Paris, the ultimate outpost of haute couture and, according to some Americans, Europe’s fashion capital, has long been associated with little cafes where small, powdered, perfumed and lipsticked women with their even smaller dogs sit, drink coffee and not eat for afternoons on end while looking undeniably chic.

So ingrained in collective consciousness is this image that many people feel that when it comes to all things fashion, Parisians just do it better. And looking at H&M’s latest collaboration with the self-described quintessential Parisian Isabel Marant, one cannot but agree.

Isabel Marant has been around since 1994, but it has only been recently that her super comfy knits, denim and sugared-almond pink shorts and those stacked trainers that launched thousands of high-street copies have garnered international acclaim.

Unlike many fashion houses, Marant’s mantra is comfort and the sort of chic that French mademoiselles adore and which wouldn’t look out of place in the uber cool Marais district of Paris.

Her designs are both bohemian and effortless and give the wearer a chic but not overdone look, making Marant’s clothes extremely wearable. Sitting in her studio in cropped leather trousers and a white, cotton jumper with her hair scraped into a bun, Marant says her style is about combining different ideas, and that joining forces with H&M has enabled her to give people the ideal wardrobe that they can mix, match and combine.

Despite being in the fashion business for so many years, Marant still cites Paris as her main inspiration because of the richness of the many different cultures and sub-cultures that permeate this metropolis.

Marant’s mantra is comfort and the sort of chic that French mademoiselles adore

The collection is indeed something of a melting pot: white jeans can be teamed with black, slouchy boots and oversized, masculine jackets for an understated weekend look, or worn with a chiffon Navajo print, black and white shirt, open to the navel for a night out in town.

Always the woman’s designer, Marant does not only include sparkly, glitter-effused shoes, dresses and trousers, but has also ‘chicified’ loungewear by giving us slouchy trousers with elasticated waistbands and baggy knitwear for those days when we would rather hibernate and curl up inside the house with a mug of hot chocolate than rule the world in six-inch stilettos.

For former H&M head designer Margereta van den Bosch, the choice for this season’s collaboration was a very natural one: “Isabel Marant is not just a designer; she is also a great stylist. One of the things that makes this collection exceptional is the different choices of materials and structures that stand in contrast to each other – thick and thin, glossy and matt. And then there is the French style that everybody tries to achieve.”