Philipp Plein

You could just about see the gold-leafed tower of Fondazione Prada through the tangle of wrecked cars—including two Rolls-Royces—that littered the Porta Romana rail yard that was Philipp Plein's show space this season. "Maybe one day there will be a Fondazione Plein," he said backstage: "If I have so much money from my shareholders that I don't know where to put it." Iconoclast or crass? That depends where you're coming from. For sure, though, Plein has shouldered his way inside the gates of Milan fashion week through force of ambition and serial entrepreneurialism. His shoe business alone has gone from nothing to 60 million euros per annum in four years. But this season's big-budget (2 million euros) production was the idea, he said, of his girlfriend.