PARIS (AP) - Kim Kardashian jostled for attention with the new fashion royalty, Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid, in Paris. Fashion Week parties got into their highest gear. And Valentino's designer made his debut solo show.
Here are the highlights of Sunday's spring-summer 2017 ready-to-wear collections:
___
KIM KARDASHIAN HAS COMPETITION AT GIVENCHY
The new couple in town - Malik and Hadid - attended Givenchy's evening show to a storm of flashing lenses on Sunday.
Former One Direction star Malik sported his new beard-less face and was all smiles as he held hands with model Hadid in a pink and beige sheeny Givenchy turtleneck jersey and slicked-back hair.
Kardashian, who arrived in a revealing satin and tulle pearl Givenchy bustier that contrasted with her front row neighbor Courtney Love in black, had for once to share the spotlight.
___
GIVENCHY GETS EARTHY
Riccardo Tisci channeled naturally occurring crystal and stones for a vivid spring-summer Givenchy show that evoking lattices and vivid color in the myriad styles.
Tight silhouettes featured overlaid layers and swirling, interlocking shapes - with huge quartz pendants on large chains that hung down boldly to define the aesthetic.
Funky stripes met contrasting dotted patterns that evoked - in bold multicolor - the formation of crystals at the molecular level.
This was one of the quirkiest collections from Givenchy in years and untypical of Tisci who seems to be moving away from a more aggressive, combative aesthetic.
___
PICCIOLI GOES SOLO AT VALENTINO
After his fashion partner Maria Grazia Chiuri was picked to stand at the creative helm of Dior, Pierpaolo Piccioli was left to go it alone at Valentino.
The Italian designer was given control over the Rome-based house last summer, and, for the first time since the duo arrived at Valentino and oversaw a hugely profitable change in aesthetic, Piccioli's individual work would be under the intense scrutiny of the critics.
Sunday's show was his solo debut.
Show organizers cleverly turned the Piccioli solo debut into a fashion event by reducing the number of seats and making the spring-summer a hard-to-get ticket.
And the fashion elite that attended were not disappointed. It was a very strong show that presented a crisper aesthetic than when the duo designed.
Jaguar rose, on-trend vermilion, and repeated shades of red and bright yellow might well have been symbolic of boldness.
And the crisp geometry - shards on skirts, rectangular pant pleats and sharp V's cut down the bust of floor-length dresses - marked a subtle, but important, move away from the previous softer-edged aesthetic.
Indeed, that soft-edged aesthetic appeared elsewhere this week: in Grazia Chiuri's debut show at Dior.
___
CELINE'S PLAY OF PROPORTION
Ever-creative Phoebe Philo delivered a finely executed play on proportion and balance for Celine's spring-summer show.
An oversize aesthetic and geometry that seemed to turn the body (purposefully) off-kilter via sloping lines defined the loose-fitting, thick fabric styles.
The "intellectual" off-kilter feeling continued in designs that turned inside garments out - like underskirts on the exterior, inverted capes, and even bustier underwear motifs on the front of a series of white dresses.
But the brainy fashion musing was never unapproachable - as it can tend to be - because Philo delivered it in a tasteful color palette on soft silhouettes and voluminous lengths.
Cobalt blue, pink, caramel, citrus yellow, charcoal, donkey brown and one of the season's colors, vermilion, meant the 42-styles were highly wearable.
Nonetheless, this season didn't provide any huge creative jumps.
___
ROLAND MOURET'S EXPLORES DNA AGAIN
Roland Mouret - who found international fame for his cap-sleeve styles - produced an architectural spring-summer show that riffed on Oriental styles.
The opening look - a dropped-shoulder hybrid - had interlocking diagonal segments on an embroidered gray jacket that carefully mirrored the direction of the collar bones of the model.
That outfit began typical explorations of the cap-sleeve and dropped-shouldered Mouret DNA.
The musing peppered the spring looks in Egyptian blues, vermillion and pale blue and yellows.
One shoulder-less black dress featured a dropped collar imagined as a decorative band across the bust.
It encased the model around her arms.
It was stylish, but could it also have been a metaphorical reminder of the dangers of creatively being stifled by being trapped in the house codes?
___
Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP