Paris Fashion Week brings back the 1970s

On the Paris catwalk Monday, a reappearance of bandanas -- those paisley kerchiefs that were hot back in the 1970s, remember? -- proved the lesson that old can become trendy again if you just wait long enough.

Japanese brand Sacai dusted off the accessory and updated it for its Spring/Summer collection, tying it around models' necks to complete layered outfits that were floaty affairs aimed at next year's warmer season.

The fusion of hipsterness and hippyness, rolled out by Sacai's founder and creative designer Chitose Abe, was heightened by the addition of floral embroidery and pointy boots.

No other brand represented at the Paris Fashion Week took up the trend, but points to Sacai for showing clothes hoarders can also be clothes horses.

Intemporal Hermes

Instead the overwhelming themes for these collections were pleats and colours. Hermes being Hermes, there was little in the way of time travel at the prestigious French label's show. But celebrity sheen on the front row came in the form of American singer Janet Jackson.

There were no wardrobe malfunctions of the type that Jackson made infamous. Instead, the collection exhibited coolly elegant designs in cream and other muted colours -- outfits that sought to make no statement other than timelessness.

Pantsuits, leather tops and skirts and clean-lined silk dresses succeeded each other, carried along on upmarket sneakers or simple footwear. These were simple clothes meant for simple outings, albeit for a moneyed set who knows that fashion can just be, with no need to borrow from the past.

Designer Nadege Vanhee-Cybulski told AFP backstage that she sought to present "an elegance that is sophisticated but at the same time is free... everything is allowed, what's most important is really this sort of accidental chic".

Sharapova aces Stella's show

Outfits were flimsy and at times transparent in Stella McCartney's show, held Sunday under the ornate chandeliers of Paris's gilded Opera Garnier. Underlining her collection's sporty tilt, and her thick black book of celebrity friends, Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova turned out to cast an appreciative eye over Stella's colourful collection.

What she and the rest of the gallery saw were gossamer-thin dresses running long or up to mid-thigh, some in bold colours or bolder nothingness, other boasting slanted checks and lines and assymetrical tops. The British designer's own cast back to the past brought up oversize aviator sunglasses.

The reign of McQueen Victoria

The Alexander McQueen show, conceived by designer Sarah Burton, skipped further back in time, to the Victorian age.

Models sported long and romantically intricate numbers that would not have looked out of place in a regal late 19th century garden party -- excepting the occasional sheer number that definitely would not have met with the approval of the "widow of Windsor".

Overall though, it was a triumph of embroidered flowers, lace and feathers, with long earrings and silver chains accentuating the sinuous silhouettes and adding a gothic touch. (Marc Burleigh, AFP)