Blazy's Birds, Michele's Bustiers, the New Boudoir

One year into the job, Matthieu Blazy staged the week's consensus triumph: 83 looks under the Grand Palais dome, 95 illuminated birds overhead, a collection titled 'Different Faces of the Same Coin' that reads Gabrielle Chanel as many women in one. The opening look said everything — a sheer ivory knit slip with a feathered corsage, carrying Coco's own 2.55 from the archives. Lingerie as origin story.

Then the codes, taken apart rather than revived. Raw-edged tweed gilets and pencil-skirt suits worn against bare skin. A cropped grey tweed jacket with frayed pink trim over a knee-length skirt, cinched by a wide red belt, nothing underneath but confidence. And the technical headline: 'smocked tweed' — a stretch, sportswear-easy fabric the house calls a performance garment, the modern answer to the jersey that once freed women from corsets.

The flou passage stole the show: layered silk transparencies printed with clouds, billowing like weather from morning to nightfall, then Britney's 'Gimme More' as Dua Lipa and Nicole Kidman danced in the front row. Haute Living calls the smocked tweed suit the piece to watch. We agree — but the attitude is the real product. Wear the suit like a T-shirt.

Alessandro Michele asked his guests to bring a book to the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve — then staged a nightclub inside it. Eighty looks on the theme of the 'antilibrary,' Umberto Eco's idea of unread books as promises, garments as possibilities. The clothes were emphatically for after dark: satin bustiers, sheer skirts, feathers, sequins, skin.

The women's opening sequence set the tone: sweetheart bustier tops in saturated jewel tones, plisse skirts, floral jacquards, lacquered fabrics with fur-finished hems. Peplum tops met lace pencil skirts; a taffeta mini exploded into bow-like flounces. One dusty-rose strapless mini — ruched, finished with an enormous sculptural bow — walked the library aisle like the argument for dressing up made flesh.

Accessories did the maximalist talking: oversized pearl earrings, layered pearl and amber necklaces, opera gloves, embellished knee-high boots, rose-covered sandals — plus the 'Villain Teen' caps that gave the whole thing its wink. Fashion Times UK reads it as Michele's farewell to quiet luxury. The finale: a floor-length Valentino red gown with an enormous black bow and pleated train. Extravagant, unapologetic, impractical. Exactly the point.

The season's quiet consensus: underwear is daywear now. Elie Saab built an entire collection on it — 'A Fleur de Peau,' inspired by Jean Harlow's Old Hollywood allure: bralettes, bustiers and slipping straps worn with satin suits, chartreuse lingerie dresses, embellished slips, corsets dotted with tiny blooms. Polish, coming undone on purpose.

It wasn't just Saab. Balmain sent corsets, garters and bras beneath cropped jackets; Tom Ford pushed bare chests, fishnets and silk robes; Dior and Chloe worked exposed underpinnings into tailoring. And the street made it wearable: the season's styling trick is the bralette layered under a jacket with high-waisted trousers — less reveal, more suggestion.

The takeaway from FunkyForty's week-long street-style diary: this reads as a fun, inexpensive update rather than an investment piece — buy the lace trim, not the lifestyle. Off the runway it already landed at the Revolve party in a corset mini and strappy heels. The boudoir left the bedroom; it's not going back.

W Magazine clocked it first: the season's jewelry story isn't the big, bold statement piece — it's the charmingly low-tech beaded necklace. At Celine, Michael Rider layered long beaded strands over his eclectic wardrobe. The Row tucked colorful layered necklaces beneath shirts and sheer tops. At Loewe, glass beads and handcrafted embellishment ran through the American sportswear.

Meanwhile the ear had its own beautiful chaos. The Zoe Report names mismatched earrings the PFW jewelry move: at Dior, Jonathan Anderson sent oversized cascading floral and ribbon earrings alongside extra-long pearl-and-bead styles, some models wearing a single dramatic drop. Dries Van Noten and Chloe went full throttle — oversized florals, sculptural ear-climbers, chunky pearl drops worn solo.

And then Chanel's cascading pearl collar on a sky-blue caped dress, and Valentino's oversized pearl drops with layered pearl-and-amber necklaces. The throughline: pearls and beads, worn with the ease of costume jewelry and the confidence of fine. Matching is overrated. The single earring is the new power move.

Sixty-eight shows, thirty-four presentations, nine days — and W Magazine's editors kept coming back to one thing: appetite. August Barron turned its La Cigale show into a club night with tiara heels and bunny ears. Chloe sent slick fisherman coats in cherry red and translucent pink down the runway, with floppy hats for actual rainy days.

The casting was the other headline. Olivia Colman, 52, made her runway debut at Miu Miu alongside Jamie Bell and Louisa Jacobson. Ciara — pregnant with her fifth — walked Junya Watanabe three times, once beneath a chandelier-like crystal headpiece. Rachel Ojuromi, the Lagos model who went viral recreating Chanel, walked Blazy's show months later. The runway keeps widening; the audience keeps leaning in.

And the objects: Dior's acrylic swan minaudiere, Bulgari's egg-shaped jewel minaudières, Saint Laurent's can-shaped bag. The new party pants — Dior's metallic disco trousers, Julie Kegels' glitter-filled organza, LV's floating silk — say the same thing as the bags. After a long minimal era, fashion wants to be looked at again. More is more, and the season knew it.