Paris has traditionally been the city where inter­national designers – from Australia and England to Beirut and Japan – opt to unveil their collections. However, Karen Ruimy, who is behind the Kalmar label, chose the runways of Milan Fashion Week for her debut showcase in September.

The Morocco-born, London- based designer hosted an intimate al fresco event in a private palazzo to launch her holiday line of fine cotton and silk jumpsuits, breezy kaftans, long skirts, playsuits and off-the-shoulder tops in tropical prints.

Ruimy had a career in finance before moving into the arts – she owns a museum of photography in Marrakech – and has become increasingly involved in fashion and beauty, thanks to her personal interest in holistic therapies.

These are clothes, she explains, that marry luxury and wellness, and are the things she would wear when she wants quality time by herself. The fact that they are made in Italy, convinced her that Milan was the right place for her debut – where she showed alongside the likes of Gucci, Prada, Verscae and Marni.

On fashion calendars, Milan has conventionally been the place where the runways confirm the trends and themes hinted at ­earlier, in New York and London. However, this season, the Italian designers did not speak with one voice, making Milan Fashion Week all the more refreshing for it.

Often, there might be an era or style of design that dominates the runways during a particular season, but for spring/summer 2017 in Milan, there was a standout showing of techno sportswear and techno fabrics employed in updated classics such as coats and box-pleat skirts, or with references to north African and Native American themes.

The Italian designers sent looks that would appeal to everyone, from the haute bohemian and athletic woman, to the cool sophisticate and the art crowd, as well as – as in the case of Moschino – to the iPhone generation.

Only three seasons ago, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele was lauded for his complicated maximalist styling. Yet in Milan, Gucci channelled a dreamlike vibe with Victoriana, denim, athletic apparel and oversized accessories, thrown together in delightful chaos, making it difficult to predict the direction Michele is taking Gucci in.

Currently he seems to be in a holding pattern, hovering at once over 1940s Hollywood glamour, 1970s flared pantsuits, and ruffled party dresses from the 1980s, in a cacophony of ­colours and fabrics.

The feeling of joyous madness continued at Dolce & Gabbana, where street dancers emerged from the audience to start the party in the designers’ tropical-themed show. The clothes used some of their familiar tropes, such as military jackets, corseted black-lace dresses miniskirts. New, however, were the baggy tapering trousers redolent of jodhpurs, and the lavish and detailed embellishment the designers used to sell their story.

Wanderlust dominated the moodboards at Roberto Cavalli – rich patterns, embroidery and patchworks inspired by Native Americans – and Etro with its ­tribal themes on kaftans, duster coats and Berber-style capes.

Giorgio Armani, Agnona Tod’s, Bottega Veneta and Salvatore Ferragamo – with its stylish twisted leather dresses and crisp athletic sportswear designed by newcomer Fulvio Rigoni – all answered the call of women who want stylish but undemanding clothes.

Marni would appeal to the art world for its graceful, pioneering ideas. The label’s finely pleated dresses displayed a life of their own, and its micro-printed dresses were gathered, folded and distorted to walk the line between stylish and quirky.

In contrast, the sportswear at MaxMara and Donatella Versace targeted the dynamic generation of athletic women, with sleek leggings, belted jackets, power suits and anoraks. Versace has made it clear that she thinks this is the only way forward. She may be right, but there’s always room for the myriad styles displayed at Milan Fashion Week in all our wardrobes.

It was feathers with everything at Prada. Silk pyjamas, boldly coloured and mixed checks, cardigans and wrap skirts with Velcro fasteners show Miuccia Prada reinventing the classics. Most glamorous was the series of evening dresses and pyjamas with jewelled embroidery and feathers, worn with kitten heels that married sporty straps with heaps of crystals. Prada’s must-have bag of the season is a bold clutch with a long strap fastener, that comes in a multitude of geometric and daisy patterns.

