American A-listers like Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore, and Christina Aguilera (on the prowl for a wedding gown) occupied coveted front-row seats at Valentino and Christian Dior. But it was fashion insiders and French starlets who kept the couture week parties raging into the wee hours.

On Tuesday, British Vogue editrix Alexandra Shulman threw a fête for Vogue China's editorial director, Angelica Cheung. Her first issue is due next month, and an enthusiastic crowd of designers turned up to meet her, including Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, Olivier Theyskens, Andrew Gn, Rick Owens, and one of Shanghai's newest storekeepers, Giorgio Armani.

Two nights later, devoted fashionistas filed into the Chanel boutique at 18 Place Vendôme to view the house's new fine-jewelry line plus accompanying installations by contemporary artist Xavier Veilhan. The touring exhibition (it stops in Toyko, New York, and Milan before year's end) is titled Éléments Célestes and it more than lived up to its stargazing name. On hand were Anna Mouglalis (the house's advertising gem), Élodie Bouchez, Amira Casar, Sandrine Kiberlain, and Valérie Lemercier. Karl Lagerfeld, on a post-collection high, kept those actresses and the models Astrid Muñoz and Erin O'Connor waiting long into the evening, but no one complained—not after his stellar fall show.