From berry trousers to a cream blouse we reveal how to achieve the latest look…

Lace dress, £79.99, zara.com. Stuart Weitzman bow shoes, £245, Russell & Bromley, 020 7629 6903

LEFT: Ted Baker cream skirt, £129, and Gerard Darel roll neck, £55, johnlewis.com. Fedora hat, £25, riverisland.co.uk. Cream ankle boots, £29.99, hm.com

RIGHT: JonathanSaunders berry trousers, £20, debenhams.com. Jigsaw cream blouse, £125, johnlewis.com. Nude fitted jacket, £24.75, forever21.com. Beige fedora, £39, jigsaw-online.com. Platform shoes, £70, officeshoes.co.uk

LEFT: Nude blouse, £54.90, massimo dutti.com. Fearne pleated skirt, £35, very.co.uk. Berry chain bag, £199, Russell & Bromley, 020 7629 6903. Court shoes, £65, aldoshoes.co.uk

Antoine Arnault with Natalia Vodianova, the Russian model Photo: GOFFPHOTOS

It is the label-flashing form of conspicuous consumption beloved of wannabe rappers, Russian oligarchs at play and taste-deprived reality television stars.

Now – at long, long last – the signs at the Paris men’s fashion shows this weekend are that the era of “bling” is drawing, unlamented, to its close.

Antoine Arnault, the 34-year-old heir to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, (LVMH) a luxury and fashion empire valued at close to £60 billion, said: “We are going to enter an era in which logo and ostentation is going to be less successful.

“It will be about real quality.”

Mr Arnault is well placed to make this prediction. The group founded by his father, Bernard – France’s wealthiest man, and according to Forbes magazine the fourth richest in the world – spans fifty of the world’s best known high-end brands.

They include Christian Dior, Krug, Tag Heuer, Bulgari, Givenchy, and Glenmorangie as well as Louis Vuitton itself, of which Mr Arnault was head of communications for five years.

Despite worldwide financial turmoil, the sector is enjoying an “anti-crisis” he says: between June and September last year LVMH reported sales of £4.9 billion, an 18 per cent increase across the group.

Arnault said he believes that the global appetite for luxury goods is poised for a bling-busting shift.

“People are going to want more quality, and less ostentation,” he said.

“Especially in a world in economic crisis: you don’t want to be seen with evidently expensive products. Just something that is beautiful.”

The most surprising aspect of the luxury industry’s 14 per cent boom in the face of broader economic gloom is that it is driven by male consumers, who are now spending £155 billion a year on luxury clothes and accessories for themselves, according to a new study.

This bodes ill for Natalia Vodianova, the Russian supermodel with whom Arnault has been romantically linked.

“The only explanation is that people still want to please themselves,” Mr Arnault said.

“Men seem to be a little bit more selfish these days, and spend a bit more on themselves and a little bit less on their wives or girlfriends.”

To meet this growing male market, Arnault is spearheading the launch of a new, men-only business to provide the bling-free, inconspicuously luxurious clothes he believes these men want.

Berluti, a venerable LVMH-owned maker of handmade £1000-and-up leather shoes launched its first menswear collection here on Friday night.

Mr Arnault said “The collection is more Aston Martin than Ferrari. I love Aston Martin. And you know we had the file on our desk [to possibly purchase the company]. A few years ago we talked about it, it’s luxury too. But it was too much.”

Despite passing on Aston Martin, Arnault says he hopes LVMH will buy more old, high-end luxury companies. He said: “The group needs to continue to grow, to preserve savoir faire, craft and heritage.”

Yet LVMH is sometimes portrayed as the Roman Empire of fashion: a voracious acquirer of territory with its eye fixed only on profit and power.

The family that controls Hermes is currently mounting a spirited campaign against what its claims is an attempt to LVMH to mount a surreptitious takeover.

Last year Patrick Thomas, Hermes’ chief executive, said of LVMH’s purchase of more than 20 per cent of his company: “If you want to seduce a beautiful woman, you don’t start by raping her from behind.”

Citing an imminent shareholders’ meeting – he sits on the LVMH board – Mr Arnault declined to discuss the Hermes hoo-ha.

Yet he insisted the LVMH empire’s emphasis is not conquest, but civilisation too.

“This image, that we are [only] here to make money, it is just the opposite,” he said.

“Speak to people in Berluti, in Dior, in Dom Perignon: not once have we worked with a brand that we didn’t glorify. I don’t know why, but some people really want to push that button, to say ‘they are evil’. We hear it [the criticism], but we do not accept it.”

It is almost a year since John Galliano was fired as head designer at Christian Dior after his notorious drunken, anti-semitic comments in a Paris bar were broadcast online. LVMH’s hunt for Galliano’s successor continues: the most recently-touted candidate is Raf Simons, of Jil Sander.

Before that it was the American designer Marc Jacobs, who currently runs his eponymous brand and Louis Vuitton – both of which are owned by LVMH.

Mr Arnault said of Dior: “They will wait until they find the perfect fit for the job. You have to speak to people, look around. They have patience.

People say “what’s going on?” but inside [Dior] people are absolutely Zen about it. There is no urgency at all.”

