Schadenfreude may be a German word, but it was an emotion enjoyed by many members of the French fashion pack this week. As yet more houses here announce the importation of foreign designers, any discussion about Paris's inability to produce home-grown talent has become something of a cliche. Yet not all the new arrivals manage to win approval.
On Wednesday afternoon Britain's favourite bad boy, Alexander McQueen, presented his second collection for Givenchy. Looking as though inspired by the tacky clothes in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, it met with universal hostility.
And yesterday morning the august house of Jacques Fath offered a debut line by a Russian called Elena Nazaroff. Renowned in the 1950s for his exquisitely tailored suits, Fath was one of France's finest designers and a challenge to Christian Dior. Little evidence of his legacy appeared in Nazaroff's collection.
A Muscovite, she has lived in New York for the past few years and was discovered there last season by the owners of the Jacques Fath label, who offered her the post of head designer. No doubt today they are regretting such impulsive behaviour.
Elena Nazaroff divided her range into three sections called Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Urban Planet. There was little to distinguish between them as they all shared a weakness for glitter beading and stretch lurex, plus enormous bustles on evening dresses, elaborate cut-outs on the back of jackets and tiny crochet skirts.
If Elena Nazaroff needs lessons, she ought to take a look at what Karl Lagerfeld did with Chanel yesterday. Lagerfeld named his spring/summer collection Le Groupe des Six, presumably after the loose affiliation of French composers, including Auric and Poulence, who were given that title in the 1920s.
Their music was not played but the spirit of the time was certainly in evidence right from the start when a group of models came out wearing bathing costumes which would not have looked out of place on the Cote d'Azur 70 years ago.
As the show's name implied, there were six groupings in the range but, until the close, little distinguished one from the next.
Lagerfeld took a black and white approach to the designs - literally, since he used scarcely any other colours. Echoes of Coco Chanel's most successful moments during the post-first World War years kept cropping up in comfortable, loose-shouldered wool jersey jackets and knee-length skirts and sleeveless, drop-waisted dresses with a drawstring band on the hips.
Evening wear included black silk crepe dresses with wide bands of satin on the hem and ribbed and pleated double tulle skirts worn with little bell-hop jackets.
For the finale, all the models appeared in variants of the Chanel suit in check silk tweed, and in the entire spectrum of colours. It was a wonderful flourish and ensured that Lagerfeld got one of the warmest receptions from the audience seen this week.