Check out the Louvre – Marc Jacobs makes it a star of Paris fashion week

Louis Vuitton’s creative director guaranteed the show opened in spectacular style, with models clad in stark black and white checks, vivid yellows and greens, and muted brown and grey outfits riding four full-size escalators into the Louvre.

The fashion house’s trademark Damier check was a recurring theme across slim column skirts and maxi dresses, but Jacobs resisted the urge to use the distinctive LV monogram in his latest collection.

Collarless jackets and duster coats in three lengths - short, knee and to the calf - were constant reminders of the swinging Sixties, whether Mr Jacobs intended it or not.

The designer later conceded: “I can’t seem to avoid a reference when I design.

“But it wasn’t meant to be 60s. The beehive hair probably aided that.”

A yellow and white chessboard set acted as a catwalk for the parade of models, who came off the escalators in pairs and guaranteed 64 outfits were witnessed by an appreciative audience in under nine minutes.

The greatest transformation was engineered by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, who turned the most famous of French art galleries into a conceptual backdrop for the show.

Mr Buren said of his efforts: “It was already big, all I did was make it bigger.

“It was others that called me a minimalist, not me.”