As it celebrates its 50th anniversary, Italian high-end fashion brand Etro has come up with a collection of ready-to-wear outfits and accessories that represent the brand’s roots and culture while offering the wearer a truly organic experience.

The brand’s new boutique in Bangkok at Gaysorn Village presents the Paisley motif – the date palm shoot, which has become a pillar of Etro’s unique work.

The womenswear collection is inspired by European art with graphic prints in art deco-style patterns complemented by enamel jewellery and a palette of sage green, chocolate, apricot, burned orange, night blue, mustard, tobacco, powdery brick and lobster red.

The autumn-winter collection features a Georgette silk dress, its lightness enhanced by an added dimension of crepe fabric, a Chenille print cardigan decorated with tassels, a suede coat with delicate woollen cross stitches, and a hearty cropped reversed knitted sweater.

The menswear collection takes its design approach from the Dandy Detour concept – independent and adventurous but with a strong bond to its origins. The aesthetic Persian and Celtic inspired patterns stem from interesting textile and tailoring techniques and are reiterated on a fur coat with the brand’s signature paisley prints as well as the jacquard blazer and long coat. Other items include corduroy trousers and checked shirts made with eucalyptus fibre fabric that is as soft as pure cotton. The playful character is livened up with pops of royal purple, lime green and rose pink then completed with accessories, bags, belts and more.

IT MAY have been a long time coming, but eco-fashion is no longer a hippie pipe dream. Biker jackets made from pineapple leaves and leather tanned with olive extract rather than hugely polluting chemicals are now within reach, experts say.

Everyone from young avant-garde designers to the big-name brands are racing to hop on the bandwagon, with trainers with soles made from recycled plastic bottles already selling by the million.

Last year alone, Adidas sold one million of its Parley trainers – made from plastic fished from the ocean – and the German sportswear giant is ramping up production of a range of similarly recycled styles.

Premiere Vision Paris is a fair dedicated to the industries supplying materials and services for the fashion and luxury industries, at the Parc des Expositions convention centre./AFP

Yolanda Zobel, the new designer at the futuristic French brand Courreges, did the “unthinkable” and declared that she was doing away with the space-age vinyl that has been the label’s stock and trade since the 1960s.

After a final numbered capsule collection called Fin de Plastique (The End of Plastic) that will count down its stocks of vinyl, the German will try to source sustainable or recycled versions of the shiny fabric.

“There’s no better world coming if we don’t take actions today,” Zobel says.

Attitudes to eco-fashion have “totally changed in the last few years”, says Marina Coutelan, who helps run Premiere Vision, a hugely influential twice-yearly trade fair in Paris where the movers and shakers of the fashion industry flock in search of new materials and ideas.

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With the millennials (those born between 1980 and 2000) now beginning to call the shots in the fashion industry, “we are seeing lots of trendy products from sustainable materials because they have grown up with the idea that we need to be eco-responsible”, Coutelan says.

A case in point are rising stars Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh, the Dutch pair who have just been headhunted to take over the Nina Ricci Paris fashion house.

“Sustainable fashion was always talked about,” says 28-year-old Herrebrugh. “Now it is something we can see.”

Their own Botter brand makes hats, scarves and jackets from recycled plastic bags and bottles often found in the sea – a cause dear to Botter, who was born on the Caribbean island of Curacao.

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High-street chains may still be obsessed with fast, throwaway fashion, but luxury brands are leading the way in trying to rethink the business, said Coutelan.

She points to the French giant Kering, which owns Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen among others, as one of the pioneers of sustainability.

“It has reduced its environmental impact by a quarter and hopes to cut it by 40 percent by 2025,” she says.

Even so, fashion is still by some measures the second-most polluting industry the world.

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Kering until recently owned a 50-per-cent stake in Stella McCartney, the label that has pushed the ethical and environmental envelope the furthest, refusing to use fur, leather or feathers.

The British designer uses recycled wool and polyester made from plastic water bottles, and intends to stop using “virgin” nylon entirely within two years and new polyester by 2025.

Invitations for her Paris fashion week show on Monday proclaim that “Green is the new black” and feature a new cartoon where she stars with Minnie the Minx in a story extolling the virtues of regenerated cashmere.

