Runway Feed

Jimmy Choo for H&M (Sponsored Show)

The Jimmy Choo for H&M collection debuts in 200 stores worldwide on Saturday, November 14th. This limited edition collection for ladies will include shoes, bags, accessories and for the first time ever: apparel. To further celebrate the collaboration, Jimmy Choo will extend its design vision to men's apparel, shoes, bags and accessories.

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Giles

Winning the French ANDAM award may only have shuffled Giles Deacon to the graveyard slot on the Paris schedule, but he made the very best of the situation with a spoofy-spooky Scooby-Doo-ish show starring his very own Daphne (Guinness, that is). Debuting on the bottom rung of the Paris schedule after years of being top dog in London didn't faze this most genial of designers. Instead, it made him sharpen up his act so that the cute, sixties-cartoonish, neon, pastel, and metallic collection full of delightful prom dresses turned out to be the first truly coherent outing of his career—with tons of playful accessories thrown in. "You have to make it more concise here," he said. "I just wanted to do more real-life, obtainable clothes." Deacon's line is now produced under a new license deal with the Italian manufacturer Castor SRL. That means his deliciously detailed peach, apricot, and lime froufrou dance dresses and Monroe-ish sheaths in draped tulle or 3-D "dragon-stitch knit" (a genius design by Sid Bryan, a London specialist friend) may hit stores at a competitive speed next spring. They deserve a place, too—as do the nutty, teenager-ish accessories: Cutler and Gross "Scooby" sunglasses with pink printed frames, spider and scorpion jewelry, neon pegs and gold-plated bulldog clips to stick in hair and festoon collars—not to mention really silly soft-toy dinosaur bags. Like so much else this season, Deacon's collection is young, and it has a believable, cheerful personality that should see him holding his own. As a footnote to the season, Deacon also smartly confirmed the new shoe shape that will come as a blessed relief to all the platform-weary fashion foot soldiers who are limping home from the field on planes and trains right now. It is, of course, the kitten heel. Deacon's version is attached to a long, low, pointy plastic and snakeskin last—provided by Christian Louboutin. Let's hope he makes enough to slake demand.
—Sarah Mower

Collette Dinnigan

Fantasy is one theme of the Spring collections, and Alice in Wonderland was the muse Collette Dinnigan channeled. It took a while to get to the fun part, though: The designer opened this dress-focused show with a passage in pre-rabbit-hole black and white. There was a little lace, some tulle, and rhinestones galore, but no organizing theme to distinguish these frocks from those of another designer on the occasion dress floor of a department store. After Alice took her notorious fall, however, things got more interesting. The boldly colored, painterly floral prints of Dinnigan's ruffled and tiered dresses—the models wore them shrugging off of one shoulder—had a real personality. Of course, we all have to come back to terra firma sometime, but it was a bit of a disappointment to see the designer return to the safety of black and white in the long evening looks at the end.
—Nicole Phelps

Miu Miu

As Paris winds down, one of the city's big stories is its designers' fascination with youth. Leave it to that Italian iconoclast Miuccia Prada to crystallize it in an oddly captivating collection that combined short, high-waisted Lolita dresses with naïve animal prints (and one not-so-G-rated lounging-nude motif). "I was questioning innocence, questioning youth," Prada said backstage. "What do they mean today in a world that's the opposite?"

She is a designer who's always embraced the perverse, so about halfway through, the cat and bird and dog prints got some company in the form of holographic paillettes and crystals embroidered on sheer nude mesh insets. These, along with cutouts that bared skin on the torso, upped the provocation factor on the little-girl frocks, but it was still hard to imagine fashion sophisticates like Kate Moss and Renée Zellweger, who sat opposite each other in the front row, finding many occasions to wear them.

In the end, Prada's final judgment on our age-obsessed culture wasn't entirely clear, but it's interesting to note that the best looks in this quirky, challenging collection were the pantsuits. With their sophisticated, narrow lines, they didn't quite fit into this season's naïf narrative. But they did make playing grown-up look like a lot of fun.
—Nicole Phelps

Elie Saab

Elie Saab went in a bold new direction for Spring—straight into Balmain territory. Five looks in, there it was: a black nipped-waist jacket with a modified, slightly less intense take on Christophe Decarnin's tennis-ball shoulder. The latter designer's sexy, take-no-prisoners vibe could also be seen in the zigzagging crystal embroideries of a one-shoulder dress.

The Balmain effect is so widespread at this point that it might seem mean-spirited to bring it up, but it was a hard-to-ignore departure for the Lebanese designer known as the go-to guy for Hollywood awards shows. Still, Saab didn't leave the celebrity-pleasing dresses completely out of the equation. For Spring, his draped and ruched glamour gowns were shown in pool blue and cherry red. The collection's most pleasant surprises were a narrow sheath and a column gown in a digital print that combined those colors with yellow and black. They were striking, and felt more original.
—Nicole Phelps

Wunderkind

Wolfgang Joop named his Spring collection "Hurt and Heal." His program notes explained that "after a time of opulence and carelessness, healing has to come." He's not the only designer thinking along those lines; unfortunately, Joop's Wunderkind show took the sentiment way too literally.

