The final leg of fashion month saw 1980s silhouettes, face-concealing clothing and straight-from-the-dryer crinkles delivering a harder-edged take on Parisian chic.

Paris Fashion Week brought fashion month to a dramatic close with designers pushing the envelope on what we mean by ‘modern’ style. From post-apocalyptic styling, to upending gender stereotypes and disrupting our collective love of all things 1990s, these are the six trends you need to know from Paris Fashion Week autumn/winter ’20/’21.

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The trend: shirt and tie phenomenon

Where we’ve seen it: Dior, Thom Browne, Rokh, Chanel

What you need to know: Paris Fashion Week capped off a month-long catwalk obsession with the one-time masculine trappings of the shirt and tie — a look that bookended PFW from start to finish. At the beginning of the week, showgoers who looked past Dior’s neon signage were greeted with the sharpest rendition of the look sported by gamine-cropped British model Ruth Bell, while on the final day of PFW, Virginie Viard delivered an abbreviated take on the house’s classic suit complete with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it skinny black tie.

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The trend: 1980s redux

Where we’ve seen it: Louis Vuitton, Y/Project, Miu Miu, Isabel Marant

What you need to know: the Parisian adoration for plump shoulder lines is shoring up a bright future for the curvaceously sporting outerwear silhouette. Which, if Nicolas Ghesquière’s blockbuster time-travelling autumn/winter ’20/’21 collection has anything to do with it, will also spearhead a revival of that so very 1980s pop-star favourite: the rah-rah skirt. Are you ready to part ways with social-media-friendly 1990s minimalism? Here goes nothing…

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The trend: face-concealing clothing

Where we’ve seen it: Yeezy, Maison Margiela, Marine Serre, Comme des Garçons

What you need to know: while it’s highly unlikely that the design brains at Maison Margiela, Yeezy and Marine Serre had Covid-19 on their minds when they first began work on their autumn/winter ’20/’21 collections, it became increasingly evident that the face-protective outerwear, knits and headgear showcased on their runways tapped into an emerging desire for our clothes to obscure us from the outside world. Protect you from a viral infection, they certainly will not, but perhaps the emerging trend for identity-concealing apparel will prevent you from being an accidental viral social-media photobomb. Perhaps.

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The trend: crinkled eveningwear

Where we’ve seen it: Miu Miu, Kwaidan Editions, Altuzarra

What you need to know: the procession of ankle-grazing gowns that opened Miu Miu’s Bowie-soundtracked autumn/winter ’20/’21 show beckoned to the impulsive side of luxury fashion, ditto industry favourite Kwaidan Editions. If the silken dress (or hourglass shirt) looks like you could have slept in it, invest.

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The trend: cape dressing

Where we’ve seen it: Givenchy, Valentino, Loewe

What you need to know: the proportion play that dominated the red carpet during the 2020 awards circuit was also reignited on the autumn/winter ’20/’21 runways. At PFW, it was time for the quintessential bourgeois wardrobe signature, the cape, to be given a sculptural refit, thanks to freshly supersized collars and domed shoulders. 

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The trend: shaggy outerwear

Where we’ve seen it: Valentino, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney

What you need to know: with many houses turning their backs on real fur for good, the jet-black shaggy coat is now stepping into the luxury realm and shedding (most of) its 1990s rave connotations. If you have an aversion to the tonal-beige bandwagon and are planning to stay ever-faithful to a midnight wardrobe, the textural staple may be your ultimate autumnal manoeuvre.