It was raining heavily in Paris, the pebbled paths of the Parc de Saint-Cloud were turning to mud, and my Dior snakeskin gladiators were sinking into the ground. Like every other guest come to see Chanel's fall couture show, I was escorted to the orangerie by a man holding up an umbrella. This saved me from getting drenched but not from wondering why anyone would want to go ahead with a fashion extravaganza outdoors, a million miles from anywhere, in a downpour. There was a canopy over the runway and the shallow bleachers on which we onlookers sat, but a faint air of excessiveness, even pointlessness, clung to the proceedings, stirring one's darkest fear about haute couture: that it forms a kind of oxbow lake to the mainstream of fashion, and indeed to good sense. Then the show started. It was brilliant; it was directional; it even explained the rain.

—Sally Singer

"Alighting" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the October 2007 issue of Vogue.

Click here for the full article.