Versace

Over the past three seasons, Donatella Versace has been carving out a new image for her brand – a shift from the luxe glam of red carpets and superyachts, although the inhabitants of that world will be sure to buy into the new Versace vibe. Donatella’s girls are both glamorous and empowered. The sporty look is tough, urban and energetic, judging by the billowing ultra-thin high-tech nylon parkas and blousons, stirrup trousers and dresses (the shapes of which are manipulated by drawstrings). Dresses, skirts and tops are spliced at angles and studded together. Swishy pleated dresses and silky slit skirts gave energy when in movement, and were as soft as the look got.

Bottega Veneta

Model Gigi Hadid and veteran actress Lauren Hutton walked arm in arm down the Bottega Veneta runway, illustrating the breadth of the Italian maison in Tomas Maier’s hands. This was a double celebration of the Bottega’s 50th ­anniversary and Maier’s 15th as its creative director. Menswear and womenswear were combined, and the focus was on easy, elegant clothes in luxurious materials, such as ostrich, crocodile and lamb skin for coats; easy knits and cotton dresses worn with antique-style silver jewellery; and wedge heels. Fifteen handbag styles debuted along with 15 from the archive.

Fendi

Silvia Venturini’s new Kan handbag was a star turn at Milan. The stud-lock bag dotted with candy-coloured studs, rosette embroidery and floral ribbons couldn’t help but charm every woman in the audience. It was the perfect joyful accessory for Karl Lagerfeld’s feminine vintage romp through the wardrobe of Marie Antoinette, with sugary colours, bows, big apron skirts and crisp white embroidery juxtaposed with sporty footballer-stripe tops – effectively updating a historical look.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

My body is the training ground for
All of the reject demons
My inner demons failed to qualify as the right sort of fight
To match with any worthwhile struggles so

My inner demons are over dramatic children
     They do not wage wars
     They throw tantrums
     They stand inside my temples and pound the walls
     When they do not get what they want
     And shriek ringing into my ears until they turn blue
     Then fall asleep when they get tired
     Forgetting that they were supposed to be upset
My inner demons are pretentious
     They call themselves demons
     When they are more like imps
     They tickle at anxiety with the nerve to call it an attack
     And separate velcro and seams with the audacity to say that
     They broke something
     Then press on my heart
     Daring to call it an ache
My inner demons are clumsy
     They walk with their toes curling around my eyelashes
     And slip and spill their handfuls of tears
     At inopportune moments
     As I tremble due to the ones
     That have tripped and tangled themselves
     In my heartstrings and vocal cords
     Causing me to grasp my rib cage in desperate attempts to reach them
     And tear apart the inconveniences
My inner demons are shy
     They sway in my veins to the rhythmic pulse
     With clawed hands outstretched to the blue walled sky
     Cautious to never leave a scratch through my skin
     They dance on nerve endings and muscle tissue
     With footwork just gentle enough to not summon bruises
     And hold themselves still against my capillaries
     As if their presence might distract my blood from
     Its daily circulation
My inner demons are hoarders
     They over-stuff the filing cabinets in my brain
     With reports and analysis of too many situations
     And pick up old emotions and hide them in the recesses
     Of each ventricle and aorta
     Creating pseudo-space for newer, stranger, replicas
     Then pack extra breaths into my lungs
     Storing "just in case" inhalations and overused sighs
     They insulate their homes with extra calories and extra clothes
     Hiding until they can forget themselves
My inner demons are moody
     They like to stitch up new wounds with the thorns of roses
     And pry open old ones with feathers
     They tie my tongue with pages of foreign textbooks
     They tie my tongue in gauze and cotton
     They tie my tongue with other tongues
     And pins and needles and teeth and drawstrings
     They are self depreciating and they know that they
     Are not worthy of their title

My inner demons are pathetic
     I suppose they're right where they belong

I think of You and I see the yellow
Of a raincoat, keeping me dry and warm
You’re good at that, wrapping around me tightly
Your arms like the weathered belt
Hands knotted across my stomach
And the rain-soaked hood
Lightly lapping at my cheek
Not unlike your kiss
The drawstrings tumble down
Like Your hair across my chest
But unlike the raincoat
Which will inevitably, ironically
Soak me when I go to take it off
You will always be my shelter
I could never hang You up.