McCartney says she’d like to go faster, but “the technology we need to reach this point is not yet available in a sustainable and circular way”.

Campaigners say there are multiple ways to make sustainable clothes. The highly rated young French designer Marine Serre is an often-brilliant upcycler – turning old bed covers into evening gowns in her latest Paris fashion week show on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Canadian Marie-Eve Lecavalier has made a name for herself with leather knitwear made from leftover ends rejected by luxury brands.

“It takes a lot of work, but the result is great. In North America people waste so much. We have to find another way,” she says.

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With tanning one of the world’s dirtiest trades, leather alternatives like Pinatex, which is made from the fibres of pineapple leaves but is equally supple and strong, are gaining ground.

Hugo Boss has already made trainers and Lancel bags from the material, which is being marketed by the British firm Ananas Anam, which works with farmer cooperatives in the Philippines.

The German group Wet Green has developed a potentially revolutionary line called Olivenleder, biodegradable leathers tanned with an agent made from olive fibres. It is so safe “you can even eat it”, jokes spokesman Thomas Lamparter.

For Chantal Malingrey of Premiere Vision, wholly sustainable fashion “is not yet the norm”, but such is the pace of innovation, she insists, that the trend is “irreversible”.

DESPITE HONG Kong’s reputation for rampant consumerism, a nascent movement against “fast fashion” is taking root in the city, with clothes-mending workshops and pop-up swaps growing in popularity, and designers parading recycled fabrics on the catwalk.

From broken umbrellas to discarded curtains, no material is too shabby for designer Jesse Lee, who showed his creations at a recent sustainable-fashion show in Hong Kong.

Lee realised that humble household goods could be the springboard for creativity when his family was throwing out an old sofa.

He turned the sofa’s leather cover into a jacket and has since made clothes from old curtains and bed linen, as well as a raincoat using umbrella fabric.

A catwalk model shows a jacket designed and made with material from discarded umbrellas./AFP

Lee also tries to make his designs unisex and adjustable so they can be easily shared. “If you don’t feel like wearing this, you can give it to others and it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl,” he says.

Global consumers purchased 60 per cent more clothing in 2016 than in 2000 and only kept each item half as long, consulting firm McKinsey found in a survey.

Hong Kong alone sends 343 tonnes of textiles to its overloaded landfills every day, and in 2016, Greenpeace found a sixth of clothes owned by residents were seldom or never worn after purchase.

But Lee and others like him are hoping to capitalise on rising consumer awareness as shoppers become more conscious of the human and environmental cost of fast fashion after high-profile scandals like the deadly 2013 collapse of a building in Bangladesh that housed several garment factories.

Fashion designer Jesse Lee /AFP

The tragedy, one of the worst industrial accidents in modern history, sparked global outrage and triggered a drive among activists to encourage shoppers to buy from local stores, rather than from large multinational fast fashion brands.

Christina Dean, founder of Redress, says the tide is slowly turning and describes the industry as at a tipping point.

The Hong Kong-based charity works to reduce fashion waste and hosted the recent show where Lee displayed his creations, alongside other designers who transformed vintage kimonos and bridal-wear samples and even used silicone and rubber.

“Many people are turning their backs and saying, ‘I have more clothes than I can possibly wear,’” she says.

Shocked by the volume of clothing and the pollution produced by major brands, Hong Kong designers Kay Wong and Toby Crispy founded the Fashion Clinic to help people mend garments.

They set up pop-up stalls at clothing stores providing repair and reshaping services and also hold workshops teaching basic needlework.

“Fast fashion makes people dispose of their clothes so easily, because clothes are too cheap and it seems to cost nothing to toss out the old ones,” says Wong.

“After they learn stitching, they can repair many things, like worn-out shirts or socks.”

Jack Lam, 31, is learning to sew patches onto his torn jeans at a workshop as curious shoppers look on.

“The patches look like new embellishments,” he says, adding that the jeans were now more valuable to him because he’s fixed them himself.

While repair clinics, clothes swaps and second-hand shops are all doing their bit, some want to address the waste problem on an industrial scale.

A cutting-edge “upcycling” spinning mill that turns discarded clothes into new yarns will go into full operation in the city this month, developed by the Hong Kong Research Institute for Textiles and Apparel.