Rendered in red or blue toile de Jouy, his blouses, high-waisted pants, peasant dresses, and coats had a country charm that ought to have put him in good company—Karl Lagerfeld himself went bucolic at Chanel. But there was a major disconnect between these clothes and the futuristic knits they were layered upon. Inspired by medical compression body stockings designed to enhance circulation, the unitards came in graphic color-blockings: red, white, and black, with large yellow arrows pointing at the bust or the nether regions. The metal back braces that accompanied some of the looks just added to the head-scratching effect.
—Nicole Phelps

Kenzo

Antonio Marras is one of fashion's congenital romantics, given to grand gestures that stir the emotions. The backdrop for his latest collection for Kenzo was a huge golden disc—the sun hanging heavy over the Sahara. At the finale, it literally exploded in a shower of gold filaments that rained down on the catwalk while models walked in juicily shaded chiffons—aqua, peach, hot pink—with heads wrapped like nomad princesses. It was a spectacular conclusion to a show that took as its starting point the Middle Eastern excursions of the early twentieth-century English adventuress Freya Stark, then stirred in a little of Bertolucci's film The Sheltering Sky. So there was a Europe-meets-ethnic vibe to the clothes, which was so perfectly in tune with the ethos of the house that it underlined how appropriate a choice Marras was for this job. You could pair the striped drop-crotch pants with the madras trench and you'd have a consummate update of the Kenzo code.

The designer's own inclinations toward a darkish glamour were evident in the floral print he matched with a man-tailored jacket in black lamé, or a draped dress trailing threads of old gold Lurex. His theme of the desert explorer also inspired much easier pieces: big shirts cinched with wide belts, army shorts belted with rope, a natural linen shirtdress. The sheer shift with a sequined camo pattern might be a stretch for the Sahara, but it artfully elevated this season's military mood.
—Tim Blanks

Hermès

It's always hard not to slip in an obvious pun when describing a collection Jean Paul Gaultier has his hands on: So at Hermès, it was a case of Love All. Tennis, you may have guessed, was his theme, and he delivered like a pro to give a topspin to Hermès' timeless classics. In a Spring when little kilts, black-and-white graphics, and easy sportswear are all newly desirable, Gaultier served up variations on tennis skirts, longline cardigans, dressing gowns, and club T-shirts (the latter grown into long, fluid jersey evening columns). A creamy lizard Birkin even came with a matching ball bag attached.

Joking aside, it's a rare skill to be able to pull off a trend without being that horribly disposable thing, "trendy." If a woman goes to Hermès, it's with the intention of buying something that will stay in her wardrobe for years. This collection faultlessly delivered on exactly that point, covering haute necessities from beautiful daywear (caramel leather dresses, a blue suede "umpire" blazer) to chic-casual looks for early evening (a black chiffon blouse, jacket, and knife-pleat skirt with sheer inserts) and sinuously simple navy or white ankle-skimming dresses cut to knock the competition dead at any number of indoor or outdoor summer events. Quietly, the show also established Hermès' supremacy in discreet jewelry. Fine strands of silver-link chains, worn as pendants or as belts, were a styling choice so compelling they might even shift the current aesthetic away from gold.

Clever, witty, and perfectly timed, this collection reaffirmed the position of the leather and accessories house of the rue Saint-Honoré in the Parisian top league, exactly where it belongs.

—Sarah Mower

John Galliano

This season, there's been obsessive talk about the possibilities of making fashion events public via revolutionary digital technologies, so it takes an extra-special mustering of talent to remind everyone how unique an experience a great show can be in real time, witnessed on the spot. For Spring, John Galliano did just that, conjuring up a magical scenario on a laser-lit runway, upon which floating bubbles descended and then—poof!—evaporated into vapor. It created a dreamy parallel world for one of his best collections in a long time: a show poignantly evoking the era when the heroines of silent movies were facing their career demise.

"It came from a research trip to L.A.," Galliano said. "I went around the old houses of Hollywood and imagined how stars like Tallulah Bankhead, Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford lived." It gave him an ideal justification for playing to his strengths in poetically glamorous chiffon; bias-cut little nothings; fragile, delightful plissé puff-shouldered blouses and bed jackets; and coats symbolically decorated with clusters of flowers made out of film gel. Galliano's color sense—the ice blues, silver lamés, powder pinks, and lemons—was exquisite; it was his fashion version of Sunset Boulevard.

This, of course, is the romantic territory Galliano has owned for years, but somehow, seen in this laser-created futuristic light, its imagery jumped to a new relevance. Triumphantly desirable as the clothes were, their meaning seemed doubly poignant—mirroring a moment when a new technology was putting an old world out of business.
—Sarah Mower

Talbot Runhof

Something Alexander McQueen said about the unnecessary pace of change in the industry got Munich-based Johnny Talbot and Adrian Runhof thinking about what attaches women to their wardrobes. What makes a dress a favorite dress? That's where they started for Spring. So why, one wondered, was their collection so insistent about a silhouette that was essentially a bathing suit? There was a pinstripe version with an obi-like belt, a chiffon style with puffed sleeves, and one in stripes with a crisscross bodice. Granted, we're talking spring/summer, so there's a possibility that a bathing suit might indeed be a favorite piece. But some of these dresses will have to work at becoming wardrobe staples. The most disconcerting feature was a pleat of fabric that was draped across the bodice and gathered to one side at the waist. It looked clumsy. There was also a heaviness to a one-shouldered tweed column and a single-shouldered pinstriped gown whose other shoulder was draped with a mass of beading.

Still, the label's cocktail dresses have a solid trunk show-worthy following with the Bergdorfs and Neimans of this world, and there was some art to that tweed when it appeared as a skirt paired with a top in a print of the same material, photographed as it unraveled.
—Tim Blanks

Louis Vuitton

First impression of Louis Vuitton: confusion. As editors and VIPs scrambled to take their seats in the dark, security guards in the courtyard of the Louvre were shouting, "Vite! Vite!" and maneuvering people through the doors (punctuality is the thing at this house these days). Meanwhile, models in giant Afro wigs were already trotting past several empty front-row seats. What was the look? Another calculated mix-up Jacobs later summarized as being "about travelers—the movement that came after punk. Then we were thinking about hiking, trekking, and then denim and parkas—city utilitarianism."

What did that actually mean? At first sight, Japanese by way of early Galliano, though it was hard to find a definitive label for the sporty, couture-ish, military, metallic, glittery layering going on. There were brocade cycling shorts, pleated kilt-cum-belts, army-pocketed jackets, neon and nude camouflage slipdresses, and LV-stamped ombré-dyed denim looks with fringed edges. Tubular sport drawstrings were used as cross-lacing up the sides of leggings and later got chopped up and applied to body dresses in swagged appliqués vaguely reminiscent of Native American jewelry. Among the sport mesh and draping in the abbreviated prom-meets-tennis dresses, there was a flash of a brilliant green pailletted number that seemed to link back to the army subtheme (though it hardly matters where it came from, it was so cute).

Apart from that, though, there was less of the sugar-coated overt luxe of the last Vuitton collection. In fact, all the action was in the super-young accessories. Toggles, tassels, and fur tails dingle-dangled off squashy backpacks and satchels, while head-turning suede peg-heeled clogs (the season's funniest take on the resurgent kitten heel) sprouted fur patches and hardware. When Jacobs took his bow, he was wearing a pair of them himself.
—Sarah Mower

Roland Mouret

Roland Mouret found a few key ways of moving on this season. His antennae picked up the need to add something looser and more naturalistic to his line, and as a Frenchman, that oriented him toward a North African vibe. His father served in the French army in Africa, and brought home souvenirs that were part of the household when the young Roland was growing up, and thoughts of djellabas and Zouaves and jewelry from the souk occurred to him for Spring. It's a fashion theme that has a strong Parisian history, from Saint Laurent to Azzedine Alaïa through to Riccardo Tisci's Givenchy.

The addition to Mouret's canon of Berber stripes, hoods, tarnished gold-bead jewelry, and strawlike fringing (actually a viscose fiber, soft to the touch) was a timely move. Still, it was carried through in a way calculated not to scare off the body-conscious city-dwelling audience whose mentality and lifestyle he understands so well. In a season of nude illusion and lingerie effects, Mouret also came up with a practical device smartly developed from the "built" underpinning that was the secret ingredient in his famous hourglass Galaxy dress. Now he's selling the underlying power-mesh base as a body-control device in its own right: a skin-toned slip with a zipper in the side. "I think Spanx are great," he said, "until a woman gets home after the party. This gives a guy something to play with."

Mouret's focus on the utility aspects of modern dressing also led him to work out a design for a top—a square of fabric suspended on tapes that can double up as a skirt. That might prove a trickier sell, like some of the draped and folded pannier-shaped ideas he worked into the show. Yet Mouret's general direction—the broadening of his palette to include teal, mustard, and black-and-white jersey stripes, and the new sense of texture and richness in this collection—looked appealing.
—Sarah Mower

Chanel

Chanel was up at cockcrow for a gigantic fashion romp in the hay. A huge barn had been conjured up in the center of the Grand Palais, and the models emerged from it, wheat ears clinging to their tousled blond Bardot beehives, straw stuck to their clothes, and a little smirk and stagger in their step as if just caught out at you-know-what. Naughty, naughty! Between them, the Chanel country coquettes managed to flirt their way around every rustic reference in Karl Lagerfeld's extensive repertoire of craft-y couture skills, from hopsack to basket weave and cane work to aprons, dirndls, peasant-y poppy prints, and fantastic wooden double-C clogs. It was a bumper harvest of everything that is chicly tattered, beribboned, and gloriously made about Chanel, as well as the season's sole experience to make the anxiety and earnestness around fashion evaporate, to make it seem like fantastic fun again.