I once found a unicorn horn
But my peers only met me with scorn
I made such a wish
Turned into a fish
And swan for the sea until morn

I took the horn and held it up high
Said a prayer to the lord of the sky
Thunder did clap
And I fell into a trap
That cost me my left arm and one eye

I cast the horn off a cliff
Into a vast cavernous rift
It bounced right back up
Broke my best cup
Which was going to cause me a tiff

See, my wife had just bought me that glass
And now she would kick my whole ***
First with a boot
Just like in Beirut
Where they stomp you for not wearing a sash

I have fallen right off of the point
Probably from smoking that joint
This was about a fine horn
From a unicorn born
By the oil which was once used to anoint

a religious twist enters the plot
some of you like that a lot
but it was just a trick
like a bordered **** pic
as I turn the piece back to green ***

see I grow for the boys and girls
in a field on top of the world
vast fields of ****
are all that I need
to keep all my drawstrings unfurled

but a unicorn has no need of strings
or any such silly ole things
with a magical neigh
he just sauntered away
so I’ll end this song just as it sings

Icy tangs are all the early morning, budding its flower
The young mother born into the sonata of her own being
That seems so foreign to thick sheltered blood,
My adult notch in this Exquisite Rotation.

Humid skies are as spy glasses to the truth
So says the colossus with our sun for an eye;
She steps out of the illusion beautifully blue
Robed in silks of celestial gold;
The skin hangs taught over the most beautiful
Pair of collarbones you’ve ever seen
The pass of your previous life comes in sublime waves
Of crashing aether and all the souls flee with irreclaimable mirth
Before popping in the atmosphere like spit and wishes
And everyday is the day of rest, a pondering
Of avant-gardens where a savior once walked.
He and his church left the path of the geese
For, he hears not, the pass of prayer on their lips.
But, I do not blame them: their mouths are full
With the sky’s drawstrings, reinvigorated from their disuse,
They’ve no time for the good word.
My family of geese fly for the astral bodies’ abode above
Where the casual speak of poets, philosophers can be hears
Talking about their *** lives, talking about themselves
No longer galvanized by their own recreations.

And as I go to place this thing in the place of pain
Warm rushes in the shifting life-force, the green of
Exuberant joy hits our hydrophobic throats
And we exhale, watching it roll back as the geese fly overhead
With no mind or reason why.

in my mother's basement
once upon a time she ******* a clothes line
though most of the time
the line
was used to hang up
hangers
precariously hooked to a rope becoming less taut
as the years go on

the paradox of garage sale hand-me-downs of broken homes
as bodies for clothes become subtracted they make room for memories
we grow heavier by
as the hangers continue to multiply unused
clothes hangers are sacred
they are ghost as zygotes

back then there were days
I would wear my woven leather belt for an inverted neck tie
on those days
tie the other end to the wooden cross supports in the basement ceiling
then tip-toeing up
on a beat-up old stool
play chicken
a game of chicken with nobody
a side of extra mc chicken sauce for the soul

I wonder now
how if anyone would've wondered
if I had died never really learning how to wear a belt
or how to properly tie a neck-tie
kids today wear their pants too low
and parents back then were way too given to involuntary penance

to up the ante
I would write a list on the wooden beams in the ceiling
each time I got up there
for all the reasons I got up there
in attempt to embellish the exit sign
singing ugly duckling swan song echo
sedated by the attempt
training wheels for Icarus syndrome

it wasn't that my youth was in disillusion
I just never really learned how to measure distance properly
a pair of breaking parents
an unwanted pregnancy
"What's with in arms' reach?"
a game of catch
a game of release
a flight of stairs in one step
"it's not your fault kid
but you're gonna have to get hurt anyway"

funny how when you are teetering on stoic infinity
balanced like an idle pendulum
a noose becomes a life-support system
dance like no one is watching

I don't play those games anymore
my bones have gotten too heavy to bet against
memories I still wish to change
knees too weighted to two-step the precipice
on weekends

and since practicing how to use my legs again
and again
I now prefer walking this earth
wearing my belt around my equator
over drawstrings around my neck

the basement has since been renovated
no more wooden crosses
exposed in the ceiling
I don't play childish games anymore
I just do my laundry there

