Thursday afternoon, if you happened to be passing through the Cour Carrée of the Louvre around 2:45, you saw quite a sight. The denizens of fashion, including the boss of the world’s largest luxury-goods company, were collected inside a clear plastic tent for the Louis Vuitton show designed by the
American designer Marc Jacobs.
You could see the hothouse guests staring raptly at dresses festooned with ruffles and poufs, though probably from the perspective of the courtyard all you could see were the models’ messy French twists and black taffeta bunny ears. And maybe that was enough.
The thinking behind these extremely feminine clothes was lighthearted, and possibly just light. Mr. Jacobs opened with a little bubble skirt in blue silk with a swath of black lace over the model’s breasts, and from there it was a full-blown display of French decorative glamour.
The ruched suit was the centerpiece, but there were other examples of a style that essentially presents women as sexual objects. A candy-pink silk dress looked randomly draped, while some of the printed and ruched dresses were vented here and there with exposed zippers.
Hairdos were stuck with long pearl hatpins. Necklaces resembled those paper chains children make in school. Over-the-knee black leather boots were laced with black velvet ribbon, like a corset, and the heels of suede shoes looked like two pyramids joined by a pearl screw. Everything looked very “done” and rich, and yet Mr. Jacobs didn’t make anything seem serious. Though, in fact, there were some terrific pieces, especially coats and parkas.
Backstage, he told reporters he wanted the collection to emphasize the pleasure of fashion, in spite of hard times. “And maybe,” he added, “it’s a little Marie Antoinette, too.”
Nearly a decade into the 21st century, and the prime obsession of the collections, which ended Thursday night with an intimate showing by Miuccia Prada of her Miu Miu label, was French couture. Miu Miu was like a salon presentation, with models walking close to the guests. Sleeveless wool coatdresses hinted of drapery; they shrugged in the front and were belted at the hips. It was a modern, unfussy approach.
Ms. Prada also showed deconstructed tailoring over bras, something that both Martin Margiela and Mr. Jacobs have done in the past. Some of the results looked unmanageable. Still, she successfully drew your eye to the neckline, and made it the focus of a sophisticated Miu Miu collection.
The wide paper-bag trousers at Chloé may be last year’s look, but Hannah MacGibbon handled everything else well in her second collection for the house. Striped woolen ponchos edged with leather and oversize coats made a statement, as did girlish elements like a ruffled flannel blouse, loose black velvet overalls and a new ballerina flat with studded straps.
No one is more at home with Paris chic than Azzedine Alaïa, and no one expresses it in a more contemporary fashion. His collection this season includes full leather skirts that flutter with strips of feathered suede or leather, streamlined boleros in wool or leather that close asymmetrically, and a remarkable black leather coat with graduated cutouts down the spine and at the sides and front.
Part of Mr. Alaïa’s genius is to stay with a project. That’s why his knitwear is consistently original — now dresses seemingly puffed with little pockets of air, creating a different ruffled effect. Knits with fine brown-gold spots on white suggest abstract leopard — or, at a distance, lace.
“Where are we?” I asked the man next to me as a model in a handsomely trimmed coat appeared at John Galliano, her face painted like a porcelain doll. “Russia? Romania?”
“Serbia,” he said, guessing.
It had begun to snow. A bluish laser illuminated the long runway, in a warehouse, creating a tunnel that could have just as easily begun in a wardrobe as the Balkans. Mr. Galliano was on a fantasy trip — well researched as always, with the usual blend of romantic headgear and hot footwear (laced platforms blitzed with pompoms). Notice the blanket stitching on a checked coat, the tiny cross stitches on a peasant blouse, the gold dust scattered on Raquel Zimmermann’s lashes. No detail was too small, though the soapy smell of the fake snow caused many in the audience to cough and then finally, when it was over, bolt for the exit.
The striking impression left by the clothes — and with Mr. Galliano that’s sometimes all he wants you to have — was how lovely the black braid looked on winter skirts and coats and, at the same time, so foreign. Mr. Galliano is probably the only designer, at least this season, to introduce the notion of wearing a white peasant blouse with long, billowy sleeves under a red wool jumper or with a cute miniskirt. It’s hard to know what effect he hoped to achieve, beyond the romance of a new country, but displacement is an interesting sensation.
By contrast, Roland Mouret’s RM collection seems almost the work of a local dressmaker. That’s not a criticism. It’s just that his well-cut dresses and jackets, with notches at the hem and origami pleats, are quietly seductive. Plucked with drapes and shaped with darts, his signature dresses now come in dark jade and magenta, while jackets seemed as flat and sharp as creased paper.