Dior's dark looks, Miyake's 'Beyond' pleats on offer at Paris fashion

Designer labels presented an array of offerings for women's winter wardrobes at Paris Fashion Week on Friday, with Dior mixing dark silhouettes with brighter prints and Issey Miyake showcasing colorful pleats.

The French capital is wrapping the autumn/winter 2016/2017 catwalk calendar after fashion weeks in New York, London and Milan.

In one of the most anticipated shows, Dior presented its first ready-to-wear womenswear collection since designer Raf Simons left the brand in October.

On a futuristic tunnel-like catwalk, the show opened with black and blue outfits - coats as well as embroidered jackets and skirts - sometimes colored with high-collared yellow and pink shirts and two-tone heeled tie-up ankle boots.

Silhouettes were slim with fitted coat dresses, asymmetrical peplum jackets, new versions of Dior's famed Bar jacket and high-waisted pencil skirts, at times slit to the knee.

Dior also offered plenty of romantic off-the-shoulder looks on short coats and dresses. Paisley and other patterns adorned dark dresses and coats or decorated whole outfits.

At Issey Miyake, designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae presented a colorful line called "Beyond", with "baked stretch" three-dimensional creations, using a process in which fabric is baked in an oven.

The first looks mixed colorful prism patterns with geometric lines on over-the-knee dresses, skirts and sleeveless tops. Other outfits were made with "concentric circles ... baked and overlapped creating strong, pleated graphic patterns", according to show notes.

Miyamae also showed "3D Steam Stretch" tops, jackets, skirts and dresses, made of cloth shrunk with steam. Further designs bore spiral shapes, others had stuck-out twisted pleats.

A series of black and white, turquoise and dark orange outfits -- robes, dresses with puffed up shoulders and tops worn with black trousers -- created optical illusions with their winding pleats. The multi-color looks were finished with black boots that came in different lengths.

(Reporting by Reuters Television in Paris; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian in London; Editing by Andrew Roche)