Never mind the hay, Lagerfeld was on a roll. Digging into a theme can sometimes throw up some embarrassing puns, and the effort to be youthful has occasionally had off-beam results at Chanel. But with this collection, Lagerfeld's summing up of the season's tendencies—beige, ivory, and black; rough textures; transparency and lace—was spun into a collection so masterfully balanced between classicism and current fashion affairs that the whole thing felt delightfully sure-footed. The knack was that he didn't rush it—just let the thing keep bouncing out in a sustained variation of caramels, taupes, and ecrus, all logically adapted to the house's nubby tweed suits, frothy blouses, and fluttery chiffons. The editing of everything to short lengths looked sweet without being chichi—the test being that every teenage girl looked naturally at home in the little thigh-split skirts (that's what has happened to the bottom half of the Chanel suit), as well as in the mini-crinis and ruffled dance dresses.

Prince and Rihanna were competing for attention in the front row; there was a surprise turn from Lily Allen, who rose out of the floor on a hoedown platform to belt out a saltily worded country number; and at the end, Freja Beha Erichsen, Lara Stone, and Lagerfeld's constant companion, Baptiste Giabiconi, were literally rolling around in the hay together. And yet, remarkably, the clothes never became a sideshow. In a season when celebrities, concepts, and a lot of forgettable mediocrity have got in the way of seeing why luxury fashion should merit the price, this was a Chanel triumph.
—Sarah Mower

Chloé

One thing's for certain: There are going to be an awful lot of beige jackets and pants, khaki shirts, and colorless chiffon things to choose from—or possibly shy away from—when Spring deliveries arrive. Watching Chloé made one realize how risky it can be, in competition terms, to be on-trend, and exactly what discriminating choices store buyers will have to make between one designer's take and another's, if their selling floors aren't going to stretch like an executive dust bowl as far as the eye can see.

That is not to say that Hannah MacGibbon doesn't have a personal point of view. Her take on the roomy jacket and easy trouser and the khaki button-down shirt is more boyish than most, and her girl has a refreshingly natural look—all recently washed hair and un-made-up skin. She also dispenses with the agony of high heels, preferring the comfort of flat leather walking sandals (a choice Marco Zanini, too, made at Rochas). That was fair enough, and the occasional long skirts that came with the tailoring offered a cool, different way to put things together.

But then came a puzzling passage of ponchos and jodhpur-ish stirrup pants that threw up the question of which season MacGibbon was thinking about, and when the floaty, fluttery side of Chloé was going to show up. It did, eventually, in some really pretty plissé flyaway layered chiffons (of the color-free kind). Meanwhile, MacGibbon also did her duty by the house by sending out some looks, like a generic flea-market outfit of denim shirt and jeans, that trained the eye on the Chloé leather goods on offer: to wit, a series of chestnut crocodile vintage-y bags with brass turn-key fastenings, slung on long straps across the body. In all? It was a generally serviceable collection for the brand, but in a slightly minor key.
—Sarah Mower

Valentino

The collection Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli presented for Spring couldn't have been more different from their reverent ready-to-wear debut of just over six months ago. Continuing down a path they started on during Couture in July, the duo is now designing with a new Valentino generation in mind—one that likes its party dresses short and isn't afraid of sheer. "We wanted to tell a new fairy tale," Piccioli said backstage. "We're proud of the house heritage, but we wanted to give a personal point of view."

He wasn't kidding in one respect: There wasn't a red dress in sight. Instead, he and Chiuri romanced the soft tones of nude, rose, lavender, gold, and gray that have become the big color story of the season. Their methods included swirling organza around the body and tying it off with a flamboyant bow, embroidering tulle T-shirt dresses in antique laces and geometric metal paillettes, and printing chiffon with black orchids. A couple of fitted leather jackets and minis embellished with laser-cut rosettes provided a bit of edge. Glass slippers didn't figure in this story, but the London-based milliner Philip Treacy did whip up some fanciful footwear with lace wings arcing upward from the heels.

In sum: This was a well-timed step forward for the new Valentino duo, one that put the brand at the center of some of Spring's key trends and started to give it a new relevance.
—Nicole Phelps

Alexander McQueen

It could be that Alexander McQueen—oh, and Lady Gaga, remotely—crashed through a whole new frontier in the projection of fashion shows as worldwide live entertainment Tuesday night. McQueen's collection, Plato's Atlantis, was live-streamed on Nick Knight's SHOWstudio.com, intercut with the photographer's premade video footage. That was the plan anyway, until 30 minutes before the show, Gaga Twittered that McQueen was about to premiere her new single. She has a million followers. Inevitably, before the crashing of the frontier could quite come about, SHOWstudio itself crashed. Which may have replicated, in a whole new audience, the sensation of a young hopeful stuck outside a McQueen presentation, waving a standing ticket and being unable to get in.

Seen from on the spot, it was a big-budget production, for sure. There was a sparkling, illuminated runway in which two sinister, robotic movie cameras on gigantic black booms ran back and forth, while a screen played Knight's video of Raquel Zimmermann, lying on sand, naked, with snakes writhing across her body.

