PARIS (AP) — Light streamed through the stained glass of the Institut de France onto a surreal stage: a lone cellist playing a melancholy air, next to an upside-down umbrella and a rotating tableau of dying sunflowers. It was a theatrical overture for Saturday's Paris Fashion Week . This was spring — Vivienne Westwood style.

Andreas Kronthaler, who has helmed the house since Westwood’s death in 2022 and whose name joined the label in 2016, leaned hard into the madhat energy that made the brand a legend. Leopard-print men’s underwear sat alongside sheer, ribbed tunics with a medieval air. Punk flashed in a jeweled veil and glittered lapels. Models strode in floppy, swashbuckling ’70s boots that turned the grand academic setting into a carnival.

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