The 1,765 square-metre factory will sterilise, sort and turn used textiles into fresh fibre, processing three tonnes of textile waste each day.

Six workers will remove zips and buttons and categorise the fabrics before machines carry out automated colour sorting and re-spinning. Mixed-fibre clothing will go through a high-tech treatment to separate the different elements.

Edwin Keh of the research institute says the recycled yarn will be “as good as virgin materials” while the selling price will be 30 per cent lower.

The factory launch comes as mainland China moves to ban the import of most solid waste, including textile scraps, putting pressure on Hong Kong to find new ways to deal with its trash.

“Whereas China doesn’t want to import other people’s rubbish, it is very happy with importing yarns and fibres, so that’s what we are going to do,” Keh says.

He hopes the new mill will serve as an inspiration for other cities.

“If in a crowded city like Hong Kong we’ve come up with this solution to deal with our own waste, any city in the world should be able to have that kind of local solution.”

KARL LAGERFELD took Chanel for a paddle in the sea on Tuesday, creating a huge beach with real waves for his joyously zingy Paris fashion week show.

The 85-year-old produced a winningly youthful and colourful collection to lift the spirits of jaded fashionistas on the last day of a marathon month of shows in New York, London and Milan.

Louis Vuitton wrapped up the packed nine-day Paris schedule with an equally vivid show where designer Nicolas Ghesquiere cut his clean and classy ankle boots, short skirt and jacket schtick with vivid electric florals and highly-coloured abstract painted patterns.

Models present creations from the Spring/Summer 2019 Women’s collection by German designer Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel at the Grand Palais during Paris Fashion Week. /EPA-EFE

The brightness of both big shows with their celebrity-packed front rows – Cate Blanchett ruled at Vuitton while Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana graced Chanel – were in stark contrast to the battalions of black that swept much of the Paris spring-summer catwalks.

Ghesquiere’s show was controversially co-ed, with men walking the runway too even though the label has its own menswear line now led by the American designer Virgil Abloh of Off-White fame.

But it was his mini-bags and a run of short belted dresses, two in glinting metallic mail, that drew the most admiring looks at his Louvre show along with minimalistic three-tone coats and jackets.

With soft drizzle falling outside and the October chill beginning to bite in a grey French capital, more than one fashionista regretted not taking a towel to Chanel’s artificial beach.

Led by the designer’s latest muse, Dutch-born Luna Bijl, models walked barefoot through waves which lapped onto the white sand thanks to a set of hidden pistons.

Catwalk queens including Cara Delevingne and Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber came up from the beach and slipped into low mules to strut the boardwalk runway.

Sometimes Chanel’s spectacular sets are as talked about as the clothes.

But this time the clothes had a lot to say for themselves.

Models present creations from the Spring/Summer 2019 Women’s collection by German designer Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel at the Grand Palais during Paris Fashion Week. /EPA-EFE

The veteran creator hit the sweet spot from his oversized Chanel jackets and 1960s-style egg-shell blue trapeze coat dress to a long line of classy casual looks using the show’s beach umbrella motif.

With a beady eye on the bottom line, Lagerfeld used the brand’s name in capital letters everywhere he could.

From the clothes themselves and a new line of big crystal necklaces, belts and earrings, the label’s name also turned up on a set of double-billed straw hats with CHA at the front and NEL at the back.

Little silver and black beach-ball bags came on Chanel chains and a black scallop shell-shaped number with patent spines had smartphones clicking.

And with Lagerfeld insisting that the only thing better than a Chanel bag is having two, he sent out Bijl and a few of his other stars carrying two classic Chanel bags slung across the body, one in each hand like a pair of six-shooters.

In the past Lagerfeld has turned the vast Grand Palais into an ocean liner, a rocket launch pad, the world’s chicest supermarket and controversially a mid-winter wood full of trees.

After environmentalists attacked Chanel in March for felling decades-old oaks for its autumn-winter collection, the label said it would now “attempt to recycle, reuse and or find alternative uses for the materials” it uses in its shows.

Lagerfeld said afterwards that the show, whose alternative reality Vogue compared to “The Truman Show”, was meant to be escapist in these dark times.

THEY APPEAR to be living the dream, walking the catwalks of Paris, New York and Milan in the most beautiful clothes money can buy.