Then the models came out, dressed in short, reptile-patterned, digitally printed dresses, their gangly legs sunk in grotesque shoes that looked like the armored heads of a fantastical breed of antediluvian sea monster. McQueen, according to an internal logic detailed in a press release, was casting an apocalyptic forecast of the future ecological meltdown of the world: Humankind is made up of creatures that evolved from the sea, and we may be heading back to an underwater future as the ice cap dissolves.

The consequences, in fashion terms? Well, it was a one-note, unmissable formula of the kind several other designers have decided is the way to communicate this season. McQueen's message throughout was essentially sunk into the short dress—a steady development of his engineered sea-reptile prints, worked into a nipped-waist, belled-skirt silhouette. The colors—first green and brown, moving to aqua and blue—were exceptionally executed and swagged, and molded across panniered structures. Each dress was a work of computer-generated art crossbred with McQueen's couture-based signature cut.

In a section in which it looked as if McQueen was envisaging a biological hybridization of women with sea mammals, there were trousers whose bulbous flanks mimicked the skin of sharks or dolphins. A reminder of his taste in Savile Row tailoring came via a few looks in which formfitting gray men's fabric was cut away to reveal "portholes" filled with turquoise (an effect akin to the view from a glass-bottomed boat). Finally, then? Although there was nothing to show McQueen breaking out from his set design mold, the way he's embracing new computer technologies and the drama of the moving image puts him at the leading edge of change.
—Sarah Mower

Tim Hamilton

Tim Hamilton said he was influenced by the Catherine Deneuve movie The Hunger. That meant there was an early-eighties sensibility to the collection's draped tailoring and body-conscious dresses. A copper red blouse with padded shoulders worn with high-waisted, tapered pants with sloping pockets in the same rich shade proved he has a sense for the bigger fashion picture, as did a black leotard with a second-skin mini. But there were a few puzzlers in this modest show, like a pair of pants with fabric wings protruding from the pockets, and a scanty beaded bandeau top paired with black military fatigues. Who's the customer for those?

Hamilton lives and works in New York; he picked up the Swarovski Award for Menswear at the CFDAs this June. So it's a bit of a mystery why he's decided to show his nascent women's collection in Paris (his menswear presentation there in June received a somewhat cool reception from critics). Surely he'd have a bigger fan club cheering him on back home, and he might be better served by building the brand DNA before trying to make his mark on the world stage.
—Nicole Phelps

Giambattista Valli

From the negotiations for clothes fresh off the runway that were going on backstage after Giambattista Valli's show, this much was clearer than ever: The designer has struck upon a look that suits the twentysomething jet-setters and actress types in his front row exceedingly well. After Fall's long, almost clerical lengths and the fifties ball skirts of the season before, he went short and leggy for Spring. The recurring silhouette was a drop-waist frothy minidress reminiscent of the twenties. Smothered in dense fringe or feathers (both real and represented in trompe l'oeil prints) or swirls of jeweled embroideries, these jazzy numbers were interspersed with the egg-shaped dresses and cocoon coats that have become a signature of Valli's nearly five-year-old collection. This season, those came in graphic color-blocking or overscale prints and embroideries inspired by antique carpets. Bold leopard-stamped ponyskin was also in the mix; a short-sleeved jacket and shorts suit in the stuff seemed to attract particularly strong interest from his socialite fan club.

Backstage, Valli name-checked early-twentieth-century artists like Brancusi, Picasso, and Man Ray, explaining that he was also thinking about ethnic art and tribalism while designing. If the origins of this newly youthful yet still sophisticated collection went straight over the heads of the bright young things it seems so perfect for, who really cares? The zhoozh factor is what counts, and this season Valli's got it.
—Nicole Phelps

Vanessa Bruno

If you're looking for a well-priced take on the season's lacy little tops and lingerie-themed looks, Vanessa Bruno just might be your girl. She's always had a knack for sussing out the trends in an approachable way. If the styling seemed a bit much on the runway—lace knee pads, anyone?—the collection will be broken down at her boutiques and at department stores into risk-free wardrobe updates. The pieces most likely to make the transition from catwalk to selling floor included the perfect little boleros and bed jackets with the season's bold shoulder, which could be worn over just about anything. Slouchy silk jumpsuits with drawstring waists and white Victoriana shirts with what looked like hand-tatted lace should also do well in stores. Some pieces had too much of a bottom-of-the-vintage-bin feel, and others were weighed down with bulky bits of yarn and appliqués, but otherwise this looked like a savvy distillation of one direction fashion's going for Spring.
—Nicole Phelps

Stella McCartney

Trey Speegle's giant paint-by-number canvas spelling out the word YES at the back of Stella McCartney's runway summed up the mood of today's collection quite succinctly. These were uncomplicated, upbeat, and above all colorful clothes for women who prefer not to think too hard about getting dressed but still want to look young, sexy, and chic. It's a sentiment that McCartney, a mother of three young children and the head of a growing fashion empire, understands intimately—as do her loyal customers, including front-row pal Gwyneth Paltrow.

