Stella McCartney gets a little help from Sir Paul at Paris Fashion Week

Sir Paul McCartney and his American girlfriend Nancy Shevell were just two of the A-listers adorning the front row at Stella McCartney's Autumn/Winter show in Paris on Monday. Others included the generously proportioned pop singer Beth Ditto and actresses Thandie Newton and Salma Hayek.

However, McCartney's cast of supporters did not deflect from her designs, which won near universal praise from fashion writers overnight. The looks - bold 'boyfriend' jackets, raunchy thigh-high boots in faux leather and suede, silk slip dresses, cocoon-shaped coats and the all-in-one jumpsuits championed by Stella long before anyone else - were all signature McCartney.
 
"It was once fashionable [at Paris Fashion Week] to mock Stella McCartney as a pop star's daughter who had done little to deserve having her name in lights above the catwalk," the Guardian's Jess Cartner-Morley noted with glee. "How things change." Paris's fashionistas have finally "caught up with looks McCartney spotted and championed years ago", she added.

In the Daily Telegraph, Hilary Alexander was distracted by the presence of Sir Paul’s new girlfriend, and noted that she was wearing a navy silk dress from McCartney’s spring/summer collection – suggesting the trucking heiress has found favour with the designer, something the former Beatle’s last wife, Heather Mills, singularly failed to do.

Whatever the truth, Sir Paul was impressed, getting to his feet and clapping enthusiastically as the final parade came down the catwalk to the strains of one of his most famous hits, The Long and Winding Road.

Also showing at Paris Fashion Week yesterday was Giambattista Valli who delivered a grandiose collection of voluminous gowns, some embellished with peacock feathers. Others included Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf, apparently inspired by togas with a series of draped dresses, and the exuberant Indian designer Manish Arora who wowed his audience with a jungle menagerie of exotic animals printed on bejewelled silk. Meanwhile Yves St Laurent, showing last night at the Palais de Tokyo, proved that black was back - both in the fashion and financial senses, with YSL breaking even after 10 years of losses.

(pictured from left: Sir Paul McCartney, Nancy Shevell, Princess Caroline of Monaco's daughter Charlotte Casiraghi, actress Salma Hayek and her husband Francois-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR, which owns the Stella McCartney label) ·