Of Jacobs, he said: “Whether he’s at Vuitton or Dior, the guy is a genius. An incredible artist. I feel when I’m with him that I’m close to Picasso, in a way.

“The only thing I want is that he stays with us. The discussions were very peaceful, very calm with Marc and my father, and everything is fine between us.”

The paradox of high-fashion’s high sales during this period of financial decline has, Mr Arnault believes, every chance of continuing.

“If you have trouble in your private life, who are you going to speak to?,” he said.

“Not the new friend you made the day before, but people you trust and have known forever. Vuitton, Berluti, Hermes: it is those brands that have never compromised on quality or values that people turn to.”

NOTE to self and to anyone else who wants to go to a Louis Vuitton show – always arrive in plenty of time. At one minute to ten this morning, the doors were closed, no exceptions, leaving lots of bemused and cross and slightly bereft fashion journalists outside.

Those who did get in were greeted with a set that was just as huge in terms of headlines, preparation and considerable spend as we saw in the Grand Palais for Chanel yesterday morning, and like Chanel, this was a pale wonderland – as if designers this season are letting us indulge our every fashion fairytale fantasy.

Of course, the dramatic showmanship reopened the endless will he, won’t he conversation about Marc Jacobs going toDior – as if we needed any proof that he and his team would do a good job there, this show was it. But we’re apparently no closer to knowing the outcome yet, so we just settled in to watch it happen.

Calling to mind Jacobs’ own show in New York over three weeks ago, he opened by unveiling all the girls at once, scattered beautifully across a white, glittering fairground carousel. That was enough to send us all straight onto Twitter – but we forced ourselves to keep watching because there was so much to see. ”It’s my biggest set, I could have never done this anywhere else.Very magical, it’s like a magic box: very Paris,” said Jacobs by way of explanation.

“It was a wonderful panorama of crisp pastels,” said Alexandra Shulman. The models’ hair was held in soft chignons by sparkling bands, to go with the soft, Fifties-influenced femininity of their floating, gauzy overskirts. Very intricate and absolutely beautiful, the collection carried on a theme of wonderful daywear pieces that’d really been worked on with couture ambition – the treatment on the collars, the cuffs and the transparent silhouettes boasting elaborate laser cuts and appliqué.

Dresses had puffed, full skirts and thick doily lace collars – macramé is confirmed as a trend as of this morning; drop waists too – and a little white dress is now on everybody’s list for next summer. Who better to prove that than Kate Moss, back on the show scene for Vuitton for the second season running – she closed the show in a white macramé shift that fell to a hemline of ostrich feathers. “Kate the great returns,” proclaimed Twitter.

The icy whites and silver was injected with candy pinks, yellow and pale blue accented with touches of navy. Accessories, as always, were key – next summer we’ll all want wonderful pointed shoes with pastel patent straps and silver toes. Open weave basket bags carried big daisy appliqués and came in pastel leathers – we can just see the window displays of the Bond Street store now. Meanwhile others, in sharper shades, worked to offset the sweetness of the overall colour palette. It was girly but not twee.

“It was like a big fashion wedding cake with all those clean, pale colours,” continued Alexandra. “Really beautiful.” With 2011 already confirmed as the year of the wedding, Jacobs apparently wants the celebrations to continue into next spring and this was very worthy persuasion.

Show Report

“THERE’s always sugar and spice at play atMiu Miu,” Vogue’s Harriet Quick said after this aftenoon’s show. “This was a really hilarious psycho drama. It was Kristen Stewart in Twilight meets Wednesday Addams meets Carrie – real B-movie, teenage vampires.”

There was the girlishness that we’ve seen elsewhere this week, but even younger than before, with full skirts and matching bra tops covered by little cloaks tied with velvet ribbons – all the innocence of Little Red Riding Hood but with red eyeshadow and wax-flattened hair implying that there’s some definite wolfery going on here too.

It started with austere grey A-line skirts with high fitted waists under black straightjacket blouses that crisscrossed the body – with pointed velvet mules and matching short handled bags, these were little girls dressing up, not knowing quite what was in store.

Then things started to heat up as a new silhouette took hold: finely pleated teeny weeny gym slips under long ruched tube waistbands over crisp cotton shirts, the tails of which were glimpsed under the flippy skirt. Purple A-line dresses were pulled in to smocked front panels and cut low enough to show off a bra top in contrasting blue.

Beautiful lace coats and dresses, some finely pleated and others overlaid in contrasting colours – grey on gold or red on tan, were accompanied by full-backed satin coats of palest pink or blue – a gathering of smocking between the shoulder blades reminding us of the true princess that the Miu Miu girl can be.

Leather boots of white with yellow roses twisting up them, or red growing up black, rose to mid calf from sculpted heels and then a collection of prints were patchworked together for coats and dresses that brought together the pyjama and upholstery trends we’ve seen about this week in a clutter of red and black and blue on white.

Only Miuccia Prada who could produce a show at the very end of a month long marathon of them – Miu Miu is widely considered to feel like the last day of term by the fashion crowd – that looks entirely fresh and generates a multitude of new ideas and puts everybody in a good mood.