The actress, who sat sandwiched between Stella's dad, Sir Paul, and Charlotte Rampling, wore a McCartney blazer and skinny denim. Both made appearances on the runway, but these weren't the designer's signature elongated, borrowed-from-the-boys shapes. Instead, she took her tailoring in a more feminine direction. Jackets in silvery raw silk shantung came with a graceful ruffle down one lapel, or a sweet peplum, and were paired with wrapped-waist, relaxed silk pants. Denim turned up as a pinafore and as easy button-front A-line skirts, worn with a silk shirt or a lace cami and jacket. Wedge cork Linda sandals, inspired by McCartney's late mother, complemented the clothes' slightly retro seventies feel.

"Summer's not about aggression," the designer said backstage, and that thinking extended into evening, for which she proposed red, blue, and orange rose-print pleated dresses edged at the neckline and hem with swirls of ruffles. The collection won't necessarily situate her in Spring's big conversations about sheerness or lingerie (she did transparency and lace last season). Not that she minds. "I wanted to teach my customers not to be afraid of the simple stuff," she said. McCartney clearly isn't, and it's that kind of confidence that makes her clothes so winning.
—Nicole Phelps

Yves Saint Laurent

The drive toward, as the Yves Saint Laurent program notes put it, "a natural and honest chic, an aesthetic paradigm of new minimalism" is picking up speed during the Paris shows. Stefano Pilati, whose intellectual aspirations always lead him to think long and hard about contemporaneity, is one whose natural urge is to belong to that vanguard. But what does it actually involve in his case? A stark, monochrome pencil-skirted suit and an austere tuxedo? Or a pair of conceptual lederhosen and a romantic, strawberry-scattered dress? For Spring, YSL had both. And that was odd.

The logic linking the two (if not more) sides of the collection was hard to see. Some of it appeared to stem from the Saint Laurent archive, albeit at a great remove: the strawberries, flounces, and peasant influences can be traced back to the seventies, though Pilati's bunchy off-the-shoulder dresses were abstracted from the source and eroticized with black leather short shorts and fishnet stockings. But there wasn't enough of it to get into any sort of stride, and when a single white sleeveless coat-dress appeared with what seemed to be purple djellaba embroidery on the shoulder, it was an idea that was left hanging, without further development.

On the other hand, there were more easily understood city dresses and suitings—like a regular periwinkle long-sleeved linen dress and the belted white pantsuit that opened the show—interspersed with a continuation of the edgy black leather pieces Pilati showed last winter. Then, to add to it all, there was a reversion to some of the clerical references he brought up at the beginning of his tenure: surplicelike sleeves, priestly white blouses, and almost ceremonial minimized capes.

The parts will likely separate into perfectly sellable working-woman pieces for the stores, and the more edgy elements will get bundled off to editorial shoots. But in terms of a cohesive statement, they never quite seemed to relate.
—Sarah Mower

Celine

Phoebe Philo has always had a great sense of who she is. That centeredness informs her way of designing clothes that reflect fashion as it's really lived, rather than anything arty or conceptual, and it gives her work the vitality so many young women identified with during her wildly successful pre-marriage, pre-family run at Chloé. Well, four years down the line, she's back—different house, different mid-thirties phase of life—but with possibly even more directness and focus at Celine. "I just thought I'd clean it up. Make it strong and powerful—a kind of contemporary minimalism," she said.

The precise lines and simple equations of luxuriously sporty elements read as a brisk mission to make classy utilitarianism sexy: not "again," but for the first time for Philo's own generation. The pairing of sharp, whipcord-trimmed skirts, fine leather tees, piqué shirting, over-the-head cross-laced dresses, and modified military jackets was shot through with pragmatism and a crucial underlying appreciation of classic Parisian taste. At some points, the Chloé Phoebe was visible again. It was fully there in the super-flattering cut of her high-waist, wide-leg pant, and the genius of the wedge sandal that made every single look work. The difference was that the restrained palette of camel, beige, white, and black had the full stamp of a grown-up sensibility, one that also carried the bat squeak of Helmut Newton-esque eroticism in the semi-sheer nude fabrics and the plain yet provocative use of leather.

Quite possibly that charge doesn't sizzle in the runway photographs, but every young woman in the room felt it. As the audience exited, a general cry of, "Oh, I just want to be like that," was ricocheting through the crowd. And that, as we seem to remember, is just what they said when Philo's Chloé went into vertical liftoff.
—Sarah Mower

Karl Lagerfeld

The invite featured Mondino's classic shot of skinny Karl as guitar hero. The backdrop was stacks of amps, à la rock band of your choice. So far, so in tune with the edgy scrawniness of this label's wares to date. But then, typical of Lagerfeld, the clothes turned around and defeated expectations. The foundation stone of the collection was shorts. "Not Bermudas or hot pants," the designer was quick to point out backstage, but a contemporary variation that emphasized rounded hips. They looked almost like tap shorts, especially when they showed in white satin.

