This Spring, Be This Man

A cold, bright, sunny day. There's genuinely nothing quite like it. Nor, reader, is there a better time to dress. For while summer gets all the attention as the BEST TIME EVER, it is not, actually, the best time ever. In fact, summer in the city is pretty Hadean as you ride a packed tube full of paralytic Londoners through a hellscape of concrete and sunstroke. Dressing for it is bad too. Shorts ride up. Damp shirts cling to damper bodies. Your best trainers become pub floor mops. And though winter conjures dreams of rosy-cheeked cosy boys in beanies and Noah, the risk of overlayering during the Great Extinction is great: winters aren't as cold as they once were, and you've never been hotter in a puffer jacket.

This time of year, though? Juuuuust right, or so says Italian singer-songwriter and show season mainstay Mahmood. At Prada's womenswear show in Milan last night, the 29-year-old put together one of the best big fits of Spring thus far. Helps that it's all Prada.

There are several Good Things™ here. With an overcoat, sweater and slacks, Mahmood preached the gospel of black-on-black-on-black. It's a combination easier than a FisherPrice puzzle, but just with all the glory of a grandmaster chess victory. What's more, these are the sort of layers that are both Spring-appropriate, and comfortable. The cold light of February demands the slighter things in your wardrobe in tandem. The result is sharp, textured and not overstuffed or overpadded.

Plus, this is textbook Prada. It's structural and classic, but with a tiny bit of weird design intellectualism. Which, in this instance, is a traditional checked shirt that's had its workwear roots melded with the dress shirt of a Seventies prom date, hence the ruffled front. Quite mad. Also, quite great, and much easier to wear with black knitwear playing bodyguard.

Don't count down the days to summer quite yet, then. Spring is coming. Spring is good. No, Spring is great. But the Spring fits? Even greater, friend!