But behind the glamour and the travel, many models are earning mere “pocket money”, tied by debt to agencies and afraid to admit what they owe.

“The worst thing is that it is impossible to talk about because in this industry people only want to work with ‘successful’ girls,” says 26-year-old Clara, who has appeared in Vogue and walked for uber-hip labels like Prada, Rick Owens and Comme des Garcons.

Away from the glamour of walking the world’s top catwalks, models find themselves deep in debt./AFP

The London-based model, who is deeply in debt to her agencies in New York and Paris, only agreed to talk to AFP of the trap she and many of her colleagues have fallen into if her name was changed, fearing she might never get work again.

Other models say that they are often paid in clothes and handbags and that they are “almost never paid” for fashion magazine shoots.

The model rights group Model Law, which was set up earlier this year in Paris, confirms debt is a bigger taboo than sexual harassment since the #MeToo movement lifted the lid on abuse.

The group’s co-founder Ekaterina Ozhiganova, a Paris catwalk regular, says the time has come “to put an end to the years of abuse, dubious practices and the flouting of labour laws.”

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Clara, who began modelling when she was still at school, says that on her first Paris fashion week “my agency gave me a car (for castings) which I was sharing with other models from the big Airbnb apartment they had put us in.

“It was only later that I learned that I was paying 300 euros ($350) a day for the driver. I had signed the contract and I was 3,000 euros in debt” by the end of the week, she adds.

“Later I did New York fashion week. Every model from overseas starts by going into debt because the work visa is very expensive.

“Then you stay in a ‘models’ apartment’ which your agency charges you $50 a night for a room you share with three others. When the castings started I got really sick and therefore missed most of them, so I ended up going home $8,000 (Bt259,000) in the red,” she adds.

Yet she insists her “situation is not particularly bad”.

“I am still in debt to my agencies in Paris and New York although I have since done many jobs through them. For instance I was in a big Paris show which had a 1,100-euro (Bt41,500) fee, of which I got only 400. And I didn’t see any of that because it was taken off my debt.”

Despite her difficulties, Clara stresses that she is doing better than most models “who are 16, hardly speak English and come from poor backgrounds.”

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Two highly experienced US models described being “slaves” to debt, with agencies at times talking the lion’s share of their earnings.

East European and Brazilian girls – who now dominate castings – are the most vulnerable to exploitation and get the rawest deal.

One 24-year-old American model who has appeared in Dior, Issey Miyake, Balmain and Off-White shows, says debt had also shaped her personal life.

She adds that she has taken a “professional decision to only go out with men who are rich enough to support me,” something that “sits awkwardly with my feminism”.

Ozhiganova, 26, hopes that Model Law can help “break through” the fear of speaking out in an industry “where you are quickly labelled as difficult if you ask questions.

“People imagine models earn lots of money, but that is absolutely not true. It’s only the case for about two percent of girls”, with male models even worse paid, she says,

The group explains unpaid work was the bane of models’ lives. “Only rarely are people paid for modelling for magazines even though it takes hours of work,” Ozhiganova says.

“Okay, it’s prestigious, but how are you going to pay your rent?”

Model Law, which is in talks with a French union, has already met with Synam, the body that represents French model agencies.

Synam’s chief Isabelle Saint-Felix admits that Model Law has “some justified demands” including that employment regulations should be translated into English given that most models working in Paris do not speak French.

However, she questions how representative the group is. “They have to narrow their claims and not make general demands,” she stresses.

The treatment of models has become a hot potato for the big luxury brands after New York casting agent James Scully blew the whistle last year on the way some were treated at “cattle call” castings.

The incident prompted the two French fashion giants LVMH and Kering – who own some of fashion’s biggest names – to join forces to create a charter to combat mistreatment.

The new rules also banned the use of ultra-thin models and those under 16.

“For more than a century, The Beverly Hills Hotel has remained a timeless symbol of Hollywood’s Golden Age and LA’s celebrated lifestyle, with a signature aesthetic that has become recognised around the world,” says Edward Mady, regional director and general manager.

“The hotel’s iconic design elements serve as inspiration for artists and designers, and this inaugural capsule collection with The SIL is an example of the relevant influence this beloved property continues to have in the fashion world.”

