Paris Fashion Week: Fall 2015 Ready-to-Wear Moncler Gamme Rouge

The Moncler Gamme Rouge show ended with a parade of models in red riding coats escorted by dancers dressed as Queen's Guard soldiers. It was the type of campy grand finale that, on the final day of Paris fashion week, could have been a hallucination (Instagram, thankfully, confirms the contrary). But even the main attraction, enhanced by fog-machine vapors curling through a simulated forest floor, positioned the collection as something more than your everyday equestrian outing.

Backstage, designer Giambattista Valli explained that the horsey milieu - from traditional British hunting attire to stylized jockey-esque uniforms - provided a more tailored template for Moncler's elevated range. Traditional tweeds, tartan, and mohair checks were transposed onto tech fabrics or spliced with luxe tinted skins. Despite additional constants - black knee-padded leggings, tightly tied scarves, bowl-shaped helmets - no two looks showed the same mix of layering, shearling patchwork, and skirt volume, as if defiantly countering the brand's core offering. Heraldic prints, mixed-material camouflage, fox panels like fluffy pony hair, and even a trompe l'oeil gold chain belt with a stable key ticked off any remaining tropes - minus an actual horse.

Footwear, interestingly, dictated attitude, so flat barn boots corresponded to a sportier mod style, while a no-nonsense platform boot conjured a pedigreed provocateur. But because rain does not favor one archetype over the other, tinted transparent raincoats (and rain skirts!) bridged the divide and offered a new retail novelty that will perform well. As for the heat-sealed embroidered flowers ornamenting shoulders and dusting gilets, Valli said he sought to simulate petals falling from tree blossoms during a ride through the woods. In the end, a couture touch proved more evocative than a bearskin. (www.style.com)