The key style lessons to take from Paris Fashion Week

Next season's most memorable looks may already be in your wardrobe, as this season it was all about style with staying power
Dior
Dior

Slow fashion or conscious consumption, put in layman’s terms as buying less, might be the only takeaway worth registering from this week’s round of shows in Paris.

Certainly, with Greta Thunburg dominating the zeitgeist, a desire for “more” feels as passe as a pair of fur-trimmed ankle boots.

For the best of the collections on offer in the French capital this week an abated approach prevailed, with designers focusing on classics and reinterpreting signature codes in order to move their visions forward.

This means less triggering of customers to shop like the world is ending and more personal celebrations of fashion that’s designed with an extended shelf life.

From this emerges the 10-year trend and the items designed to see you through the next decade and beyond. Many you own already — witness the white shirt as celebrated at Valentino — some you might find in your local secondhand shop, all made to live on forever.

Here’s our guide to the looks to last.

1. The power print

Balenciaga
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Demna Gvasalia’s masterplan for Balenciaga doesn’t involve sudden U-turns or lurching from one trend to the next but a determination to create and redefine cult classics. His stomping “dad” trainers — a prerequisite for the fashion-attuned in cities across the globe — stand as proof of that. The designer’s way with florals — always bold, bordering on lewd — is to create long-sleeved dresses with angular and unapologetically awkward silhouettes and has redefined the way women embrace print. Certainly this signature has allowed a new sense of power to those who prefer to wear it. In Gvaslia’s hands, pretty is power and it’s going nowhere fast.

2. The denim skirt

Givenchy

Clare Waight Keller created the denim that punctuated her latest collection for Givenchy by upcycling jeans leftover from the Nineties. This meant each piece that appeared on the catwalk — be it frayed shorts or full-length A-line skirts — brought with it a lived-in aesthetic and a sense of authenticity as well as being unique. Her intention, to de-sexualise the era that brought us waifish-thin models and barely-there slip dresses, breathed new life into the denim skirt. Dig yours out now and team with a delicate silk blouse.

3. The pencil skirt

Dries van Noten
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Dries Van Noten meets Christian Lacroix — a fashion fan’s fantasy collaboration was realised on Wednesday afternoon in Paris when the two designers came together to make history on the catwalk. Combining Lacroix’s flamboyant theatrics with Van Noten’s practical grasp of commercialism, OTT taffeta and flamenco ruffles were transformed into more wearable propositions — as showcased most spectacularly in the form of a surprisingly versatile brocade satin floral pencil skirt, designed to look as good with your work shirt as it is a zebra print cocktail blouse.

4. The white shirt

Valentino

Reduction and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino are not an obvious pairing but thanks to an interest in grisaille — the 16th-century technique through which motifs are imagined in all-white versions — that’s where his latest collection wound up. At its heart was the classic white shirt, an item the designer toyed with throughout his show which enlisted feathers, flounces and embroidery to lend couture style details. His message: sometimes the foundations are the most beautiful part of the masterpiece.

5. The heirloom

Alexander McQueen

Few objects have more longevity than that which comes with its own story. Sarah Burton’s latest collection for Alexander McQueen took this idea to the next level, with the designer bringing together the whole company — from accountants to interns to the design team — to embroider its headlining dress. ““Everybody came together to do it,” said Burton of the piece which ignited a conversation about community and the preservation of craftsmanship. “There’s so much noise in the world — this was about having a moment to think and be as a studio and all work together on something”.

6. The tux jacket

Balmain
Antonio Barros / SplashNews.com

If the soundtrack of late Nineties/early Noughties chart toppers — think Britney Spears to NSYNC — was anything to go by, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing understands pop culture phenomena better than most on the Paris fashion circuit. With the front-row glitterati, which included Kris Jenner, outshone only by the extravagantly sequin-strewn cocktail attire on the catwalk, there was no doubting the young designer knows his audience. Though it seems even the peacocks of Paris Fashion Week can still be wooed by a beautifully cut classic tuxedo jacket — providing there’s a banana-yellow ball gown also thrown in the mix.

7. The polo shirt

Paco Rabanne
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Paco Rabanne has become a byword for chainmail mesh dresses. And while the brand’s signature silver showstoppers were still a feature, they did not define this collection. Instead, designer Julien Dossena sought to tap into a brave new world of realism, delivered through a fantastical lens. As a result, his was an offering that was approachable in every sense of the word, whether through its optimistic pop art prints or casual jersey separates used to substitute or soften its metal couture. See the colour pop polo shirt for more details.

8. Leather trousers

Hermes
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For customers of France’s most prestigious leather house, there are few things more vulgar than a flash-in-the-pan trend, or worse, anything that one might consider unrefined. Undoubtedly, for those with the means to shell out top dollar on the precisely edited aesthetic on which Hermès deals, it is craftsmanship and enduring quality that appeals. Next season’s offering is a masterclass in those skills with butter-soft leather used to subtly nod to a Nineties silhouette. Leather trousers, cut loose to allow easy movement and a lived-in look, are the stuff of which investment purchase dreams are made.

9. The peacoat

Maison Margiela 
Maison Margiela

German male model Leon Dame’s fierce power walk may have stolen the social media spotlight but there was no lack of great content in Maison Margiela’s latest show. “It’s about liberation, it’s about having a voice,” said designer John Galliano, who cited activists including pioneering physicist Marie Curie and Second World War nurse Edith Cavell among his muses. In essence, his was a collection that focused on uniform, whether overtly — such as the white lab coats or military khakis — or, in a more subtle sense, like the beautifully oversized printed pea coat which could dutifully serve any style-conscious city slicker through their 9-to-5.

10. The boilersuit

Christian Dior

“Fortunately, there are the flowers,” said Christian Dior, an avid botanist who was consistently inspired by blooms, whether it was with an embroidered floral gown or a blooming tulip skirt. But for the house’s current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri, next season’s inspiration lay not in decorating a woman with flowers but imagining her as the gardener. This translated on to the catwalk — lined with 164 trees due to be replanted through local conservation projects after the show — with a host of hardy wardrobe perennials, from workman’s jackets to tweed tailored shorts along with a series of striking boiler suits designed to stay looking fresh throughout the seasons.

11. The trench

Loewe

There’s never just one idea occupying Loewe’s intellectual mastermind, Jonathan Anderson. But for his latest offering, the designer sought to cut through the noise. “It’s about clarity,” he said backstage, referencing both the venue — pure white and framed with voile curtains — and the collection, artisanal craftsmanship applied to the theory of the modern wardrobe. Accordingly, classics prevailed. An A-line trench coat finished with a leather collar served as the ideal investment for anyone on the hunt for a new forever piece. Alternatively, dig your trench out from the back of your wardrobe for an appropriately straight-forward update.

12. Flares

Celine

Those who bought into Hedi Slimane’s Celine rebrand last season found their loyalty rewarded on Friday night as the designer sought to cement his new house codes into an enduring legacy. In a continuation of the “bourgeois” sensibility introduced in February, hero pieces spanned checked culottes, pussy bow blouses and perhaps, most notably, the newly-iconic Celine jeans — still flared, and this time teamed with boxfresh white high-tops soon to also join the cult list. In a pinch, a rummage through your local charity shop in search of Seventies denim cast-offs and your trusty Converse will serve you well.

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