For Victoria Beckham, rising to the problem of a Paris catwalk present started at floor stage with the 6in platform heels she wore on the Eurostar journey from London.

“I suppose I really feel a bit extra stress as a result of it’s Paris, however I embrace that,” she stated earlier than her present. “And it’s a great way to wear-test the sneakers to see if they’re snug.”

Beckham is certainly one of three names who flew the flag for British expertise on a single day at Paris vogue week. At simply 26, Harris Reed, who describes his fashion as “romanticism gone non binary”, made his debut on Friday as the brand new inventive director at Nina Ricci.

It got here because the athlete Dina Asher-Smith joined Schitt’s Creek stars Catherine O’Hara and Dan Levy for an all-star entrance row at Loewe, which is designed by Jonathan Anderson.

The star of Beckham’s entrance row was her 11-year-old daughter Harper, who had designed her personal trousersuit for the event. (“She had a really clear imaginative and prescient,” famous her mom.) On the day of the present, Beckham’s label introduced it had turned a revenue in 2022 for the primary time, with revenues rising 42% to £58m.

Paris vogue week has been headlined by a return to energy dressing, a vibe shift which Beckham mirrored in “the largest shoulders I’ve ever finished. A jacket with a broad shoulder, and legs poking out, that’s what feels fascinating to me now. That mixture of power and femininity.”

Beckham put shoulder pads in her clothes for the primary time; denims had knife-sharp entrance creases stiffened with resin. A success of humour lower by way of the glamour and polish as what appeared from a distance to be silk fringing turned out to be acrylic hair extensions.

Reed selected a venue as French as they arrive for his Nina Ricci present – the previous Air France headquarters within the shadow of Napoleon’s tomb – however opening with curve mannequin Treasured Lee in polka-dotted sheer taffeta was a mission assertion about bringing extra numerous and inclusive casting to Paris.

The designer lately informed Vogue that “Paris reveals have all the time struggled somewhat bit as a result of there’s lots of white cisgender women who’re a bit underweight … trying on the French reveals [and] I used to be like: ‘I don’t see femininity expressed in a means that feels curvaceous.’ And that’s deeply vital to the inclusivity, to the femininity, that I need to carry to the helm of this model.”

He’s introducing a broader-size run on the model. The present was a stride into new territory for a home carefully related to the soft-focus, chiffon-draped adverts for its L’Air du Temps fragrance. The home motif, a pair of doves, turned up right here as metallic nipple pasties.

Anderson put his catwalk in a 14th-century chateau as a type of show-and-tell. He “confronted historical past” at Loewe this season – after a decade of ignoring the home’s archives, his newest purses are primarily based on Nineteen Seventies bestsellers – and wished his viewers to do the identical.

So he had them cross a picket drawbridge and go beneath a turreted arch to succeed in the catwalk. This was a high-concept occasion, from the stage set – Lara Favaretto’s artwork set up of 10,000kg of colored confetti – to the peel-on, peel-off knitwear which shall be accessible to buy as stickers.

Avant-fashion can really feel chilly and antiseptic, however Anderson makes it sing by tuning into how garments categorical ideas and emotions. The unconscious defensive gestures of holding an elbow with the other hand to create a barrier with one arm, or of pulling sleeves down to hide your arms, have been baked into the best way the material fell.

A silk duchesse costume appeared to be suspended precariously from one gold clasp on the collarbone, bringing a temper of high-drama becoming that channelled the vitality of a particular night time out. Anderson, backstage after the present, referred to as it “emotional engineering”.