Postcard from Paris

Often outrageous, always extravagant, and sometimes verging on absurd, haute couture is the ultimate laboratory of fashion. Only about 2,000 women in the world—many of them Texans—have the means to afford made-to-order clothes by the world’s greatest designers. A day suit starts at $25,000, and the cost escalates to $250,000 for an ornate evening concoction that probably blinded the seamstresses, beaders, and embroiderers who made it.

Haute couture week is peppered with not only the very rich, but also the very famous. Sarah Jessica Parker, who was in the City of Light filming the last episodes of Sex and the City, caused the biggest stir of the week. The diminutive starlet charmed the French, especially Christian Dior’s John Galliano, who said, “The whole of Paris was in an uproar when Sarah Jessica was here. Her name was on everybody’s lips. When we finally got to meet, I was totally mesmerized.”

Thank God for Parker’s unaffected, all-American charm, because Christina Aguilera gets the award for Ugly American in Paris. Surrounded by burly bodyguards (which are hardly necessary at these heavily guarded shows where attendees must show both passport and invitation upon entrance, not to mention pass through metal detectors), the chanteuse arrived at Christian Lacroix after Mme. Jacques Chirac, wife of the French president. Protocol dictates that Chirac is the last to arrive before the show begins. After an audible gasp from the audience at this breach of decorum, a top editor from Vogue muttered, “I’m moving to Canada.”

During the Chanel show, Kristin Scott Thomas, when a tulle and lace jacket emerged on the runway, uttered, “It makes you want to be a movie star.” When told she was a movie star, she firmly replied, “I am an actress.” And the Ritz bar became ground zero for celeb sightings, such as Catherine Deneuve sitting alone, smoking and chatting on her mobile phone, during lunch. I’m embarrassed to admit that, after a week of celeb overload, I barely glanced at Hugh Grant smoking a cigarette in the Ritz lobby late one night.

Haute couture, however, does serve a greater purpose than bringing celebrities together and making very rich women look even richer. It sets trends for the coming seasons, filtering down to the ready-to-wear lines, then to the mass market, and ultimately influencing your decision to purchase a Chanel lipstick instead of one from Christian Dior. The “death” of couture has been declared many times during the past 20 years. But it still thrives, in part, thanks to a new crop of designers, who are working in the great houses such as Christian Dior, Chanel, and Jean-Louis Scherrer. And then there are the “new” members of the tribe, such as Lebanon’s Elie Saab and Americas’ Ralph Rucci.

Extravagance on the runways in Paris during the recent spring-summer collections heralded big changes and a definite shift in silhouette. It’s long and lean, with a nod to the ornamentation, dropped waists, and flirty ruffles of the 1920s. Here are the collections that defined the season most dramatically:

Christian Dior

Englishman John Galliano opened haute couture week with a bang. Held in a tent erected on the rain-sodden polo grounds in the Bois de Boulogne, his show featured inspirations from a recent trip to Egypt and the 1950s fashion photographs of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. It started with a fantasy array of dresses, including an inflated gold brocade gown that looked like Mylar balloons and a turquoise, coral, and gold-painted snakeskin topped with the heads of Tut and Isis. But the clothes, not the antics, were where the real power lay. A silver-beaded evening sheath trimmed in three strips of mink at the hem was surrounded by a cloud-like wake of organza ombre colored from chartreuse to smoke. Galliano’s extreme, elongated bodices (which required specially made corsets that spanned from bust to just above the knee), richly embroidered in fur and Egyptian-inspired beading, exploded into mountains of tulle, recalling Christian Dior’s “New Look” or “A-Line” gowns but made fresh in his use of color combinations—turquoise and coral, silver and sulfur, burnt lilac and silver gilt.

