This season, menswear worked all the angles: futurism, the elegant now, and retro sport. While Dior Homme's clean, uniform suits and symbol-patterned knitwear imagined a sleek superhero, Hermès and up-and-comer Damir Doma played with ski style.

Designer Yosuke Aizawa's utility and technologically driven sportswear brand White Mountaineering has been on the international style radar almost since its inception in 2006. Its first show was a coup for Pitti as the brand still only sells to a handful of stores in Europe and in the US, where it's carried at Bergdorf Goodman and the Webster in Miami.

Pitti Uomo in Florence is fashion's early riser. In the midst of January pre-collections, this first big show run of international menswear is already in high season.

Extraordinary travel is Louis Vuitton's stomping ground, and so what better place to explore menswear's current mountaineering obsession than the world's most exclusive peaks: the Himalayan heights and forests of the kingdom of Bhutan. One of the most exotic and undisturbed pieces of nature, official permission is required for a visit.

At least half the fun of fashion is the package it's wrapped up in, right? Maybe it's more than half. This was elaborately celebrated yesterday by shock-and-awe menswear shows from Bernhard Willhelm and Thom Browne.

Maison's Kitsuné's Gildas Loaëc and Masaya Kuroki are a foxy pair. Their music label celebrated its first decade last year, clothes arrived a little later on, and, since then, Kitsuné's ascent in the wardrobes of stylish, young Parisians has been lightning swift.

It's a rare season when fellow Belgians Walter Van Beirendonck and Raf Simons are on the same wavelength, but within a few hours of each other yesterday afternoon, they offered two modern homages to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, full of color, flow and panache.