COMPLETE COLLECTION

PARIS, June 30, 2008

By Sarah Mower

Alexis Mabille is the new boy in Paris, stepping onto the runway during the couture season for the second time with a buzz and a glamorous audience (including the grand Italian couturier Simonetta, high-ranking friends from LVMH, and lots of pretty girls) around him. The ideas he showed were based, he said, on on the students, staff, and parents at an "imaginary mixed school." They had freshness and charm—and plenty of the hallmarks of the business in witty bow ties he's been running since 2005. The motif, naturally enough, turned up in satin on the heels of shoes, running along the spine of a black gown, as decorations perking up in the back of the girls' heads like little ears, and as peacock-feather brooches. Still, what Mabille had to offer in the way of clothes—slim black dresses with piqué shirt bibs; drop-waist, navy silk schoolgirl shifts; and an easy-chic, elongated pantsuit—demonstrated that he's well on the way to growing beyond the accessory niche of his beginnings.