How do you put together a fashion week outfit that lasts all day? What should you wear to Paris Fashion Week when one show follows another? At SS27, the first photograph outside the venue was only the beginning. The outfit still had to make it across the city—catching the Métro and heading to the next appointment. In her first-hand report, student and emerging fashion journalist Elisabeth Berger Waldenegg follows what people actually wore, and which outfits held up after the cameras moved on.

Street style photos lie a little. Not on purpose, but they capture only the few seconds someone decides to be seen, and usually just a small slice of the guest list: celebrities, influencers, and the faces photographers already know. Someone stepping out of an Uber looking more dressed up than the runway models isn’t reality for most guests. Maybe ten per cent of attendees ever end up in a gallery. What the pictures miss is everyone else, and the rest of the day: the queue outside a courtyard in the rain, the dash for the Métro between venues, the moment someone quietly swaps heels for flats.

I covered this season as a fashion journalist, moving from show to presentation: Gauchère, AMI Paris, Weinsanto, Uma Wang, Ruohan, Amomento, Loulou de Saison, Emanuel Ungaro and more. By day two, I found myself watching the audience as closely as the collections. Here’s what people really wore during the first week of Paris Fashion Week SS27.

How to Dress for a Full Day at Paris Fashion Week 

What to wear to your first Fashion Week: a pinstripe blazer by Ganni, black trousers from Zara, boots by Isabel Marant, and jewellery by Pioté, a young Austrian label.

Nobody tells you this before your first fashion week: if you’re lucky, you’re never dressing for just one show. Most days, I had three or four appointments, sometimes more, and the brands couldn’t have been further apart. A quiet, minimal presentation in the morning, something theatrical in the afternoon, a showroom in between, and, of course, the afterparty. You can’t dress for each label; you need one look that works everywhere.

Place Vendôme in the rain. The perfect uniform: a cream blazer by Sézane, khaki trousers.

Most days, my go-to was a dark blazer, either wrapped at the front or belted, paired with trousers and a good pair of boots or loafers. Or the softer version: a cream blazer with dark trousers. Basics sharp enough for the front row, comfortable enough for the walk. And there’s another reason to keep it simple: you’re not there to compete with the runway. 

One thing I’d skip: sneakers. Yes, some people wore them, especially to presentations, and they got in just fine. But if you’re going to a lot of shows, comfortable loafers, heels or boots are a smart investment. They work in every room and instantly make any outfit look more polished. Whether sneakers count as real shoes is a different discussion, and I know how hard it is to find loafers you can actually walk in. But for nine days, the search is worth it.

Black Still Wins at Paris Fashion Week. Red Is the Exception

The front row at Paris Fashion Week always wears black.

If I had to pick one colour for this season, it would be black: not as a statement, but as the default. Black trousers, black blazers, black tops, black loafers, chair after chair. From a few metres back, the rows looked like a uniform. Part of it is the season: it’s autumn in Paris, and wardrobes get darker as the weather turns. Part of it is safety: it’s hard to get black wrong. The variety was in the textures: lace, fine stripes, crinkled fabric, a slouchy leather bag on a lap. Different materials layered together, details you only notice up close.

Fashion insiders at Paris Fashion Week SS27: black dresses, one red bag.

Red was the exception. When everyone goes dark, one colour does all the work, and this season that shade was everywhere. Outside a show, two women in black stood together: one in a long slip dress with a slit and boots, the other in chiffon dotted with little red and yellow flowers, finished with a red quilted bag. Once you started noticing it, red was everywhere: on shoes, mostly ballet flats, on bags, as a jumper slung over the shoulders, and in small touches like red socks. One combination kept coming back: beige and red.

Beige, black and red: a colour combination to take inspiration from in the front row at Paris Fashion Week SS27. 

In the queue for Ruohan, a woman stood waiting in an oversized navy trench tossed over a checked western shirt with red yokes, grey wide-leg trousers, oversized tinted glasses, and a tiny quilted bag in hand. Mostly dark, one flash of red. For many guests, that was the formula.

An oversized navy trench, a checked shirt with red accents and wide-leg grey trousers in the queue for Ruohan.

Why Is the Trench Coat Paris Fashion Week’s Most Reliable Piece?

It’s easy to imagine fashion week as maximal, and sometimes it is. But the outfit I saw again and again, and the one that never looked out of place, was simple: blue jeans, a white tee, a trench or blazer on top, and sunglasses. Big ones.

Wide-leg jeans, a beige trench, a white T-shirt and a turquoise fringed bag at the Gauchère presentation. An effortless street style look to take from one show to the next.

At the Gauchère presentation on rue de Rivoli, one guest nailed it: wide light-wash jeans, a white tee, a beige trench with the cuffs turned up, a western belt, and a turquoise fringed bag as the one playful touch. Less is more still works, perhaps even more so here. And with that platinum bob, she’d stand out regardless.

If one piece ran the week, it was the trench. Mostly beige, but also green, navy and grey, and in every variation: long and belted, cropped, zipped, draped over the shoulders, worn open over jeans or buttoned up like a dress. People reached for the classic and played with the shape rather than the colour.

Which Accessories Actually Work Between Fashion Week Shows?

When the clothes are this pared back, the accessories do the talking. Bags came first, then sunglasses and belts: a western buckle cinching jeans, oversized tinted frames, a fringe bag that moves with each step. Jewellery, interestingly, stayed in the background. Most guests stuck to gold or silver hoops and a few chunky rings, with necklaces as a quiet basic rather than a statement.

And the bags got smaller. Clutches were everywhere, even if they made it hard to juggle a phone, show notes, and a coffee. No one seemed to mind.

Then there’s Chanel. It never really dates, and it elevates almost any look. If someone owns one, you can be fairly sure it comes out at least once during fashion week—especially in Paris.

What Do Street Style Photographers Wear? 

Some of my favourite outfits this week didn’t belong to guests at all; they belonged to the photographers. They’re out there all day, crouching on curbs in the rain, and they dress for the job. Their rule: practical but cool. Shoes that survive a full day on wet pavement, a bag big enough for all the gear, and still an outfit that says something.

A denim work jacket, a striped shirt and a houndstooth tie: a mix of workwear and old-school newsroom style, camera in hand.

One wore a faded denim work jacket with a bison patch, a striped shirt with a rounded collar and a houndstooth tie, paired with brown trousers with turned-up hems and brown derbies, a camera in hand. Another would shoot pictures in a burgundy balloon skirt, an oversized grey long-sleeve top, and trail runners, beads stacked around her neck and a big navy leather shoulder bag that clearly holds more than a lipstick. Practical, comfortable, and better than some of the looks she was capturing.

A balloon skirt, trail runners and an oversized bag: practical street style for photographers spending all day on their feet.

What to Wear to Your First Fashion Show

Mostly black, a flash of red, a trench and shoes you can walk in: that’s the short version. The longer version? The best outfits belonged to people who had considered their whole day, not just their arrival.

If it’s your first show, start with what you already own and trust. A good blazer or trench, trousers or jeans that fit just right, shoes you can stand in for hours, and one detail that feels uniquely yours: a red bag, a distinctive belt, the sunglasses you’d never wear to class. Leave the costume at home: the door staff aren’t checking whether you’re wearing this season’s collection.

Most importantly, wear something you feel good in. You’re the one who has to love your outfit, not the photographers or the person sitting next to you. Chances are, you’ll leave your first presentation already planning the next. That’s half the fun.

Elisabeth Berger Waldenegg
Student, Paris