The bodycon backlash and Macron minis: 9 style lessons from Paris fashion week

How to Be a Womansounds like a pitch for a best-selling teen manual, or possibly a gross-out movie. But it’s also a question designers are visibly (finally) grappling with. At least they should be. Yet years can go past, without anyone in the fashion industry challenging dated paradigms. Witness the monster high heels that were ubiquitous in magazine shoots and on catwalks long after almost every woman you looked at on a bus, a tube or walking down a street was wearing trainers or flats of some kind. The clue, I suppose, was in the walking. The only way to navigate a life in heels is if you can coast through it on wheels.

These days there’s a new pragmatism running through collections. That doesn’t mean romance and femininity have been expunged in favour of utilitarianism. You only have to look at the flounces and frills rippling across hems and shoulders to know that. But femininity is multi faceted. Designers have been pushing themselves to address life as it is really lived – with some qualifications. Catwalk fashion is not about reality, exactly, but about ideas and inspiration. It should at least feel relevant however.

These Spring collections do. Top of any list of useful innovations must be the increasingly polished street-wear ideas that almost every designer is incorporating into their shows. Let’s start with the ruffled white trainers at Joie, a mid priced Californian brand that eschews catwalk shows, but still presents in a show-room in Paris . When Joie signs up to a trend, you know it has touched a nerve.

That said, you probably didn’t know you needed ruffled trainers. Once you have a pair of souped-up sports shoes - and there’s a variation to suit all tastes, from Celine’s sleek minimalist ones and Loewe’s luxurious plimsoles to Valentino’s strange-but-can’t-stop-looking-at-them scuba bootees – you’ll wonder how you did without. Not least because they’re so comfortable yet more dressed-up than the average sneaker.

The same is true of the multiple variations on the suit. The trouser suit has been gaining prominence on the catwalks for seasons and in all honesty, it isn’t being worn much by most women, not as a matching set– except at night, usually in velvet or satin. That might change with next Spring’s pastel choices. A lilac or pale pink trouser suit feels much less bland and corporate than a black or navy one.

Finding different ways of expression the purposeful intention of a suit has become a preoccupation. The stretch-knit tops and matching skirts from Stella McCartney (among others) are one appealing option. The shin or ankle length shirt, in heavy duty silk, worn either done up or unbuttoned over toning trousers is another elegant solution, especially at night, when it comes into its own as a modern update on the classic cocktail dress.

There are plenty of suit variations in denim, suede (see Hermes) and even some in sweatshirting. The latter might sound implausible, but with skillful tailoring and up-town details, from buckles to shiny-tipped drawstring, puff sleeves and contrast trims, a good quality heavy weight jersey can look as sleek and smart as wool – and think, you can machine wash it.

Functionality comes in degrees in Paris. It might be a jacket with an integral rucksack at Sacai, or it could be a recalibration of values at a house like Givenchy, where the strict pencil skirting and drainpipes of recent years have been replaced, under the artistic direction of new appointee Clare Waight Keller, with slouchy wool skirts with pleated panels – a subtle update of a classic that’s just different enough, possibly, to tempt you into investing in yet another black or white skirt.

The range of talent in Paris – from eye catching gimmicks (Balenciaga’s jackets that had a secondary jacket attached to them) and couture-level artistry ( Sarah Burton’s stunning taupe trench coats which spliced gabardine with brocade) to infinitesimal tweaks (the lush Walls’ ice cream colour mixes at Celine, flyweight dresses, but loose over the torso, but not stupidly over-sized) – make this a stand-out season.

Best of all, there’s a pleasing push-back against old fashioned rules that feels more sensible than perverse. Sequins for day? Velvet for summer? Why not if it feels right. LA

The transformed trench 

Thomas Burberry would be proud. So, in the name of fair play, would Aquascutum, since both claim to have invented the trench coat. Whatever. Almost 170 years later it remains central to every fashionable wardrobe, and a good many unfashionable ones. The former will be updating the basic formula with versions so exquisitely and ingeniously reworked, it’s hard to believe they might also qualify as functional.

Sarah Burton’s melded lustrous, delicate looking brocades with gabardine to make a dress-coat hybrid you would want to wear everywhere, for ever. (There was also a leather version, embroidered with birds and immensely beautiful, although you’d probably have to pawn your children).

At Celine, Pheobe Philo’s were looped up at them hems to create cape backs or cut slim and belted high (another coat-ress hybrid), or cut from leather and embellished with lacey frogging. Valentino’s were truncated, transparent and multi-pocketed. Regardless who invented, the trench belongs to all of us. LA

Daytime sparkle

I took a survey of front-row shoes this morning, and while there was a mix of trainers and loafers, sandals, mules and boots, they had one thing in common: sparkle. Before 10am. On the catwalks too, there’s been a sprinkling of fairy dust, and sequins and mirrors, paillettes and sparkly latex now seem perfectly normal for daytime.

