Stella McCartney channels mushrooms in trippy Paris show

PARIS (AP) — Stella McCartney’s virus-conscious show was shown to a fraction of the normal Paris audience. But that did not detract from its energy or celebrity pull.

Paul McCartney surprised his designer daughter backstage amid a huddle of guests that included Demi Moore and Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, who spoke to The Associated Press about her environmental concerns.

Here are some highlights of Monday's Spring 2022 collections at Paris Fashion Week:

STELLA MCCARTNEY

To make a point about the environment, Stella McCartney used the idea of a mushroom, nature’s valiant survivor. It was also a springboard for myriad hallucinogenic looks.

This collection, one of the season’s best, was ripe with energy and vibrant design.

The mushroom theme was employed creatively. Vegetable prints featured on light organdy, alongside a palette mixing natural bright hues with soil browns. The sustainable leather bags were, the house said, also made from mycelium — fungal material that breaks down organic matter.

But the best parts of the display came when McCartney deviated from the vegetable theme. Judo belts flapped around loose white pants in looks that sported piping borrowed from astronaut cooling tubes.

The collection’s finale blossomed with “magic mushroom” looks — lurid 70s shades and psychedelic patterns in skin-tight cut-away tops. Sparkling catsuits sheened like the shiny slug trails left in the forest at dawn.

BACKSTAGE WITH STELLA

The British-American designer eschewed the usual Opera Garnier setting for a pared-down location this pandemic season — in the Espace Niemeyer, a landmark modernist building designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

The celebrities huddled in strange oval rooms, while journalists were led through snaking corridors to meet the...