Paris, Day Three: The Shows That Mattered

By the third day the season has found its voice, and for once it is quiet. Fewer logos, fewer screens, a great deal of careful tailoring. These are the shows we are still thinking about.

The printworks

The morning began in a former printworks, where the benches were set along the old press floor and the models walked between the machines. The clothes matched the room: long, dark and slightly inky, with seams you could trace with a finger and a single, startling lining in pale yellow.

The tennis hall

By the afternoon the mood had lifted. A tennis hall, a clay floor, white lines left uncovered, and a collection that took ease seriously: wide trousers, soft jackets, knitwear in the colours of old sports kit. Nothing was loud and nothing needed explaining.

The corridor

The last show of the day was the most ambitious: a single, very long corridor, lit from one end, with guests standing on both sides. The collection was about perspective, and about proportion: long coats, shortened sleeves, a skirt that stopped just where you wished it would.

What it means

If there was a theme, it was restraint with a point of view. Nobody was trying to shock; everybody was trying to be right. After a decade of noise, that is a surprisingly bold thing to do.