Curtains closed,
drawstrings tightened
an obtuse mask
the exoskeleton to the soft, vulnerable viscera
crack it off
bit by bit
a fresh truth pours
like a waterfall of secrecy
deep in the jungles
toil & strain
to unveil the little flower
trapped in the onyx-tomb

" Lovestance abuse"
Loving someone who's in love elsewhere is a drug that can leave us strung with out healthcare or no welfare 
I'm addicted 
I'm a hype for her body as cheese is to a mouse, but I didn't read the words that's scripted 
Them very small words which list the effects that occur on the side 
If I would have skimmed through it I would have been warned to only use her when I'm in need, major side effect is greed 
Momentarily I can gain the impression that I'm where she want to be 
Soon as my high come down she's no longer around 
As my heart cracks from the disappearance of her sweet partnership; scientific term co-Caine 
In reality she's with him and no substance can fix that pain 
But the reality and severity never stop me from using 
And it never stopped her from choosing the option to provide me with her toxins 
When my veins bulge she's in control 
When my eyes are red I'm being mislead 
When she dissolves on my tongue everything goes numb 
I try to wing myself off, but I'm withdrawn by the loosening of her drawstrings 
It's hard to rehabilitate 
I need her in bulk 
Grams and ounces is arousing 
But now I need to be astounded by her pounds 
Her motion and her potion keeps me overdosing 
But would I use her all up if I could? 
If her loved one became sick of her *** 
Would I be alarmed and continue to inject her in my arm? 
With witnessing how awful she treat us all in the long-run 
Becoming a *** in the marathon
Her truth holds a secret within 400 meters 
The truth is if she look, taste, and feel like a drug 
She's a drug 
Use her, but don't fall in love

I am so tired, I need to get wasted
but I am pretty sure
any alcohol would curdle in my stomach —

the trashbag I keep under my
clothes, use my intestines as the
drawstrings. I get
anxious, my body is hot and heavy and
moist, everything slides off
my skin and never stops coming back.

I need to get wasted
but sometimes it feels as if everyone I
know is an alcoholic — mother,
sister, uncle, dad. It could happen
to me

and maybe I would finally be happy if
I always had something to
use to drown my body.
Having blood is not enough,
it won’t even stay under my skin. I
am so awake, I could drink
a river

and then another and another
and all my nerves would still feel open.

Tickling each bed of moss, the underground, where human ignorance barely touches us; the sheds of light battling us in our soft, black, velvetine bag. Pull the drawstrings tighter, seal off the mouth of the outside monster to almost a whisper. We can plug our ears with stray buttons, orphan belongings to find voyage in our love.
Let me swim in your mouth, make a home on your teeth where I can admire each fleeing word from your gold lined throats. I can wave goodbye to thrown up anger and set you free, light thick fires on the bead of your tongue (set up camp and warm my hands.) I am here for every part of you.

It was dark and you were doing summersaults
As the church bells rang out in the park
And your dress was tangled under your feet
The circuitry of your emotional shadow was lurking in the backdrop
Like a less important family member in a customary photo
The dark was a haze covering us like coffins
With your hopes and aspirations buried in them like ground water

I hope you will remember someday this happened
And it will come back like a prodigal at his wits end
Embedded in your drawstrings
Like sound waves in a pitch bend

eye am out on a rainy weekend day, feeling  the compulsion to escape the imprisonment of one's living quarters reflecting off of the rain puddles slicks on black city streets, that shine bright like an addiction's craving. For   Single people in a city that values personal beauty and anonymity simultaneous means entering the outside world of a drizzling, more like misting, gloom and be outside dressed as if going to,  and indeed, perhaps some were actually going,  to the gym though for most, off for a Starbucks moment of community.

all dressed to code.  The code says all black, hooded yoga clothes, exercise uniforms of various sort, special string chain mini-pocketbooks  to hold phone of just in case, always all black always, all  of no color, except, by code, by some global understanding of a legislated law, somewhere on the body must be a splash of pink or a luminescent pastel.  

