Paris Fashion Week wraps up with sporty, edgy leather from Vuitton

PARIS (Reuters) - French luxury label Louis Vuitton wrapped up Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday with sporty, edgy looks for next winter, offering plenty of leather for outerwear, trousers and dresses. On a catwalk spiked with mirror columns, designer Nicolas Ghesquiere opened the autumn/winter 2016/2017 show with a black coat adorned with golden buttons and cinched at the waist over shiny red leather trousers and combat-style boots. Similar trousers, flared and cropped at the ankle, peppered the show in various colors and were worn with block-colored knits or sleek black leather jackets zipped at the front. Ghesquiere, who has led a renaissance of the brand known for its monogrammed leather bags, also presented T-shirt-like dresses in bold geometric patterns - blue, red, white and black - in front of guests including Oscar winner Alicia Vikander. Silk scarf prints, namely of belts and chains, decorated short-sleeve tops-and-skirts combinations. They worn with black leather sleeves that crept up above the elbow. Looks were layered. Models in gothic make-up wore short or quilted jackets over long waist-cinched tops and trousers or colorful knitted dresses over floral-printed skirts. For the evening, sleek jackets with front zips were exaggerated at the hips, almost corset-like, while colorful sequined dresses had a trompe l'oeil effects. There were also leather, bra-like tops over dresses. The outfits were accessorised with lace-up boots, mostly flat, while handbags came in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. Some models also wore large black furry hats. Louis Vuitton, flagship brand of luxury goods group LVMH, wrapped up just under a month of catwalk shows that began in New York and moved onto London and Milan before the Paris finale. (This story was refiled to fix dateline) (Reporting by Reuters Television in Paris; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian in London; Editing by Louise Ireland)