At Hermès and McQueen, a Modern Silhouette  Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski and Sarah Burton offer new fall looks.

Considering Balenciaga’s recent trouble, it’s striking how calm the scene was outside its show. Almost everywhere else in Paris, you have to walk through a screaming gauntlet of spectators and celebrity hunters, with pockets of fangirls in matching colors suddenly going berserk. I was on my way into Valentino on Sunday night, in a former private mansion, when the crowd went full animal: “Anna! Anna!” I saw the smooth bob of Anna Wintour dart from her black car a few meters ahead. I tripped on a cobblestone.

But Balenciaga was calm and assured at every step, proof that leading houses don’t have to chase youth or clicks quite so desperately — unless, of course, they’re seriously muddled. One thing I forgot to mention in my review of Demna’s show for Balenciaga was the lighting design. It was masterful. There were few visible fixtures in the long, off-white room and none above the runway. Demna had said he wanted to scale things back — instead of doing another spectacular set — but that did not mean resorting to a basic white box with ugly lights and rigging. That sort of consideration was generally missing from Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino show.

Burton opened with a blast of tailoring — strict and sharp-shouldered pantsuits and coats, or bustier and sleeveless coat dresses in black and chalk-striped flannel — that freshen Lee McQueen’s aesthetic of strong femininity. She called the collection “Anatomy,” in part because her clothes have lately, and gratifyingly, been more body conscious and less decorative, but also because the house is built on tailoring. “It’s almost going back to the beginnings of McQueen, to where he started, Savile Row,” she said.