This season Masha Ma was in a metaphorical mood. Renown for her modern, chic and feminine aesthetic the designer presented a collection that was in ode to a vespertinal bloom.

In her show notes, Ma said she was inspired by the ‘breathtaking moment, when in the dead of night, the epiphyllum bursts into bloom.” Quite poetic as a theme. And luckily for us, there was not a derivative rosy hue in sight.

Instead, the designer proffered a sage palette of nautical blues, variations of white and tonal blacks by way of woven fabrics, knits and layered with embroidered flowers. As if prescient of a brumal blizzard, Ma’s proposition for fall was rife with textural and amplified layering. The mood recalled Terracotta warriors, all bundled up, as reporting for sentry. Lace face masks obscuring the visage, appeared in the forms of delicate flowers and added an elegant allure. Oversized sweaters, in graphic black and white resembling cable knit, were paired with identical skirts – some in a wrap effect. Folds and pleats were plenty, juxtaposing the elaborate and the artless. The result was a contemporary, lyrical oeuvre where the past met the apocalyptic, the diaphanous with the opaque, and the decorative with the austere.

There was also a clinical precision to the pieces, especially seen in declinations of white shirts that were the underpinning to copped knit jumpers or paired with jacquard skirts.

On the last day of Paris Fashion Week, Ma sent out one of the definitive collections this season on the subject of modern elegance; showing that it is quietly confident and doesn't need to seek the onlooker's attention.