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Italian men do love their games, and several designers at the spring shows in Milan responded with zest — Massimiliano Giornetti of Ferragamo, with parkas and bomber jackets loaded with straps and fasteners, as well shirts abstractly detailed with numbers. For Moncler Gamme Bleu, Thom Browne recreated a kind of cricket pitch, in his extreme fashion.

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But it was a woman who did the best job taking sporty elements and making them seem dynamic and real. Frida Giannini of Gucci focused on the latest innovations in technical gear, in stretch jersey, neoprene and new treatments of cotton, then tempered their novelty with Gucci classicism. The shapes and volumes of parkas and Mackintoshes were very modest; you noticed the materials and the colors, which included royal blue, a sunny yellow, olive and the usual run of neutrals. Bottoms were mostly riding pants or, anyway, an interpretation of them that looked more street than horse-and-hound.

Ms. Giannini, I felt sure, had the audience’s attention, but the arrival of floral printed jackets with mildly contrasting trousers created a buzz-buzz in the ranks. Pens scratched in pads. And the muted prints, so expertly and casually done, with the merest hint of a scarf in still another print, had begun their magic journey to the pages of international magazines.