Paris fashion houses showcase designs inside top art museums

PARIS (AP) — From the dizzying heights of the Pompidou Center to the lofty halls of the Musee d’Orsay, Paris fashion houses showed off the city’s most monumental art museums on Monday as they near the finish line of ready-to-wear collections.

Guests watched as vibrant fall-winter styles snaked in between marble sculptures, avant-garde installations and Oscar-winning celebrities on the season’s penultimate day.

Not only was Stella McCartney one of the first brands to stage a show atop the French National Museum of Modern Art — but the collection itself was inspired by a contemporary artist.

Louis Vuitton, meanwhile, attracted the stars — including actors Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Connelly and Alicia Vikander — to designer Nicolas Ghesquiere’s study in adolescent experimentations.

Here are some highlights:

A TALE OF TWO STELLAS

Stella McCartney leaned into a '70s aesthetic with pizazz for fall-winter by using a namesake — U.S. artist Frank Stella, known for his geometric patterns — as creative springboard.

A faux-fur striped coat in cream and brown resembling a dressing gown — and channeling the artist Stella’s linear motifs — introduced a retro tone from the outset. It was a rare foray for the normally sporty and contemporary brand but was handled with fun. This first look sported giant statement shoulders and tubular arms, while its big flappy belt looked almost poised to tug the coat open sensually.

Rounded shoulders and large labels — key '70s details — graced more sober-than-normal McCartney styles, appearing in one instance on a long dark coat with generous proportions that evoked the geometric lines of the 85-year-old Stella, who had to sign off on all the runway looks.

McCartney said the process was...