Runway Rundown: Paris Fashion Week, Part 2

“Silly bitch, silly bitch, I’m hungry, might eat that chick,” played over the sound system at Paris’s magnificent Opéra Garnier, at 10 A.M., for the Stella McCartney show the other day. But the bitches, if you will, on the catwalk were anything but silly—they wore pantsuits and parkas decorated with gold zippers (a conceit that worked better decorating tote bags). Those who were hoping that the harsh recording would be replaced by the softer trillings of the designer’s dad, as is the tradition at the close of a Stella show, were disappointed. Sir Paul, who is usually in the front row snapping pics of the models, was unfortunately in L.A. this season.

I am usually thrilled to have any seat at a fashion show, and I certainly don’t have a problem with the third row, except when there are no risers and therefore virtually no sightlines, as was the case at Givenchy. As a result, I could only see the ensembles from mid-chest up—a flash of beads, a frail butterfly print informing what might be the top of a chiffon shirtwaist, and a surfeit of pale pink curly fur, which engendered a discussion among colleagues later: if astrakhan refers to the fur of an unborn lamb, the pinkish-tan hue so popular at Givenchy this season unwittingly seemed to echo the actual shade of a doomed lamb in utero.

The Sugar Plum Fairies who rolled down the runway at Alexander McQueen, swathed in layers of ruffled, patterned fur (for once I suspect I may fit the sample size) traversed an expanse of mysteriously steaming moss. The models were swaddled in enormous puffy confections or swimming in eyelet jeune fille smocks, their solemn heads sporting skinny Pippi Longstocking braids. To counteract this blancmange (virtually everything was white, unless it was black), eyes were overhung with lashes that might have been borrowed from a cartoon raccoon.

Hedi Slimane, in his previous efforts at Saint Laurent, favored Manson family capes and floppy hats (season one) and Hole-era Courtney Love frocks (season two). This time around, the muse was the pre-Birkin bag Jane Birkin, or maybe the teen-aged Marianne Faithfull (this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of “As Tears Go By”), or perhaps just the thousands (millions?) of young women around the world who a half century ago took their cues from Carnaby Street. Here were tiny velvet dresses, patchwork fur capes, and low-heeled glitter boots, a close facsimile of which are surely already on their way to fast-fashion stores around the globe.

A similar yé-yé girl mood prevailed at Nicolas Ghesquière’s much-anticipated first collection for Louis Vuitton. Hemlines were high, shiny black leggings consorted with equestrian jackets, short glossy leather coats were enhanced with colored patches, and tweed and leather settled into a reasonably amiable coexistence. There was really nothing wrong with it, but who could blame you if you felt a momentary twinge of nostalgia for the house under Marc Jacobs, now that the delicious catwalk excesses—carousel horses, simulated flophouses, escalators to nowhere—have been replaced by Ghesquière’s gray carpeting and window blinds?

The breathtaking scope of Karl Lagerfeld’s mock-supermarket set for his Chanel show, a spectacle that took up the entire Grand Palais, dwarfed earlier Chanel extravaganzas, which was no mean feat—it made the iceberg he hauled down from Sweden four years ago seem like a soggy pile of nothing. The lavishness couldn’t help but distract from the clothes, but since the first ensemble on the runway featured pink sweatpants full of holes, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. The models wore the same sneakery footwear that caused such a splash at the Chanel couture show in January; as they roamed the aisles in their tweedy outfits, they stopped to pick up groceries—a hunk of cheese, or a can of croustilles Gabrielle—and place them in a wire shopping basket, assuming it wasn’t already overflowing with glittery Chanel accessories. At the end of the show, audience members assumed that they could help themselves to the logo-emblazoned products on display. But alas, although the shelves were soon stripped bare (and I felt a pang when I got to the housewares aisle too late to nab a Chanel bath mat), the pretend shopping center was only intended for pretend purchasing. Guests were asked to hand over everything at the pretend checkout kiosks: every Band-Aid box, every cracker container, every roll of paper towels was supposedly going to be crated up and reassembled at a Chanel event in Dubai some time in the future. _

Lynn Yaeger is a fashion writer who lives in New York City. You can read her previous fashion-week diaries here.