Founded by Natalie Bloomingdale, The SIL’s own branding was inspired by the colour palette of The Beverly Hills Hotel, her favourite Los Angeles haunt. A frequent visitor to the Polo Lounge, Natalie channelled the green and white stripes used throughout the hotel for her packaging, and The SIL’s logo is a nod to the hotel’s script logo.

Bloomingdale tapped The SIL designers – Cassandra King Polidori, Hayden Lasher, Jane Pendry of Dovima Paris, Molly Moorkamp, and Tish Cox – to interpret the property’s iconic green and blush pink colours for the holiday capsule.

“To have this opportunity to bridge my love of The Beverly Hills Hotel and my appreciation for the fashion community is really a dream come true,” said Bloomingdale.

“I am delighted to share what these talented designers have created for this memorable occasion.”

For this capsule, veteran handbag designer Hayden Lasher offers the Houston-based Lasher in a crocodile-embossed pink version as a nod to the Pink Palace. Paris-based designer Jane Pendry, who worked at such luxury brands as Yves Saint Laurent and Givenchy, has designed a full-length taffeta pop-over bow skirt that adds drama to either a chic full-length silk shirtdress, or a silk blouse and pants, with a fine tweed cardigan-jacket to complete the look.

New York-based designer Molly Moorkamp, who has recently launched an eponymous womenswear brand, presents a glamorous light gold caftan, heavily embellished around the neckline.

Cassandra King Polidori’s line re-imagines her classic earring drop design with a hunter green grosgrain bow and freshwater pearl for The SIL x The Beverly Hills Hotel. Known for her unconventional, ladylike pieces, cult-followed Dallas-based designer Tish Cox designs a structured green top in corduroy that nips at the waist and features voluminous shoulders as well as matching corduroy shorts.

Each designer will descend upon Los Angeles for a trunkshow event at The Beverly Hills Hotel on November 14 and 15 to showcase the capsule and offer a shopping opportunity to invited guests.

The pieces will be exclusively available on shopthesil.com and at the hotel’s gift shop through December.

Calvin Klein took a bite out of the New York runway last week, with Belgian designer Raf Simons inspired by “Jaws” in his latest exploration of America, its glistening surface and dark underbelly.

Models marched down a red-carpeted runway against a glittering video seascape backdrop – all bobbing yachts, sun bouncing off gentle waves and a swimmer coming into view.

Suddenly the summer idyll was shattered with the menacing chords of the theme music to the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster, more than 40 years on perhaps still America’s most iconic summer horror flick.

Models emerged as if straight from the ocean, with wet strands of hair, beads of water glistening on their skin and dressed in wet suits, both long and cropped, the “Jaws” metaphor laboured in shark-bite-style slashes on the hemlines of delicately pleated skirts.

“Jaws” imagery was printed on singlet T-shirts, as the soundtrack to the show flitted from the menacing to the sunny, taking in “Suspicious Minds” along the way and closing with “Scarborough Fair”.

Simons moved to Calvin Klein two years ago and has been credited with giving the iconic American label renewed relevancy, his collections diving deep into the good, the bad and the ugly of the United States.

“The landscape of America – literal and psychological – inspires Calvin Klein. A journey through America leads, inevitably, to the edge of the landscape: the beach,” Simons wrote in notes for the show.

“At the beach there is this incredible idea of beauty, but also a tension – between land and ocean, a feeling of two worlds meeting, maybe colliding,” he added.

“There’s a sense of the unexpected – and always, a temptation. For me, Jaws perfectly exemplifies these notions.”

Hints at a savage world were teased out with plenty of animal print in bold reds, greens and yellows paired with black, and fringed, almost-tribal style clip-on chest adornments.

Contrast came from the school’s out look – Cindy Crawford’s 17-year-old daughter Kaia Gerber walking down the runway in a blazer and black mortar board – a nod to movie “The Graduate.”

“Like the film, this collection explores taboos and temptations, shifts in culture and community, but ultimately, the overarching theme is love,” Simons explained.

Coach transported the fashion pack to an alien-like mise-en-scene for a spring/summer 2019 collection of prairie-style skirts and fringed suede jackets inspired by Sante Fe and Georgia O’Keeffe.

