AP PHOTOS: Milan designers cocooning for next winter

If there is one theme emerging at Milan Fashion Week, it is cocooning, hunkering down, enveloping one’s self in comfort clothing. No one is mentioning the wars and political divisions cleaving the globe, but it is clear that if they are not in the forefront of designers’ minds, the drive for self-protection is a subliminal part of the Zeitgeist. Here are some highlights from mostly womenswear previews for Fall-Winter 2024-25 on Thursday, the second day of Milan Fashion Week: MAX MARA DEFINES MODERN, SPARE SILHOUETTE The silhouette is everything at Max Mara for the next cold weather season. Creative director Ian Griffiths’ mood board included silken teddies, Belle Epoque’-inspired boule coats and photos of the French novelist Colette, whose spare style, the British designer said, inspired the collection’s simplicity. Griffiths chose a palette of midnight blue, black and gray monochromes, all the better to discern the rich silhouettes of the sweeping boule coats defined by...