One of the key messages from the designers for autumn/winter was, as ever, outerwear. My shopping wishlist for autumn reads: classic khaki overcoat by Hermès, followed by a navy donkey jacket at Margaret Howell. But if last weekend highlighted anything about coats, it is that right now, you should sport them perched on your shoulders. The designer Phillip Lim himself styled this look, along with other show attendees. Photograph: DAN AND CORINA LECCA/PR company handout
During an impressive Dior Homme show, held at the Tennis Club de Paris and featuring a white apartment-style set of tall doors, fireplaces and glittering chandeliers, I had a moment of trouser anxiety. Not that the ones I was wearing didn’t fit the uniform expected of a Paris menswear correspondent. But that if a pair of trousers – wide, fluid and loose, an emerging trend for next season – made a model look a bit short, what hope was there for anyone under 6ft tall? I liked this look – it just didn’t seem that easy to wear. Photograph: PR company handout
At Lanvin, the catwalk was a carpet of deep burgundy swirls and the models walked like the clappers. Here, it was a tale of two trousers: super-lean and short, occasionally with zippers at the back, versus styles cut in billowing ripples of fabric, running from thigh to ankle. In this show, the wide trousers worked best teamed with a sharply tailored jacket, while at Dior, success came with a turnup, which somehow anchored the fluidity of the fabric. Photograph: Victor Boyko/WireImage
If one show ticked every box for the first-timer in Paris, it was Raf Simons. You could feel a pulsing anticipation from the audience, which included P Diddy. This show felt completely compelling. It was joyful, interesting and, most importantly, modern. Eminem and Nicki Minaj reverberated on the soundtrack while the models marched. Simons’s combinations of eye-popping violet, scuba-style fabrics, mohair and simple tops, brilliantly cut so they sat just slightly away from the body, were beautiful. I wanted to put one on there and then. And yes, Simons does wide-leg trousers, but he also does the best fitting slender-leg suit trousers I have ever seen on a catwalk. So far. Photograph: Victor Boyko/Getty Images
Male models wearing oversized circular sunglasses are sitting around a large banqueting table littered with stuffed animals, dining on sweetcorn and peas. Somebody is chanting foodstuffs – celery, tomato, ice cream, fish – over a booming techno soundtrack. There’s an air of Tim Burton mixed with 18th-century pomp. This is the latest serving of fashion theatre from US designer Thom Browne during the autumn/winter 2011 menswear shows in Paris – a bonkers spectacle that came at the end of my first visit to these shows and confirmed that menswear can be just as exciting as women’s fashion. Photograph: Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage
The Asian label Wooyoungmi, due to celebrate its 10th anniversary in Paris next year and worth further investigation, nailed the combination of utility and suiting particularly well. Cue a double-breasted suit jacket worn over a high-necked, glossy padded jacket and tailored jackets layered with sporty hoods. This mix of classic wool tailoring with technical fabrics felt entirely relevant. Photograph: CATWALKING.COM/PR company handout
