With four new designers at important Milan brands and a celebration of the late Giorgio Armani ’s 50-year career, the generational change that has long been discussed finally arrived in Milan Fashion Week. We may have even gotten the more elusive vibe shift we’ve all been longing for in Dario Vitale ’s gutsy Versace debut. I heard it compared it to Alessandro Michele’s own agenda-setting first collection at Gucci 10 years ago. There were naysayers, too, but the confidence with which Vitale mixed vintage Gianni Versace references and the way he swapped airbrushed perfection for real-world rawness certainly got the kids sitting up and paying attention, and that counts for a lot.

“There is a willingness to push for what feels authentic, what people really want—looks for the street, not only for the red carpet,” Francesca Ragazzi tells me in today’s episode of The Run-Through.

Demna’s coming-out party at Gucci, while not officially a debut (that will come next February), made a lot of noise. From the short movie directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, The Tiger, to the custom-built theater in Milan’s stock exchange and the celebrities in the audience, the brand is really getting behind its new creative director. And why not? Demna is among fashion’s most audacious creators, and he’s made an art of mastering the attention economy.

Simone Bellotti is more understated, but that makes him an ideal fit for Jil Sander. Louise Trotter proved she thoroughly understands Bottega Veneta ’s core USP—high craft—in her own debut too.

With so much shifting at the top houses, it might’ve been hard for the city’s independents to make news. But don’t discount the ingenuity of Sunnei ’s Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo. They walked away from their 10-year-old label—disagreements with investors, presumably—in headline-grabbing fashion, with a staged Christie’s auction in which they sold off not just their brand IP but also themselves to the highest bidders. Such brass! I’m sure we’ll see them pop up somewhere else.

Also discussed in this episode of The Run-Through: Armani’s lasting legacy, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’s quest to keep us guessing, and a front-row cameo by none other than Miranda Priestly at Dolce & Gabbana. Vogue Italia’s Ragazzi gets it exactly right when she says, “I found the whole week very cinematic.” Please tune in.