Usually it's the sneakers, but not necessarily. Some pinks streaks were observed in the drawstrings that pulled the hoodies tight around the face or just the laces of the black sneakers...there are rules in the world that must be obeyed though they are never legislated or indeed, never spoken...this is one...the coda of black and pink splash.

wounds winding the
drawstrings of my heart
closed shut. sharp tongued
words twisted right into my
tight lipped barnacled edge
trying to pry me open.
cracked ajar salt water flushes
flooding nicked skin bled red
into soft pink flesh tip me
over slid out of shell and
swallow me whole. tell me the
last time someone left a sweet taste in your mouth
and i will eat the clock.

i. you were made of heat,
chewing the sun in your breath mints,
spitting its seeds in the dirt.
a fog clung around your head, the air
entranced by the warmth
coming from your fingertips.

ii. the river ran by a meadow
of crushed glass and pavement,
black and dusty, and blooming everywhere
were broken necklaces and aluminum
flecks of dew.

iii. footsteps and drawstrings,
when you lost one you’d inevitably
take the other. a soft thread of wind
to cut your throat, a dragging adventure
to nowhere.

iv. if you went home and wrote a poem
about your eyes, you’d forget all about
the wax weighing down your eyelids
and taking away your sleep. it was never
a part of your ideal appearance,
lying on a tile floor and looking for a
one-way mirror to take you back.

.1. Grey which shines
like the light
of a thousand stars.

The stress of schoolwork
spreads through my veins
like a rollercoaster,
the classroom a carnival.

A ceramic dog resting
atop the microwave.

Say hello.
His name is Gerald.
He watches over us.

A minor god the only thing
getting us through our majors.

2. 256 unmade rocket ships.
A castle made of bare bears.
A tower only reached
by the dwindling of time.

3. Bones held together
in a garland, our guards,
warding off the evil spirits,
our fortress safe
from goblins and ghouls.

4. Memories marinated,
pretty polaroids posted peculiarly.
Traded the white squares
for red packets.

Ketchup displayed,
hoping for plates of fries;
enough to feed an army.

5. You bite them,
and they’ll bite back.

Tropical tastiness tattooed
just under 800 times.

On pillows and placards,
lamps and lights,
dressers and drawstrings.

6. A secular resistance,
screaming with pride
and holiday cheer,
specific holiday undecided.

The forest in which the bunny
came and laid his eggs upon;
plastic snowballs among them.

The star a sign from God:
a backwards babe dangling,
marron and gold streaming down,
hands holding us up,
willing us to awake another day,
to add another holiday to the tree,
to get to June, the *** of gold
at the end of the rainbow.

7. Twinking in another time.
Multicolored lights
souring every which way.

As bright as us,
sometimes more.

8. Peppa Pig and her porky pals.
Resting on the windowsill
outside their houses and
play structures.

Perfectly posed as we
ponder profusely.

9. Spheres of fine fur,
floating and sinking
like waves to the tide.

Alive yet not quite sentient.
Bubbles popping
as they reach the surface.

Richard: the plant hastily named.

Third, the one which longs
for elsewhere, its potential
breaking as it reaches the ground.

10. Seven seats. A pair of twins,
studious rocking at their desks,
tucked in, patting their head
as I scratch mine.

The lost triplet, tucked away
near the door, perpetual time-out
for a deed never dedicated.

A hidden fourth,
lost and forgotten,
unneeded and unnamed.

The fifth, the blue moon,
the favorite, the one
never picked last.

A sixth, the found friend.
A grandmother who wheels around,
baking. Bertha is beautiful.

The last, a grey futon.
Permanently perched
is a student, laptop chugging,
these words written
as they’re read to you.

i disappear
into drawstring pants
with the drawstrings cut out
and the tee shirt i wore
for two days
before i was brought more clothes

paper shirt paper pants
see through when tight
and bright yellow non-slip socks

if i try
i can easily return to that place
the white lights
the pills in dixie cups
the isolation room with chalkboard walls

i can return
anytime
to that post-attempt numbness
just shuffling along
destination a to destination b
"okay everyone,
it's time for group"

watch the yellow socks move along
forget you're controlling them
forget your feet are within
forget you exist
it's almost peaceful