Welcome to the HERO SS15 daily roundup – the most important shows, themes and concepts, contextually curated for your reading pleasure. The best place to understand the week’s events in fashion.

Hear the word Versace and the first thing that comes to mind wouldn’t be pragmatism. Yet there was a logic to Donatella’s new collection, styled as it was with models carrying Medusa plates – you won’t find anything better to eat your dinner off – and bed linen tucked into underwear as togas. The house makes a hell of a lot of lovely stuff and it’s all so hedonistically fabulous (let’s get the F word out the way) of course you’d pile it on if it was all around you. Ever smoked using a Versace ashtray? *Exhales* Try it. 

Versace SS15: Look 19

A Versace reality, lived by a hidden tribe of those that walk straight through airport security without taking any of their heavy metal off, is a reality all the same. On the first day of Milan, other designers too would emphasise their own real world.

When John Varvatos took his bow, he was clad in the same relaxed downtown rocker wear as his mannequins. This is a designer for whom music is an eternal springboard, and following last season’s Kiss collection we got a day at the opera, inspired by the Queen record A Night at the Opera.

What manifested was a loose, romantic take on the formal, evening for day in crinkled, washed and lived-in. That is John Varvatos’ reality.

This season, Neil Barrett emphasised lightness. Yes, that meant the show opened with a really nice white story, but as the colours changed the paper-fine leather, grey marl, light indigo denim and chino cotton stayed.

Neil Barrett’s reality is one of recognisable codes; denim jackets, bikers, harringtons, parkas, sweatshirts, twisted to become special. The modernist up-cycler offers a viewpoint sympathetic to the boys who pound his catwalk soundtracked by booming rap instrumentals – they would likely turn up to his casting in their own versions of these clothes.

The Ermenegildo Zegna Couture reality? It is designer Stefano Pilati himself, so strong are his personal styling flourishes with scarves, belting things up and robe-like outerwear.

Ermenegildo Zegna SS15: Look 19

It was all over the runway today, and when the collection is taken apart, seen as individual pieces, Zegna’s customer will find themselves with an enviable luxury wardrobe to play with. For their own reality.

Check out our roundups of Milan days two, three and four plus London and Paris.