The Best Looks From Paris Fashion Week: Fall 2014

Christophe Lemaire wants fall to be a cozy, luxurious affair. His Hermès collection was all about rich, warm layers wrapping the body, literally and figuratively.

Beautifully draped and cut coats were key here—done in variations of robe-like silhouettes, collar-less throw-ons, relaxed military jackets and tons of belted fur vests.

His color palette was restrained, almost to the point of austerity. Which made moments like a printed dress and shearling vest especially welcome. There was a lot to like (and importantly, wear) in this line-up, but as a whole, it was very subdued.

Louche and minimal sum up so many of Lemaire's elegantly draped, deconstructed suits and coats. They were masculine—teamed with flat loafers—but softened by a winter white or soft material.

It was luxe, luxe, luxe. Think: an entire suit made from sheered fur. The wonder was in how these tricky materials were used and crafted with the confidence of someone working with traditional suit fabrics.

It's spring! At least mentally and on Miuccia Prada's Miu Miu runway. Come fall, her fans will still be singing an optimistic, Easter-colored tune. One that's young, American prep through a European filter and most of all fun. If only the East Coast private schools would adopt these tweaked tony looks.

It started with quilted puffers reimagined in pastel jackets, miniskirts and tennis dresses worn with clear, colorful rain booties. She then segued into primary-colored vests, jackets and coats with a utilitarian vibe but made playful and modern through the color choices—always bright or super feminine pastels.

The silhouettes were super simple—pleated skirts, tanks, sweaters, kid's jackets. But the magic was in how she played with texture (through knit or quilting), opacity and unusual combinations. Like an intarsia sweater under a jacquard party dress here or a similar jacquard look paired with both a sweater and a windbreaker. The sweater was worn over the windbreaker, of course. As much as this was a styling trick, it was effective here, and made sense in the meta intellectual way Prada approaches clothes and classic notions.

All the rain gear was just great, starting with the brightly colored rain coats in every iteration, long, short, dressed-up, casual. They were especially fun when they came out in tonal looks, like a girlish pink worn over a pleated satin pale pink dress or the following yellow-on-yellow look.

For evening, she just layered in swingy sequined mini-dresses and turned some of those quilted puffers into metallic party coats. All staying within the youthful, playful tone she set since look 1.

After all of yesterday's pageantry and showmanship, it's remarkable that a super streamlined, simple-bordering-on-humble (except that it was at the Louvre) presentation could cause just as much of a stir. But so it goes when someone like Nicolas Ghesquière takes over the reins from a man like Marc Jacobs at a place like Louis Vuitton. Ghesquière, usually the epitome of understatement, even said so in a love letter placed on chairs. "Today is a new day. A big day," he started. He reverently spoke of Vuitton's "proud legacy. The inspiring history that looks to the future and to the world." He tipped his hat graciously to what Jacobs had achieved during his 16 year tenure, and thanked everyone in the room and backstage. And then he was off and running.

What unfolded on the runway was definitely Ghesquière's vision of Vuitton, not of his past or the brand's past. Sporty and young, lightly touching on the Seventies before landing firmly in the now and tomorrow.

This was a collection high on wearability, as if it were a statement about getting back to the business of selling clothes that women all over the world want to wear. Take a black croc coat—beautifully executed with the subtle molding that is Ghesquière's signature, but simple enough you could (and would want to) wear it every day. The accessories made a statement immediately—patent croc or leather booties at just the right manageable height and little trunk-like bags with removable covers. Some bags looked like they were shedding their skin, a subtle allusion to what the venerable Parisian house was doing at that very moment.

There were zipped sweaters tucked into flared short skirts—all above the knee—and cinched with a leather belt. Suede jacket-like tops (sort of like the best suede and shearling jackets from the Seventies) were sewn into skirts for easy, cool single-piece dressing. Pants were more like leggings, either in shiny vinyl, a denim-looking color block or a floral print.

The designer's only real embellishment were a handful of looks where he worked tiny feathers into a paneled skirt or shimmering sequins into a zipped dress, jacket and top. Elsewhere, it was about texture and taking classic motifs, like tweed, and blowing it up a little or skewing it by splicing it into sweaters or the hems of leather skirts and dresses.

Ghesquière called on some old friends—Liya, Freja and Maggie on the runway and Juergen Teller (interestingly, a photographer synonymous with Jacobs' American campaigns, though the partnership unceremoniously just ended) shooting 12 key looks for immediate release. Regardless, the proof that something great just happened was in the clothes themselves, and the way in which they left people with an urgency to wear them right now.

The day began with Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel-mart. Like an operatic book-end to the day, it finished with Sarah Burton's Alexander Mcqueen, set among a misty green moor, at once beautiful and eery. Were these apparitions? Because they were haunting. There's something about a McQueen collection that, on the runway, transcends mere clothing—yet if you look in on a boutique come fall, these will have been translated into a more wearable-affordable vision, while these actual clothes will find a way into museums, movies and magazine closets.

The girls toed the line of childlike in their white broderie anglaise dresses, tiered and hitting at the knee, and paired with steel-toed boots with ruffles at the top. This is McQueen—two things at once. Things are never as they seem initially. Like an a-line schoolgirl dress with a Peter Pan collar detailed with frayed organza that was embroidered into stars and moons—a sweet, innocent conceit rendered dramatic and nearly ominous here.

This was the most overt use of fur seen so far on the runways. Entire looks were constructed from the stuff, from an over-sized fox cape to turtleneck dresses.

There was a ferocious undertone to the series of furs. They were big (so big, they were capes worthy of the grimmest Grimm fairy tale) statements, or tufted details that felt almost like they were part of the models themselves. In some cases, eyebrows were covered in arched fur tufts.