Salvatore Ferragamo A/W 2018

Mood board: A/W 2018 marked the runway debut of Paul Andrew – the footwear designer who was appointed the womenswear creative director of the Italian house last October, having served as its footwear design director since 2016. For his ready-to-wear debut, which was presented against the brand’s menswear, designed by Guillaume Milland, Andrew looked to the kaleidoscopic heel of the brand’s iconic 1938 rainbow wedge shoe, and crafted a collection in a spectrum of colour, from bottle green to merlot. ‘We were born as a shoe brand, so everything has been born from toe to hip,’ Andrew said backstage. ‘The shoe is always the showcase, the coat, the jacket becomes an accessory to the shoe and the bag.’ It was a collection rich in luxurious classics – leather trench coats and capes, column dresses, great bomber jackets and duster coats and archive foulards from the nineties. ‘Naughty aristocrats’ and the escapades of Princess Margaret in The Crown also inspired Andrew. ‘She’s still wearing her gown at 7am,’ he said ‘But realises she has to feed the pigs and throws on a poncho and a pair of ostrich skin boots.’

Best in show: Unsurprisingly, the footwear was exquisite, ranging from those gold heeled ostrich skin riding boots in a rainbow of colours to men’s chunky square toed boots with metal hardware.

Sound bite: ‘Paul and I worked on the colour palette together, it was really playing with the codes of and the silhouettes of the house and bringing body to the character,’ said Guillaume Milland backstage.