Best friends Remi de Laquintaine and Mathieu de Menonville met while studying at the Sorbonne and named their five-year-old label, Melinda Gloss, after their invented muse. For their fashion show debut, the designer duo sent out a series of scholarly looks down a runway suitably situated before a backdrop of books. The show’s notes remark how ‘the collection is fitting to the everyday of Parisian creative minds whose lives go from cafés to bookstores to fashion shows.”

Fine-tuned creations in luxurious fabrics, from baby alpaca to shearling, fused traditional charm with arty hipness, exemplifying classic tailoring with a contemporary edge. Suits were fitted and slacks were tapered, sometimes even buttoned at the bottom in the front. Short jackets with nylon sleeves were layered over long wool pea coats.

The designers played with blocks of colour in strong shades of orange, brown and blue, balanced by beige and grey. A terracotta suit was accented with a colourful shirt and pocket square in a lively kaleidoscope print inspired by painter Willem de Kooning.

Dacy Knight