Summer prints contributed to the effusion of colour and graphic interest in the major trend shows, bringing hopeful verdicts on prospects for the Spring/Summer 2015 season. Fresh prints and floral colours set the scene. Milano Unica showed the importance of botany, green glamour and nature with a positive gloss for fashion fabrics. Flower design ranged from small, wallpaper, ditzy images to large, splashy full-blown garden blooms - often meant to be used in panels or mixed with disparate elements, allowing free rein to the designer to make bespoke statements on fabrics made from high-quality fibres. Florals ranged from photo images to minuscule Liberty prints. There has been a great upsurge in depicting country pleasures, colours and ideas, with the green appeal of ramie, linen, cotton and cool wool for summer echoed in its decoration. Italian design guru Angelo Uslenghi cited Pope Francis as an inspiration. As well as serenity, a word bandied about to describe the trend for watercolours and calm floral prints, there remains the appeal of the sparkling, with brighter, brasher colours featuring bubblegum shades, and a Schiaparelli pink thrown into the mix for fun. New techniques seen in the shows included multidimensional origination, involving embroidering, dyeing and printing, with digital images just one of the multi-layers that are created for complex, high-value fabrics, which have the cachet of being different and visibly complex. Craft being one of the themes of the season, the multi-dimensional approach fitted in well. Super-realist Japanese looks came in a Moda In trend-area design by Ciabatti, who showed a photographic cherry blossom on a cotton fabric, while at the other end of the spectrum Denertex had created a pale china-blue spray of flowers, printed intermittently on a white fabric with a spot weave. Watercolours and slightly smudged florals were applied to realistic images of individual blooms, whether roses, wisteria or other garden flowers. Graffiti inspiration, which is basically tamed street art, continues to influence the fashion trend, with fabrics featuring real images or arty charcoal drawings, splashy neons or a mixture of different shapes and asymmetric patterns, often over-sprayed to look like a graffiti wall in a European city, with grey and black the major colours at play, Smaller, more-controlled images took the look upmarket for classic collections.