Paris fashion week: Stella McCartney’s show ‘hard to beat’

For style spotters, it’s hard to beat Stella McCartney’s morning show at the Paris Opera where coffee, tea and fruit are thoughtfully provided beforehand for a glamorous international crowd who dress for the occasion, many with an eye on the photographic opportunities outside.

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Fashion designer Stella McCartney acknowledges the applause of the audience after her show in Paris today. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

A number sport her famous

Falabella

chain bag, an item that has generated legions of copies and may explain how, at 43, the British designer in a 50/50 partnership with luxury giant

Kerings

for the last thirteen years, now turns over £3.4 million in annual profits.

McCartney’s ability to transform mundane workwear like pinafores and boiler suits into luxurious and desirable fashion items highlighted her tailoring strengths in her spring collection.

The jaunty opening of cotton matelot trousers and wide leg culottes in creamy white, navy or vanilla followed by pinafores with oversize brass buckles and denim dresses with appliqué threadwork captured everyday ease and utility in feminine and stylish ways.

“I create pieces that aren’t going to landfill.. clothes that are meant to last”, she said recently.

Peek-a-boo cut-outs, a trend in many spring collections, featured here too in her languid knits, cut asymmetrically in powder and butter shades accessorised with oversized amber necklace chains, though dangling hems are not easy to carry off in long skirts.

Patchworked organzas in pale prints had more dash than the “jigsaw” dresses with suspended hand embroideries and the wispy finale of billowing silk dresses and trenchcoats had that slouchy , carefree look that may capture the spirit of summer, but, with filmy pyjamas and see through black lace negligee dresses, also that of the boudoir.

McCartney is well known for scrupulously avoiding leather, but Swiss company Akris,has on the contrary, no such compunctions. Their show in the Grand Palais was another mostly all white collection with tennis dresses and pinafores in soft calf inset with cotton voile. Their use of linen, cotton, “broken paint prints” and trellised crochet made for one of their best collections in a long time, fresh, crisp and unfussy.