The once unstoppable Burberry juggernaut has hit some speed bumps of late, so when Christopher Bailey called his new Burberry collection “I ♥ Classics,” it suggested he could be about to propose something surefire commercial. Last season was sheeny-metallic-futurism, so this season went primitive. Sort of. Animal prints were all over the details: pointy leopard shoes, a tiger lapel on a tech-fabric jacket, some zebra. And yes, there was a conventionally pleasing camel duffel coat, but another coat in camel had a black leather revers. Here are some of my favorite looks from this Fall 2013 Collection.

“Simplicity is so difficult. To make perfect something that is normal and classic is much harder.” And make no mistake, Prada was in pursuit of perfection this season. The perfect sweater, the perfect shirt, the perfect fabric. It took nearly three months just to get right the perfect shades of red, blue, and yellow. “You want to wear everything,” Miuccia enthused, “and that is really what fashion is.” Innocence, perversity, banality: Head back to the collection armed with that gleesome threesome and another vision—a peculiar hybrid of the fifties and the nineties—began to insinuate itself. The velvet-trimmed coat collars, the ruffled shirts, the drainpipes, and the thick-soled brogues had a Teddy Boy tang. But it was mixed in with something that felt like Prada menswear from an earlier time.

“Epic masculinity.” That was the florid claim Jil Sander’s press notes made on her behalf. There is no masculinity more epic than a military man’s, so it seemed logical enough that Sander’s collection would draw on military references: double-breasted great coats, stand-up collars, army greens and Russian reds, maybe even a bandolier effect in the crisscross pattern on a sweater. But no, insisted Sander. No theme, just mood. And the mood was vintage Jil: high-closing three-button suits, elongated knits, mysteriously textured fabrics. It was, the designer claimed, important that the clothes encapsulated her past. That equaled integrity for her. The sleeveless bits and pieces were a throwback to the vulnerable Sander boy (even if they were rendered in black pony skin).

The stated theme was tartan, a material similarly flexible: It’s as comfortable going trad as punk. (And given that the Met is toasting punk this spring, expect to see a lot more of it in the months to come.) Yet despite a few showpiece items, like safety-pin-snared dinner jackets and waistcoats, the show as a whole struck a more muted note than many that have come before. Moschino is on the hunt for bigger business, and some of its stores are requesting more “probable” clothes. The plaid suits, coats, pants, and parkas on display here were perfectly nice, but seemed lost with the odder shows of seasons past. (A series screen-printed with the Tokyo skyline didn’t gel.)