Miranda Kerr's back, and Chloé brings sexy back

Chemena Kamali called her third Chloé collection "The Obsession Collection," and staged it on October 1 at the Observatoire de Paris as a love letter to the house itself. "I wanted something deeply personal — to return to things I love, the emotions they trigger in me," she said in the show notes. The result was the most decorated Chloé in her tenure: 19th-century archival threadwork translated onto everything from weightless organza to crisp cotton, broderie anglaise on long scalloped dresses, and lace cut away into what she termed "romantic harnesses" that frame bare skin with delicate lines.

What kept it from floating away was the counterweight. Kamali interrupted the romance with khaki utility coats, safari jackets and glossy hooded rainwear, then went further: transparent vinyl macs in pink, smoky gray, scarlet and classic yellow, worn over trench coats and frothy dresses, each with an oversized sou'wester hat. A single silver-and-gold-plated flower micro-bra read half flower child, half goddess. The finale grounded it all in tailoring — lean 1970s flared trousers and blazers nodding to the house's 1972 'Noel' suit, each worn over a lace lingerie bodysuit.

The front row dressed the part: Claudia Schiffer, Natasha Lyonne, Cynthia Erivo, Claire Danes, Alexa Chung, Maude Apatow, Emma Mackey, Inès de Ramon and Lou Doillon, trading the usual neutrals for canary yellow, cherry red and lilac, Paddington bags in every size. And the casting coup: Apple Martin, 22, daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, made her runway debut in a white broderie anglaise maxi dress with balloon sleeves. One shadow over the celebration: WWD read the show as a possible swan song, and Glitz reports Kamali may be departing — unconfirmed, but the room gave her a standing ovation anyway.

Nine years is a long time between runways. Miranda Kerr, 43, closed the gap on September 30, walking for Stella McCartney at Paris Fashion Week — her first fashion show since Moschino in June 2017, and her third appearance for the house after 2011 and 2013. She wore a seafoam green dress knotted at the waist, with cutouts and oversized shoulder pads: soft, sculptural, unmistakably Stella.

The casting told a bigger story about where the industry's head is. Karlie Kloss and Amber Valletta walked beside her; Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Hill, Kelsea Ballerini, Sabrina Elba and Kat Graham watched from the front row. After seasons of anonymous new faces, the return of a defining 2010s supermodel — on her own terms, as a 43-year-old founder — landed as an event rather than a stunt. Her own Instagram carousel announcing the return drew 66K likes in about two days; E! News' clip of the walk did 11K.

There is a neat continuity with this week's wider palette, too. Yesterday's edition noted Paris dressing like the sea; Kerr's seafoam green keeps the water metaphor afloat. On feet, the show stayed in-house: Kelsea Ballerini wore Falabella slingbacks, Kerr wore chain-detail pumps, Valentina Ferrer the Elsa pointed slingback.

Jonathan Anderson built his Dior Spring/Summer 2027 around an unlikely muse: the wénwán walnut, the hand-polished Chinese scholar's nut whose patina deepens with time. "Coming across wénwán walnuts reminded me of how we can find knowledge and preciousness in nature," he said. He printed the show notes as a calligram shaped like a walnut, in English and French, with the line: long before a tree spreads its branches to the sky, the nut holds the knowledge of its form. The archive, in other words, is the seed.

On September 29, 65 looks crossed a white runway laid over the Bassin Octogonal in the Tuileries, and the clothes followed the metaphor: patient rather than loud. Inlaid Chantilly lace, double duchess satin, silk mousseline and organza moved from transparency to opacity; sharp jackets sat open over skirts that seemed to float. Anderson kept asking his own questions — what if tailleur were imagined as flou, how light can a garment be, can lace hold air — and answered them with uneven hems, loosely draped scarves and botanical prints like watercolor in the rain. Any prissiness was broken up by python-effect metallic trousers and shirts left loose and untucked.

It was also the rare spectacle with an afterlife: Bureau Betak's set trees will be replanted in the Tuileries, where they will keep growing. For a collection about seeds, a fitting coda.

The first clue to Drew Henry's Courrèges was sitting on a corner table in the all-white showroom: a pumpkin-colored cloche hat by Jean Barthet, so shapeless it looked as if someone had sat on it, revived from the pre-1964 archive. After five years of Nicolas Di Felice's precise monochrome futurism, Henry — South African, Central Saint Martins, ex-Phoebe Philo and Burberry — went the other way entirely. His September 30 debut at the Palais de Tokyo was loose, colorful and untidy on purpose.

The codes are all there — ribbed knits, vinyl jackets, the A-line dress — but zhuzhed: lean jackets with raw edges and metallic logos, thick belts worn high on the waist, baggy pants in zesty colors, chalky pastels against lime and Kelly green. He flipped the A-line dress backward and made it unisex, dotted cage jumpsuits with tufty blooms, and sent out cartoon-flower bra tops and hot pants with a cutout over one hip. The Impression gave it 8.3 and called it "an opening proposition"; the Daily Front Row praised the frayed-edge suits with belts left undone and hanging. His mood board said it best: James Baldwin, Tracy Chapman, Cher — "quite punky."

It is early — weeks are not months, and a debut is a sketch, not a statement. But after seasons of houses hiring for safety, a designer who says "I had so much fun" and means it is news in itself.