Lagerfeld pushed his idea with all-in-one playsuits—sometimes hanging off dungaree straps, sometimes with no straps at all—which dropped into deep-pleated shorts (it was particularly striking in red leather). This bizarre notion was so insistent throughout the presentation that it took on a persuasive life of its own. And, in its peculiar way, it fit with jackets whose hems were folded up to shoulders that buttoned down. Imagine WAACs hoofing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" on Mars and you get the picture. The clincher was a finale of outfits that were traced with an overlapping silver filigree. It was metal, yes, but it wasn't heavy. In other words, a practically lighthearted approach for a line that has, in the past, made an art of lugubriousness.
—Tim Blanks

Sonia Rykiel

Sonia Rykiel turned her shop on the Boulevard Saint-Germain into a dance club with disco balls, silver confetti-covered floors, and models who sashayed and shimmied down the narrow aisle between the chairs, blowing kisses along the way. The clothes, no surprise, were thirties by way of seventies. Among the knits were striped black-and-gold Lurex tank dresses, popcorn-stitch cardigans belted over thick ribbed biker shorts in poppy colors, and a blue-and-white S.R. logo maillot worn under a clear plastic trench trimmed in black. They shared the runway with black suits covered in little gold studs, pink silk tops and dresses inset with black lace, and a flirty floral-print dress with peekaboo cutouts in the bodice.

It was vintage Rykiel, but less retro than recent collections. There may be something about showing in her store that makes Rykiel and her daughter Nathalie design more realistically: The only things you couldn't imagine strolling down the street outside were the quilted satin looks in candy colors. By the end, those exceptions were forgotten. The girls were so sexy in their clingy striped sweaters, high-waisted leggings, and heels, the crowd would've gone home happy even without the flowing Champagne and Michael Jackson tunes.
—Nicole Phelps

Givenchy

At some shows in Paris, the seating arrangements are so cramped that you can physically feel the audience reaction in the body language running along a bench. At Givenchy, there was no possible doubt about what it was. From the very first look out—a geometrically striped black and white jersey jacket over a graphic, lozenge-fronted top and draped pants—everyone was on high alert, jostling and craning for the best possible view.

Indisputably, Riccardo Tisci has moved up to the elite group of designers who matter most in Paris. His work has editors pining to buy and rock stars' stylists competing for first dibs—and for Spring, that heat's only going to intensify. What he sent out was a fusion of Arabic influences, goddesslike draping, and, according to the program notes, the results of his new research into sixties Roman couture. If that sounds like nonsense on paper, in fact almost every garment had an intensity of proportion and detail that looked incredible: the graphic jackets; tiny kilts; attenuated drop-crotch harem pants; cool, multilayered, modernized tutus; and draped, wrapped, and swathed tulle dresses.

Travel influences often lead to banality, but Tisci's referencing of the kaffiyeh scarf was pushed into allover digital patterns in ways that almost took it into the realm of zigzagging psychedelia. The prints covered blouses, jackets, kilts, leggings, platform wedges, and bags. The silhouette, with its slightly raised waistline, had the effect of making the models look even taller and more impossibly leggy—the drama enhanced by the high, wrapped, wedge-heel boots. For day, the bondage-y footwear came in leather; at night, with the goddess dresses, it was smothered in white tulle.

This highly resolved series of looks could only have come about because of Tisci's experience in Givenchy's haute couture. If that sounds high-flown, it is, in a way—but the cleverness is that everything he's doing now has the heartbeat of youth. Even better: Tisci may be the rock world's new dream couturier, but in retail that also translates into accessible, surprising pieces that sell out the minute they hit stores.
—Sarah Mower

Kris Van Assche

"With everything that's going on, it had to be about what's essential," Kris Van Assche said backstage before his show (referring, of course, to the economy and its effects on fashion, in general, and on his own business, specifically). For the Belgian designer of Dior Homme, what's essential is the menswear element. For Spring, he decided to drape his suits and to approach dressmaking with a tailor's hand. The opening L.B.D., for example, came in a crisp cotton with short sleeves puffed stiff below pinched shoulders. A pair of suits, by contrast, were sashed at the waist with the tails of the shirts worn beneath. A soft, swagged feeling came across via jackets tucked into trousers and pants with smocked elastic sweat-suit waistbands.

As ideas go, it was a small one upon which to base a collection. And in just three shades—black, white, and gray—it didn't make for a sizzling runway show. But there may be customers out there for Van Assche's minimal approach, especially in a season when few others are focusing on tailoring.
—Nicole Phelps

Dries Van Noten

He was coming off two hit collections in which he moved into the fast lane as a fashion influencer (his Bacon-inspired winter color palette—all those mustard, shrimp, and beige colors—has been replicated everywhere). That meant the anticipation surrounding Dries Van Noten's show was running high. Was he going to gift the world with a fresh set of ideas to get everyone thinking? As it turned out, no. Spring found Van Noten dropping back several gears and taking an ethnic route, which, though thoroughly in line with his house signatures, didn't forge ahead into any new territory.

