Watching the gowns at the Christian Lacroix haute couture show on Tuesday was like seeing fabric sculptures come to life.
The French designer celebrated his 20th year in business with a sumptuous lineup that swathed the body in folds of rich velvet or puffs of featherlight chiffon.
The display came on the second day of the autumn-winter haute couture collections, which also featured shows by Givenchy and Chanel.
The setting chosen by Lacroix was almost monastic in its simplicity _ a plain white catwalk in a white room at the Palais de Tokyo modern art museum. That left guests free to contemplate lush embroidery and intricate weaves as complex as any work of art.
Models with hair mounted into huge coifs paraded in coats embellished with ethnic details, such as silver studs, rustic embroidery and monkey hair trim.
A midnight blue faille opera cape was fit for a duchess, but one could not help wondering how many duchesses these days are in need of opera coats. Today's customers more often are the newly rich of Eastern Europe and Asia.
"The top 1 percent of the population of the world, which are extremely rich, are getting much, much richer, and so consequently they have lots more disposable income, and this is how they choose to spend their money," said Glenda Bailey, editor of Harper's Bazaar magazine.
Couture represents the apex of fashion, with made-to-measure gowns that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
"I like it when couture is a bit spectacular and a bit moving," Lacroix told reporters after the show. "I think we need that kind of sharing and exchange of poetic images like these, which can move you even though they are part of the reality of something commercial."
Riccardo Tisci is prone to staging his shows in cavernous warehouses, the better to convey his Gothic sensibility. So his Greek mythology fest for Givenchy came as a surprise.
Guests including rocker Courtney Love gathered in a former convent, where models displayed outfits inspired by a Midsummer Night's Dream cast of fauns, gorgons and warriors.
Stretch trousers featured shaggy panels of Tibetan lamb on the hips, while a tailcoat in rough-edged tan crocodile was softened with panels of hand-smocked cashmere and a cozy white shearling collar.
Most surprising was the closing lineup of draped white goddess gowns set off by curved bands of silver sequins. Never has Tisci catered so explicitly to the red carpet, and Love was quick to notice.
"Actually, I'm over glitter," the singer told the AP. "Paris went to jail, it's done, that's it. But the last three dresses with the sequins, I was down with it."
Karl Lagerfeld's display for Chanel should have been a moment of poetry in a bucolic setting. Instead, it turned into a logistical fiasco as dozens of taxis clogged up the roads leading to the venue, the park of Saint-Cloud outside Paris.
Guests were still scrambling in from pouring rain when the show started, an hour late, in the estate that has played home to historical figures from Marie-Antoinette to Napoleon Bonaparte.
Under a dripping awning, models swept past in sequined shifts with full sleeves attached to the side of the body like tufted and feathered wings. A dark stain grew on the hem of a shimmering lilac coat as it trailed on the soaking gravel.
Lagerfeld played with volume, splitting open a white cocoon shift to reveal panels encrusted with silver sequins. Meanwhile, a see-through black chiffon column featured a pannier of ruffles on each hip.
Copyright 2007 AP News
