Naomi, Carla, Crystelle, Ines de la Fressange; is French haute couture trying to turn the clock back?
Certainly it felt we were in a time warp, recalling the heady days of supermodels and full-on fashion glamour, as we come to the end of the opening day of the Paris spring haute couture collections.
News of Yves Saint Laurent's retirement has had a cathartic effect on the remaining couturiers , who are pulling out all the stops to justify the extravagance and expense of what cynics might term the window-dressing of fashion. Add a few celebrities to the front row, and you can't get more A list than Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sheryl Crow and newcomer to the circus, Chelsea Clinton, and suddenly all the magic and glamour of couture returns.
It was Donatella Versace who drove the message home most forcibly with her Atelier collection. She recalled the searing neon colours and glitzy exuberance of her late brother Gianni's early Atelier collections of 12 years ago. Sexy rhinestone spangled dresses in bright pink, yellow and lime, pearlised leather tailoring and intricate passementerie gowns illustrate Donatella's growing confidence with the craft. In true Versace tradition, the hourglass silhouettes hugged the body and emphasised the cleavage just the way they used to when models like Naomi, Claudia, Carla and Cindy used to sashay down the catwalk.
The theme was the circus, which was a wonderful excuse to use bright harlequin patterns, shooting star crystal embroideries and spangled corsets that would delight any performer on the flying trapeze.
Jean-Paul Gaultier, a relative newcomer but now fully accredited haute couturier, is one of the new generation whom the French hope will carry the banner for such rarefied and expensive fashion into the new century.
His refined and immaculately finished collection of tailoring had customers drooling. There were jackets that might start with a twist of a scarf around the neck, closely caress the body and culminate in a pencil skirt or culottes.
His floor-length tuxedo coats and Le Smoking evening dresses recalled the best of Saint Laurent, but bore the Gaultier hallmarks like the asymmetric one-sleeve jacket matched with a long glove on the other arm; or the elongated sleeve slashed up to the wrist, and the playful use of the Hermes tie as a scarf. Hermes has a large investment in Gaultier's house and he made some playful references to this with long-panelled dresses stitched from men's ties.
The only voice of discord in this homage to glamour, ironically, came from Julien MacDonald in his second haute couture collection for Givenchy. The designer who under his own label made the headlines with his sexy, barely-there première dresses for actresses like Joely Richardson, turned his back on all the glitz.
His delicate grey and black tattered tulle and lace Cinderella dresses looked like they were still waiting for their fairy godmother to come and work their magic.
MacDonald's experiments with distressing do not sit well with the house built on a reputation of immaculate tailoring and he still looked overawed and uncomfortable with this highly skilled métier. Even MacDonald admits he has a lot to learn, but the question is how long will Givenchy's customers wait?