For some time now, Phoebe Philo's Céline been warming up and proposing a gentler, more eased and sexually charged view of femininity than it once did. As guests filed into the venue for this show at lunchtime in Paris today, they were met by a ceramic tiled floor in ivory and pale terracotta and took their seats on enamelled stools in equally lovely Mediterranean shades.
The set is always a sign of things to come here and so the clothes had a relaxed and vaguely Latin feel to them, the latter most evident in black and white dresses densely embroidered with lacy flowers and over-blown silk cuffs on skinny rib knits.
For the forthcoming season, the Céline woman is relatively undone. Her close-fitting softly padded coats, most beautiful in white, peel away to reveal shoulders, her petticoat dress falls from her body in an almost wanton way and her narrow back is bared in circular cut outs trailing ribbon from behind. More overt were breast details on more knits: a play between the covered up and the exposed.
There was nothing even remotely vulgar about this look, of course, not least because any sexual undertones were offset by chunky soled, cream leather ankle-high skate shoes and leather foot gloves with a sturdy mid-height heel. The latter were sweetly flirtatious - and flamboyant - finished with jewels.
Although Phoebe Philo has never herself claimed to be a minimal designer, she is often labelled that way. Prints of foxes, ferrets, rabbits and cats were a clear departure from that.
Some things don't change, however, and it therefore almost goes without saying that both fabrication and production were second to none: think the most luxurious cashmere, the softest hide, the most refined colour and attention to detail and - always - a sense of the touch of the human hand.
As for the new Céline that famously fly off the shelves almost faster than the house can make them... A scaled up tote in patch-worked natural leather, earthy shades and suspended from a wide shoulder strap looked especially brilliant.