This year posed a challenge for the fashion houses to exhibit their Spring/Summer collections. With flights cancelled due to Covid and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the edge of catwalks out of the question, fashion brands across the globe had to come up with a solution. And this they did. The show must go on, albeit virtually...

Dior

Maria Grazia Chiuri's live-streamed show in Lecce, Puglia, was a Herculean effort picked out in a million lights. There were dancers, singers, musicians and models parading in Lecce's impressive town square. Having spent her childhood holidays in Puglia, Chiuri knows how devastated many Italian towns have been by lockdown. You could see the gratitude on the faces of the performers.

The collection elevated local crafts to the height of luxury. You haven't seen macramé like Dior's macramé. The clothes were mainly light, airy apron dresses, shirts, tank tops and deconstructed Bar jackets in linen and cotton. Shoes were flat - this may be the most relaxed Dior collection yet; belts were wide and could become the accessory of the year if we continue wearing wafty 'nap' dresses. The palette, meanwhile, was pale: creams, beiges and whites - the colours of hope.  Lisa Armstrong

Burberry

This lockdown show was brilliantly British: glorifying the doorstep. Riccardo Tisci enlisted 20 members of the label's staff to pose in front of their homes wearing looks from his spring pre-collection, bringing a feeling of cosy familiarity to a process that might usually play out in an edgy warehouse or grand Victorian edifice.

It was also a chance to humblebrag about how good-looking Burberry's workers are. Beth from retail looked like a supermodel giving Blue Steel in a checked trouser suit from her home in Crowthorne, Berkshire, while Sabrina from accessories design - in a logo-emblazoned trench coat - found the best accessory of all: her gorgeous Siamese cat. Bethan Holt

Gucci

There are two ways you can view Gucci's live-streamed resort 'event'. The first is to see it as a bread-and-circuses distraction, conceived to disguise the fact that Alessandro Michele is repeating the same riff for the fifth year running. By positioning several cameras backstage and in front of it for 12 hours, Michele enabled fashion obsessives to sample the behind-the-scenes preparation as well as the actual presentation. He also invited his design team to model - freckles, unmascara-ed lashes and all.

The second way to view this is with love. I confess, I am beguiled by Michele's embrace of offbeat beauty. The Post-it notes with their instructions to hold off the make-up or leave hair natural that were left on the pictures now adorning Gucci's website synchronise with social media's new quasi-honesty. As for the clothes? More and more of what Gucci fans love: ruffles, patterns, texture, bows. LA

Louis Vuitton

At the helm of Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière is fashion's time traveller-in-chief, forever melding references from across the centuries in his collections.

This year's Met Gala and accompanying fashion exhibit (sponsored by Vuitton) were meant to explore the theme. Alas. For his Resort collection, Ghesquière's time travel was less esoteric than usual, though his concept will be increasingly unfamiliar to many of us: the office. Photographed at LV's Paris headquarters, the photocopiers and filing cabinets that provided the backdrop feel like relics of a bygone era, but the clothes are pandemic-proof: souped-up trainers, sharp blazers, upscale stripes and ruffled collars. Timeless.  BH

Chanel

The digital approach for Chanel's Cruise show - an amped-up lookbook of moving images - was no substitute for a show in Capri, which is what it originally intended. Yet in substance, if not presentation, this collection was quietly radical - functional and desirable.

Slashed tweed skirts and blouson jackets may not look new, but peer closer and those maxi skirts become strapless dresses when pulled up. Long jackets in black chiffon can be worn by day over a triangle bikini (if you're so disposed), or by night with an embroidered bandeau top and jeans. Dresses in fine transparent lamé are coupled with jackets that can be untied and slipped over a pair of crêpe shorts.

This pragmatism is a direct result of circumstance. "I'd just discussed my ideas for the Cruise collection with my team when lockdown was announced," explains Chanel's creative director, Virginie Viard. "From then on, we had to adapt. We decided to use fabrics we already had in stock. I had jeans made with pockets and appliqués in tweed, which can be worn with suit jackets from previous seasons." LA

Prada

For Miuccia Prada's last solo outing, she was in collaborative mode. Good practice for next season when she will be joined by Raf Simons - a high-wire act for them both. In the meantime, for this show, she worked with five photographers, including Juergen Teller and Willy Vanderperre, to present a cinematic reading of her collections.

Prada's post-pandemic woman has a taste for the industrial, with sporty details, volume and delicate lingerie trims. There were single-breasted coats, leather tailoring, knitted polo shirts and shorts, and black nylon dresses. These, with the Prada metal triangle winking somewhere near the breastbone, were a sartorial iteration of those black nylon rucksacks that kickstarted the whole Prada adventure three decades ago. Come to think of it, this is as accurate a comment as any on fashion brands' hegemony in the past 30 years. LA

Valentino

When Valentino's Pierpaolo Piccioli retreated to his hometown of Nettuno, on the coast south of Rome, it was only natural that his Resort collection would reflect his period of meditative contemplation. This opportunity to escape the catwalk inspired him to photograph his long-time muse, Mariacarla Boscono, exuberant and free on the beach.

It was a joy-sparking offering of searingly vivid colours (emerald, fuchsia, tomato), abstract prints and overblown silhouettes - elevated solutions for those still shying away from a waistband. In one shot, Boscono slides along a dusty path in front of a profusion of greenery, a mirage in a tulle gown embellished with silver discs refracting the sunlight. Sometimes fashion echoes world events; at other times it offers escapism - this was the latter in full glory. BH

Versace

There's a Versace party and we're all invited... to dress up, at least. Donatella, naturally, made no concession to slobbing out with her take on Resort. This is the woman, after all, who did WFH in a heavily embellished shirt, peroxide blow-dry and lash extensions.

There were skater skirts in sorbet shades, rave-ready anoraks and the teeniest snake-print minidress you've ever seen. In Versace world, the glamour stops for nothing. BH

Max Mara

For Max Mara, a St Petersburg adventure had been on the cards, with grand plans to sprinkle the label's understated aesthetic with some Romanov splendour. To paraphrase Diana Vreeland, the eye can still travel, even if the rest of us cannot.

To that end, creative director Ian Griffiths' designs whispered aristocratic opulence: painterly printed silk dresses, sumptuous embroidered knitwear and jacquards, which were styled alongside the languid tailoring and strokeable oversized teddy coats for which Max Mara is famed - a wardrobe for a modern tsarina. BH

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