If femininity and glamour have characterised the recent autumn-winter ollections in London, New York and Milan, this week more than 80 catwalk shows in Paris will further determine the new season's trends.
The week also promises to see the announcement of a new head designer at the couture house of Givenchy, succeeding Julien Macdonald, who has returned to the UK.
Meanwhile, at YSL Rive Gauche, Stefano Pilati's second collection for the august French house will be awaited with keen interest on Sunday.
Tonight British designer Vivienne Westwood will launch her "Hardcore Diamonds" jewellery collection. And during the week, a group of young Dutch designers from Arnhem, sponsored by the Dutch Fashion Foundation, will make their French catwalk debut.
Yesterday in the cool, marbled surroundings of the Jeu de Paume, a recently restored museum of modern art on the Place de la Concorde, Co Tyrone-born Sharon Wauchob, one of the few independent designers on the fixed schedule, showed a collection that demonstrated yet again her ingenuity, polish and uncompromising approach to contemporary conceptual dressing.
This was a free-spirited new take on punk with Wauchob's signature attention to detail, mixing tough fabrics like leather and python with delicate silks and chiffons.
"I like the juxtaposition of the soft and the hard," she said backstage.
"I have a real gut feeling about ethnic punk - it's a bit androgynous and a bit boyish and it feels right for now."
It was all more luxury street than luxury chic.
Biker jackets and leather waistcoats were zipped and studded tightly over layered and draped skirts.
Slouchy, cuffed boots and gauntlet gloves were key accessories. Details like brass buttons, zips, box pleats - even feathers - decorated frock coats and khaki taffeta skirts in offbeat yet beguiling ways.
A dress looped at the back was classical drapery made modern while swinging sashes, tassels and fringed scarves were layered over each other.
A former accessories designer at Louis Vuitton, Wauchob uses a necklace as an integral part of a garment - to anchor a wayward hem or shape and highlight the womanly curve of a front seam.
A lightness of touch showed in a black bomber jacket inset with Astrakhan and worn with a milky white chiffon skirt deeply braided with black velvet.
The designer, who is developing significant markets in the US and Asia, has recently launched a new inexpensive range of cashmere-blend knitwear for autumn-winter.
Called Collection K, it will be available exclusively at Arnotts in Dublin later in the year, giving the designer her first outlet in her own country.
There are also plans to launch a fragrance.
It's a long way from a sheep farm in Newtownstewart to the catwalks of Paris, but this is a designer who takes everything in her stride.
