Mais non! C’est fini! With fashion week officially over, all that remained today were visits to a couple of our favourite fashion houses for a close-up look. Being in the heart of Chanel HQ on rue Cambon is enough to make any fashion-loving girl a little lightheaded. And while the show was the most fun of the season, the clothes were utterly, utterly sublime and verging on haute couture. Jackets even had metal buttons with haystacked wheelbarrows in keeping with the country theme. And the jewellery! Metal cuffs lined with quilted silk and hair slides adorned with silvery sheafs of wheat. It was all they could do to get us out the front door…

And then off to Alexander McQueen. We headed to a space in the Marais where the collection was on display and the complexity of the pieces was truly awe-inspiring! Some of the silks had been treated with rubber while other dresses had hexagonal glass sequins appliqued to look like honeycomb. And again, the accessories! There were spiky sea anemone cuffs and stingray-shaped clutches. But those shoes! How anyone could walk in those, I have no idea.

There was still a little time left over for shopping before heading back to Sydney in – sigh – Etihad business class: flatbeds, old movies (and new ones if you fancy), not to mention a great spa at Abu Dhabi airport. On the flight to Paris I managed a proper sleep for the first time ever. Hopefully that will happen again, as Tuesday morning I go straight back into the office…

Chanel S/S 10 (above) and Alexander McQueen S/S 10 (below).