Lagerfeld all-fur collection is set to raise hackles at Paris Fashion Week

With fashionistas baking in a mascara-melting heatwave and Italy's Fendi set to raise hackles with an all-fur collection, Paris Fashion Week, which started on Sunday, may prove a tad too haute to handle.

High-fashion designers are unveiling their autumn and winter collections over five days in Paris that kicked off with shows by Russian couturier Ulyana Sergeenko and Dutch designer Ilja Visser.

But the highlight of the extravaganza will be German fashion legend Karl Lagerfeld's collection celebrating his 50 years working for Fendi, which has hailed the "longest relationship between a designer and a fashion house".

The show tomorrow will be entirely "haute fourrure" or, couture fur - a material the luxury fashion brand has never shied away from.

French film icon and passionate animal activist Brigitte Bardot has already shown her disapproval by writing a letter to Choupette Lagerfeld, the designer's pampered feline companion.

Bardot appealed to the cat - who has become famous with 48,000 Twitter followers - to "purr in the ear" of her master and save her "furry friends".