Perhaps he judged it time to reinstate the print and pattern his customers love—which is fair enough, of course. After a couple of seasons of citified dressing, collectors of Dries may well be pining for his more eclectic, decorative pieces. If so, they'll find plenty of them: coats, soft boxy jackets, wrapped dresses, and sarong skirts in a plethora of fabrics and embroideries that looked as if they'd been sourced from a trip around the markets of China and Southeast Asia.

In among them, there were items—like the silver lamé tank with a sheer back, the khaki shorts, and the sparkly jackets—that will also allow fans to dip into trend without going overboard. Still, the extra twist of styling genius that has gone into Van Noten's recent collections was missing this time—except for one thing. The incredible necklaces—rich-looking pearl chokers dangling geometric pendants set with large semiprecious stones and crystal—made gorgeous viewing.
—Sarah Mower

Costume National

On the same morning that Karl Lagerfeld took pains to emphasize the un-brevity of the shorts he was showing, Ennio Capasa paraded the most impossibly tiny variants of the same idea. His premise was "tender heart, tough exterior," which possibly explained the biker-chick combo of jacket and shorts in a rich, vegetable-dyed leather. Maybe the same woman would also be galvanized by the brocade bib or the embossed tee that offered a more elaborate accompaniment to her truncated nethers. But Capasa's heart really seemed to be in the outfits that dissolved into trailing lamé threads. OK, it may be an effect he's used before, but still, the floating shimmer created a ghostlike effect. In fact, Ghost (as in the currently revived English label) was a timely reference point for witchy, thigh-slashed dresses that would be entirely suitable for the contemporary vampire queen's closet. A potential catch being, how many of those creatures actually exist?
—Tim Blanks

Emanuel Ungaro

The wall of cameras at the end of the runway was double the size it was last season, and there was an impressive turnout of industry professionals and curious onlookers at Ungaro today. In a bid for easy headlines, CEO Mounir Moufarrige recently replaced Esteban Cortazar with an unusual team: the little-known Spanish designer Estrella Archs and, as "artistic adviser," the actress turned self-bronzer entrepreneur Lindsay Lohan. Would the move turn out to be a bit of counterintuitive brilliance—the Olsens, after all, have had a bona fide hit with The Row—or would the results be as embarrassing as a streaky orange fake tan?

In separate interviews a couple of days before the show, Archs discussed reviving the DNA and Lohan mentioned injecting a bit of youth into the brand—not necessarily mutually exclusive notions for a label that was beloved by eighties party girls. The show opened on an up note, with a strapless fuchsia plissé minidress—two Ungaro signatures rolled into one—and Archs turned the house's polka dots into a charming enough heart print on colorful sequined jackets. So far, not so bad…but it wasn't destined to last.

This quickly devolved into a bad joke of a fashion show, one with questionable color combinations, "bad eighties" draped silk jackets and drop-crotch pants, old-fashioned and ill-judged fur stoles, and, yes, tasteless sequin pasties. To top it off, the fabrics and the construction lacked the finesse you expect from a famous Avenue Montaigne brand.

To be fair, Archs had just about a month to design the collection. But both she and Lohan (if she sticks around long enough) will have to work a lot harder next time to impress the editors and buyers who witnessed this disappointing debut.
—Nicole Phelps

Hussein Chalayan

Hussein Chalayan was in a smooth and sophisticated mood for Spring—and that extended to his own appearance. He astonished his audience by compering the show like a forties band leader, with slicked-back hair, lounge-lizard tux, and pencil mustache. Backed by a tango orchestra, he presided over a grown-up collection of streamlined black and white, ivory and navy tailoring and dresses. His aim was to evoke a leisured, civilized lifestyle—or, as he put it, "The fantasy we all have of being able not to work."

If that sounds like a radically retro-romantic 180-degree turn away from his usual avant-garde experimentalism, it wasn't quite. Chalayan said he felt the need to reinstate something of the minimalism he developed at the beginning of his career: "It's technically tougher, as a designer, to miss things out than keep adding." Still, the stripped-down jackets and vests with dropped, sculptural lapels and cut-out zones; the fitted dresses; and the graphic black and white stripes were all angled to reach an elegant, adult audience.

With its dainty cantilever-heeled ballet pumps and cartwheel straw hats with integral flipped-down sun visors, the collection projected the aura of a long sojourn somewhere warm and expensive. One dress, paneled in pristine, precision-carved white, had something of the look of Chalayan's early aeronautics-experimental pieces—but now fully grounded as a wearable city sheath. Another, with a trim black body and puffy cotton sleeves, was cut out in back; others came with glamorous slit skirts.

Conservative classicism it wasn't, especially toward the end, when Chalayan brought on some amazing navy silk plissé dresses crimped to suggest ocean waves. They were followed by something to set the mind a boggle: white jersey gowns with surreal ceramic fists clutching the drapery. In all, though, this was simple-chic without being "lady"— a fine line, walked well.
—Sarah Mower