Paris is always a good idea, but in the depths of winter, even one of the world’s most beautiful cities can feel a little fatigué. The cold is shocking, the sky is grim. On one particular Monday in March, however, you wouldn’t know any of this inside the Petit Palais. Guests are milling about, waiting to take their seats (and being photographed, in the meantime) for Zimmermann’s second-ever show at Paris Fashion Week.

In here, in the midst of the light-filled, beaux-arts style gallery, the crowd is dressed in defiance of the weather; they are almost entirely, exclusively adorned in the Australian brand’s distinctive prints, frills and flounces, head-to-toe in colour as if outside is Aperol o’clock. Vogue Australia editor Christine Centenera and her American colleague, Virginia Smith, are just about the only attendees wearing all black; everyone else has put on their Zimmermann best, bringing a slice of Australia to the 8th arrondissement.