Milan Fashion Week has come hot on the heels of London's Fashion Week. The latest design brands include Dolce & Gabbana, with fairtytale themes; Giorgio Armani, embracing the digital age; and Moschino, bringing theatrical fun to the catwalk.

Dolce Gabbana's fairytale-inspired collection on stage in Milan

Dolce & Gabbana's woman is both princess and prince! For a world where dreams DO come true, the designers created an updated version of Cinderella's blue dress, this one covered with silvery and crystal beads. It wouldn't be giving the ending away to say the slippers were transparent.

And Cinderella's scullery-maid self wore a short silken dress.

Dolce Gabbana's fairytale-inspired collection on stage in Milan

Then, taking a turn towards pantomime, the female form was clad as a prince, creating for her short bolero jackets with military details and striped pants. Military boots were the finishing touch.

But they couldn't resist a happy ending: the finale was a flourish of pretty fuchsia and crystal dresses.

Armani brings "new pop" to the catwalk

Meanwhile, Giorgio Armani, at 81, shot a youthful wink at the fashion crowd from his Emporio Armani line.

The designer embraced the digital language of today's youth, creating his own off-skew emojis out of circles, triangles, and squares, in yellow, pink and green; and fostering demand for wearable mascots.

Armani dubbed the collection "New Pop". And the geometrical motifs graced handbags, blouses, and broaches.

The brand's youthful elegance was in play, with loosely pleated shorts resembling skirts, and skirts that were mini but not micro.

Jackets were cropped and disciplined.

And pleats cascaded down the front of a black-and-white miniskirt or prettily on an overcoat.

Evening looks sparkled, including sheer cropped tops with a collage of shapes barely protecting the wearer's modesty.

Fashion burn out at Moschino

And Moschino's creative director Jeremy Scott seemed to favor a dystopian theme at Milan, with models parading down a runway strewn with oriental rugs, smashed pianos, and discarded furniture.

Scott's storyline went from devil-may-care biker chicks, to a super-hero theme with billowing capes over bodysuits, followed by the party girl with cigarette earrings, cigarette-pack rucksacks, and beer-can shoulder bags - antagonistic gambits perhaps for the PC crowd.

Chains and strings of pearls on a black dress gave the appearance, from a distance, of a walking skeleton - plenty of wow factor, but also foreshadowing doom to come.

And it did come with the evening wear, in the form of singed tuxedo jackets and taffeta gowns with smoke billowing out of the underskirts.