There they were, livening up a cream blazer at Sonia Rykiel, a black-and-red mini-dress at Dior and virtually every shirt at Yves Saint Laurent. At Moncler, sequins were paired with grey mark sportswear. But it was Celine that stood out with a full-length white polo-neck dress that would have Princess Leia groping for her credit card. SS

Summer velvet

Velvet? For summer? Apparently so. This least seasonally appropriate fabric cropped up in mint green and purple on padded versions of bed jackets at Balenciaga, and on a men’s leopard-print navy suit at Givenchy. But it was Valentino who went to town with pink velvet evening shoes with bows on, and crimson and eau-de-nil velvet yolks worn under sparkly vests.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, its creative director, had panels of the material on day dresses as well as showing devoré evening dresses (I can’t have said ‘devoré’ since the heyday of English Eccentrics c. 1989). There was even a full-length floor-length slouchy dress in the plainest fire-engine scarlet. Fashion is clearly having a hot plush. SS

The artful dodger

In between shows this week, editors could be found visiting the Dior exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Irving Penn at the Grand Palais, the newly opened Musee Yves Saint Laurent. On the catwalks, though, designers had looked rather further back for their artistic inspirations.

At Comme des Gar?ons, it was 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose Vertumnus portrait of Roman emperor Rudolf II was printed onto sculptural trapeze dresses, and at Vivienne Westwood, sun drenched idylls and Francois Boucher’s 18th century nymphs were panelled onto silk dresses - though non conformist Westwood, and her husband turned creative director Andreas Kronthaler, couldn’t resist defacing theirs a little. CGE

Pearly Queens

While pearls will never be out of style, they have been out of fashion (which is a very different thing) for some seasons now. But if you’ve had yours tucked away, now is the time to polish them off - and perhaps add to your collection, as even the elegant, understated pearl has been subjected to the current call for maximalism.

At Sonia Rykiel, baroque pearls the size of cough lozenges made for modern necklaces. At Alexander McQueen, they were piled on - dripping from gunmetal collars and ear cuffs, or set, like mosquitoes in amber, into the transparent heels of buckled boots. If all that sounds a bit much, go back to basics - McQueen also paired them with cardigans. CGE

Caress Bags

A clutch in name is a clutch in nature, but for spring, bags will be less clutched, more caressed. A clawed death grip is no fate for Mulberry’s (the British label showed in Paris this season) petrol blue and red striped pouch, or the evening options - blush pink, black or bright green, all studded with jewels. Balenciaga’s were equally embellished, this time in a band that covered the fingers: instant jewellery.

Since ‘caressing’ requires a free hand, that means no more texting as you walk- which in our opinion, can only be a good thing. At Lacoste, chain straps were decorative only; Dries van Noten’s bags were held close to the body, tucked onto the hip; and at Celine, soft leather pouches were tucked firmly under one arm, for women that mean business- but stylishly so. CGE

Bodycon backlash

Whether a nod to the Duchess of Cambridge’s pregnancy or simply a reaction to the athleisure bodycon favoured by young LA, there has been a definite shift towards the oversized in Paris this week.

At Sacai, a floral pinafore dress, swinging wide from shoulder straps, closed the show. Miu Miu’s loose suits skimmed, rather than sculpted, and Giambattista Valli showed lace trapeze dresses that fell to the ankle without even a hint of bosom or hip. And after a month on the fashion week circuit- eating out every night in New York, Milan and Paris, a looser silhouette certainly appealed to the fashion press sitting ringside. CGE

The Macron mini

“Les jambes de Brigitte Macron n’en finissent pas de faire jaser” read one French magazine headline this summer. Loosely translated: the 64 year-old new first lady of France has been the subject of water cooler chat thanks to her penchant for showing off her slim legs in mini skirts.

While most fashion designers would never deign to admit following the minutiae of gossip columns, the influence of Madame Macron could be felt in abbreviated hemlines across the catwalks.

At Chloe, there were pelmets in black or duck-egg blue. Chanel had shimmering tweed versions. Valentino vied for the Macron vote with sleek LBDs while embellished mini-length shifts were the order of the day at Dior- coming to a wardrobe at the Elysee Palace soon? BH

Delicate dress + stompy boots

For those of you searching for a one sentence answer to the question, ‘what shall I wear next summer?’ Here it is: a delicate dress and a pair of stompy boots or a sporty shoe - definitely not pretty but built for purpose. This dreamily easy to achieve equation comes with plenty of room for interpretation.

Jonathan Anderson at Loewe offered the practical take with his ‘craft-savvy traveller’ lace-up suede desert boots and relaxed maxi dresses. For occasions demanding a jolt of attitude, Givenchy’s Clare-Waight Keller introduced the v-point boot as a counterpoint to diaphanous tiered dresses while Chloe’s embroidered cottons and ditsy florals were lent edge with chunky buckled bikers. BH

The chicest and jazziest catwalk looks from Paris Fashion Week