It was British creative designer Stuart Vevers’s latest outing for the 77-year-old US leather goods brand, which has only relatively recently moved into ready-to-wear, with muse Selena Gomez, 26, front row.

His spring vision stayed true to Vevers’s fascination with the Wild West, with peasant-style loose frocks paired with slashed and fringed suede jackets and ruffled blouses.

There were also hoodies and T-shirts featuring pictures from that other pillar of US popular entertainment: Disney movies.

The set was something out of 1982 science fiction movie “Blade Runner” with a dinosaur skeleton-style metal sculpture, and a rusted-out Volkswagen Beetle, giving Vevers his trademark contrast between outback and urban grit.

The designer, who has been at Coach since 2013, summed it up as “assembling and reconstructing the craft and spirit of the American look,” and “scavenged and salved American heirlooms.”

Marc Jacobs, meanwhile, brought the house with a dextrous display of 1950s glamour, pastels and ruffles.

Jacobs returned to the Park Avenue Armory, where his models sashayed down an extra long glass runway, between transparent chairs.

His spring 2019 collection had a 1950s and 1960s feel, all pastels and puffy dresses but the late start of almost two hours –infuriated guests, some of whom upped and left before the show began.

The designer appeared only fleetingly at the end, for the most perfunctory of bows.

If there was one word for the Marc Jacobs evening dress it was ruffles and flounces, adorning the throat, shoulders and skirts of frocks that were so voluminous they had a movement of their own, made genteel and lady-like with little pastel-coloured handbags and dainty heels.

There was more power suiting, hats with netting and plenty of the colour trend of the season – bright yellow and pale lemon. There were also 1980s-style big boxy jackets and a dash of metallics.

The final day of New York Fashion Week kicked off with Michael Kors with A-listers Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta-Jones front row for a happy collection inspired by the beach.

The 59-year-old designer created a set of bright, colourful art panels by Australian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Christina Zimpel that evoked the Caribbean or Mediterranean, a stark contrast to misty views of the Brooklyn Bridge through the windows of New York’s sprawling Pier17.

“Global getaway,” “Sunny Side Up” and “From me to you – spread the joy” was how the billionaire Kors summed up the upbeat celebration of colour that is bang on the happiness trend for spring 2019.

The catwalk was a riot of print and colour, from turquoise to watermelon, persimmon and lemon, to floppy floral hats, a fringed lime green skirt and a metallic green trouser suit with matching bag.

Trousers came in all styles, but most striking were floral and broderie anglaise flares with enormous bell bottoms.

For evening, dresses were cut for the beach but designed for soiree in metallics.

Kors put fringes on jackets, skirts, trousers and shoulder bags, a trend this season also on display at Longchamp and Coach.

The Rastafarian look made an appearance, as did pale denim, chunky beach bags, and huge platform sandals, with Kors staying true to his recent M.O of including curve models on the runway.

The soundtrack was beach-baresque with Peter Allen singing “I go to Rio,” The Beach Boys singing “Good Vibrations” and snatches of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin with “Je t’aime… moi non plus”.

Burberry’s new star designer Riccardo Tisci put his own twist on the venerable British company’s classic style for its streetwear and luxury fashion show at London’s Fashion Week on Monday.

The 44-year-old Italian designer’s first Burberry show was one of the most anticipated events of Fashion Week, attracting around 800 guests.

Kendall Jenner was among the star models debuting for the heavyweight fashion house, which was showing its 2019 spring/summer collection, although the front-row was an unusually celebrity-free zone.

With a soundtrack by trip-hop group Massive Attack the catwalk show took place in a former post office centre under renovation – a metaphor for the change that Burberry hopes Tisci will bring to the label, following his success at Givenchy.

“I was thinking a lot about journeys as I started putting together my first Burberry collection,” said Tisci, who was named as Burberry’s new chief creative officer in March, replacing Christopher Bailey.

“From my personal journey back to London 20 years after I showed my graduate collection here, to how far I have come.

“I was also inspired by how much London – the city that made me dream to become a designer – has evolved,” he added.

“This show is a celebration of the cultures, the traditions and the codes of this historic fashion house and of the eclecticism that makes up the beautifully diverse United Kingdom.”

Tisci broke with the label’s tradition by presenting a range of evening dresses, a wardrobe it has never catered for before.