Chado Ralph Rucci

Ralph Rucci is precise almost to the point of severity. But so were his great fashion influences—Balenciaga, Beene, and Ferre. In a week filled with harsh hues and riotous patterns, Rucci’s palette of ivory, cinnamon, and black soothed. Shown to the haunting score from Angels in America, his pin-tucked silks and suedes had the “controlled” brushstroke effects of a Cy Twombly painting (a cited influence in the program notes). Accessories were nothing more than clear acrylic gauntlets, slingbacks, and rectangular handbags, with the occasional acrylic strip knotted at the waist. But this season, his often severely architectural take on fashion got a more feminine fit. Standouts were pin-tucked straight skirts in buff suede with twin sets made of braided leather, lightly draped bone chiffon dresses and skirts in billowing waves of cream silk faille or taffeta. Like a master architect, Rucci takes basic clothing apart; cuts curving, body-hugging strips; and pieces them back together with loose-stitched seams. His construction—or lack thereof—is flawless. But don’t confuse simplicity with a shortage of opulence. To wit, a black gazar evening skirt topped by a blouse constructed entirely of real pearls.

Chanel

Karl Lagerfeld continues to refine Chanel, always adding a deft twist that keeps his customers coming back. This season, he restricted his color palette to black, white, and gray with an occasional flash of blush pink or pale yellow. Chanel is all about textural contrast—the nubby tweeds or wools against soft chiffons, laces, or tulles. Chanel is also about balance. His razor-tailored wool jacket fits snugly over the hip, which causes the skirt to explode, sending feathers, beaded lace, and tulle billowing below. Lagerfeld is about the dualities of dress—the contrast between froth and severity, or the tautness of tailoring paired against flounces and frills. His gray-and-white tweed jacket stops sharply, yet seems to continue in a skirt made of shredded lace and chiffon that resembles the tweed in color but not tactility. The most breathtaking piece in the collection was a sleek, black silk column skirt topped with a lace-trimmed tulle jacket, all tied up in a pink satin ribbon. Chanel couture is not about theatrics. Any of these pieces could go straight from the runway to the red carpet.

Christian Lacroix

Lacroix’s usual over-the-top, pyrotechnic-filled collection started slowly and quietly this year. He debuted with a simple, shocking blue duchesse satin swing coat, tied with a chartreuse ribbon, and worn over a pink chiffon ruffled dress and pink opaque hose. Lacroix is known for his “knock ’em dead” color palette, and, after this relatively subdued opening, he did just that. Drifts of orange, pink, and red printed chiffons with jewel-encrusted bodices or waists were made into ethereal, ruffled dresses. Delicate lace dresses were scattered with sequins and overlaid with more lace. A belle époque white embroidered and sequined gown was finished with three neat, scarlet bows. Some of his fabric combinations and colors, such as a beaded chartreuse-and-black sweater set over a fuchsia printed chiffon skirt, would flop in less capable hands. His love of the corsetiere waist remains, often paired with full trousers and a floppy lapelled jacket or as a lace and embroidered bodice above a full-skirted, shredded taffeta gown.

Jean-Louis Scherrer

Scherrer’s house is often ignored by the press, but never by consumers. This is the place to go for V-shaped suits and dresses. While the rest of the fashion houses pretend women don’t want “big” shoulders, Scherrer’s jackets, dresses, and trouser suits in navy pinstripes, houndstooth, and sand-toned silk are being snapped up, most notably by California’s Suzanne Saperstein (reputedly couture’s largest customer) and Texan Becca Cason Thrash. Women wear Scherrer’s power suits to luncheons and board rooms, proving that it’s possible to look like a lady without sacrificing strength.
Elie Saab

Saab makes pretty clothes. Lots of them. His watercolored chiffon dresses skirted the saccharine with slashes of sulfur and jade embroidery and pattern. Saab creates mostly lavish and sexy dresses, but he can also do a classic denim jacket in amazing multicolored brocades. As a separate over jeans, this look is pure Dallas. In a perfect illustration of Dallas dichotomy, Saab’s lushly feminine creations and Ralph Rucci’s austere, almost monastic clothes are among the top sellers at Neiman Marcus.