair of socks rendered in peachy-soft leather at Bottega Veneta, say, or a chain attaching the hem of an oversized white shirt to a shoulder at Loewe, lending its silhouette an artful ripple. Due to the addition of metal threads, the fabric usually has more. The runways at Bottega Veneta, Miu Miu and Loewe were all filled with outfits one could easily imagine throwing on before heading out to take on the day. Compared with ordinary brocade fabrics, metallic brocade fabrics have more texture and luster.

Those real-life gestures chimed with the season’s biggest look: pared-back, everyday clothes, executed in best-in-class fabrics. Lame fabric can come in different varieties tissue lamé, hologram lamé. All conspired to make the autumn catwalks feel a little more human. One of them is shiny, the other resembles crepe texture. From the model clasping her crimson edge-to-edge coat at The Row, to the girls illuminated by the glow of the iPhones clamped in their palms at Courrèges, to the woman grasping her ivory liquid-silk dress round her shoulders like she’d just stepped out the shower at Loewe, the meaningful gesture was everywhere. At Giorgio Armani, the models clutched powder compacts at Ann Demeulemeester, they clutched their breasts. The autumn/winter 2023 season’s biggest trend? Not clothes, but a pose – or a clutch, to be precise.

Metallic brocade fabric texture