Black, sober, long and fluid, sometimes discreetly decorated with fine sequins, the robes embodied the refined luxury that is one of the pillars of Burberry’s new strategy.

The show opened, 20 minutes late, with Burberry’s classic beige trench coat with a brown elastic belt, followed by a latex inspired dress, pleated skirts with long hemlines and a new take on the bumbag.

The second half of the show was more daring, with short hemlines, slip dresses, leather straps and cowgirl gingham on display.

Across town at Kensington Gardens, Serbian designer Roksanda Ilincic brought reggae beats to Fashion Week.

Abstract motifs, reminiscent of the 20th Century great painters such as Matisse, Miro and Picasso, decorated her sweaters, dresses and trousers, cementing her reputation as a geometric visionary of the female wardrobe, honed during her time as an architecture student in Belgrade.

These skills were on display with a long sheath dress covered with delicate, alternate coloured rectangles, enhanced with fine black selvedges on the collar, and by large scarves forming the shape of the letter “X”, worn over casual raincoats.

Her fluid and comfortable style has won a legion of celebrity admirers, including Emma Stone, Cate Blanchett and Kate Middleton.

The collection also explored a bold palette, which the designer described as “bright” and “spicy”, evoking “turmeric, poppy and limoncello”.

London Fashion Week kicked off Friday with all eyes on Victoria Beckham, who debuted at the event on the 10th anniversary of her label’s launch. It ended last night.

 The Festive Nights line has supernova-inspired jewellery from the Orbit collection, made with lustrous freshwater pearls and sparkling cubic zirconia stones.

The Intrecciato Knitted Chain Knot is the party clutch that steals the show with its shimmering woven jacquard, perfect to complete a classy look for women, while the ultimate eveningwear extravagance in the form of velvet slippers personalised with a crocodile monogram for men.

The Elegance Escapes series evokes a sense of holiday travel through the well-designed and brightly hued small leather goods with carabiner clips that keeps those little essentials – from passports to sunglasses to headphones – organised. The multicoloured canvas and nappa Meridian tote made with canvas and nappa to pack the rest and a hand-crafted intrecciato VN trolley suitcase is truly exceptional in the colour of the season and personalised with his or her initials.

The Home selection presents the art of living with blankets made from a blend of alpaca and wool – known for its lightness, warmth and texture. The new graphic Intrecciato Checker picture frames lend a fresh look to a signature piece that keeps treasured memories close at hand, while chequered nappa coasters and place mats help to create a festive table. And to trim the tree, a set of coloured glass orbs is hand-blown by Murano artisans to catch the twinkling light.

Based on neutral hues, the Everyday Luxury theme introduces the new BV Luna cross-body and top-handle Piazza in rich Baccara Rose and the new Micro Intrecciato group features belt bags, totes and duffels in a subtle but singular palette of autumnal hues – all in embossed and hand-stitched calf leather.

Find out more details at http://www.BottegaVeneta.com.

Since the line’s debut two years ago, its mainstay items have become even more attractive, with its innovations transforming into contemporary essentials.

The latest collection features a vivid autumn-winter colour palette and designs with in-trend volumes. It is elegantly timeless while showcasing diverse ideas that symbolise the future of LifeWear.

Lemaire has been designing his namesake collection since 1991 and has served as artistic director for Lacoste and women’s ready-to-wear at Hermes. In 2016 he assumed the same post at the Uniqlo research centre.

The collection features brilliant reds and fuchsias as rich and warm accents that symbolise the coming of autumn. The styling emphasises volume through dolman sleeves for women’s fleece blousons and boxy silhouettes for men’s fleece jackets. Women’s items exude comfort and confidence, while men’s pieces convey unpretentious relaxation.

The range includes men’s and women’s Blocktech coats so they’re water-repellent and windproof. Women’s coats wick away inside-moisture and have snap-on hoods, with hem slits that enhance comfort when walking or seated.

This season sees 3D knits employing advanced “Wholegarment” technology for beautiful silhouettes that are also comfortable. There are two dresses and three sweater designs for women.

A special spinning technique has resulted in raised looks and soft textures in mid-length sweaters. There are also sweaters with vintage-style link knitting and items in comfortable ponte fabrics.