Paris wraps up designer shows

French fashion super brands Louis Vuitton and Lanvin brought the catwalk season to a close on Sunday with mature collections aimed at luring women into their stores next autumn despite the chill winds of economic downturn.

At Vuitton, British Grammy winner Amy Winehouse did not perform ‒ as rumoured by entertainment blogs before the show ‒ but there were plenty of other stars willing to take a front row seat for the fashion house's celebrity designer Marc Jacobs.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sofia Coppola, Dita von Teese and Shilpa Shetty were among those to see New Yorker Jacobs put on what he described as a show born of an American's passion for Paris.

While the show's style, in a white tent in the grounds of the Louvre, recalled fashion presentations in Parisian ateliers in the 1950s, Jacobs said the "strong graphic shapes" of the clothes weren't meant to refer to any particular decade.

Still, the collection paraded several of the major trends for autumn 2008 to have emerged during the six-week fashion show cycle ‒ volume skirts, narrow floating trousers and long dresses matched with clunky-heeled shoes. One fashion buyer summed it up as a season in homage to "a strong, sensual woman".

That female ideal was also on show at Lanvin, where Alber Elbaz garnered a standing ovation for a black and midnight blue collection of intricately-wrought dresses and pant suits.

"This time, the technique was more important than the colour," the Israeli-American designer said after the show.

The close of the Paris shows ended a parade that started with menswear presentations in Milan in January.

The cycle, through New York, London, Milan and Paris, establishes the trends for next season and provides vital inspiration for the world's biggest retail apparel chains from fast fashion stores Zara and H&M to Britain's Marks and Spencer.

Buyers and fashion editors on the front on Sunday were already distilling the "must-have" items for shoppers, a process that is taking on a greater importance this season than in many.

Glenda Bailey, editor of the US edition of Harper's Bazaar, advised that even for the cash-strapped the shows suggested "a beautiful soft ruffle shirt" would be the quickest way for women to update their look next season, or a "cardigan belted in".

Rock-chick style opened Paris Fashion Week with a Balmain show filled with spray-on tight minidresses and gem-encrusted jackets fit for singer Chrissie Hynde at her peak.

Models with hair flowing straight and sleek hit the catwalks in dresses barely hitting their thighs in black whorled chiffon or cut away at the mid-riff to reveal flashes of black lace.

Skirts were also mini, ruched in leather and slung low. Christophe Decarnin, the designer behind the remaking of the established house of Balmain, had a similar revealing take on trousers for autumn and winter 2008.

They were drainpipe tight, mostly in black and studded with zips or embroidered with crystals. One stand-out pair was flame red against a cheetah skin print background.

There were a few options for professional women, a clientele of importance in a time of falling financial markets and slowing spending.

Tailored jackets, tightly beaded with sparkling silver crystals, sleek black tuxedo style or in faux zebra skin, would work well spicing up sombre trousers for business women who want to stun at a gala dinner or cocktails.

John Galliano took a trip back to the 1960s at Dior, updating the rich, bored housewife look for a generation of women looking to take that buttoned-up womanliness into the office.

Galliano sent models down the runway in tailored daysuits with box jackets in lollipop colours of fuschia, mandarine, flame red and lime.

Evening dresses were long and languorous; day dresses short and flirty; evening coats opulent and fur-edged; and there were lots and lots of accessories, from alligator skin stacked heels to oversized hats.

The transformation of Galliano from rebel designer who shocked fashionistas with his risque designs to creator of a sophisticated collection is part of a gradual realignment of Dior away from 20- and 30-somethings to older, wealthier customers.

In a spectacular setting in the Grand Palais, Karl Lagerfeld unveiled a Chanel woman for the 21st century, transforming the catwalk into a fairground with a giant carousel as the centrepiece. But in the place of fairground horses there were Chanel's signature details ‒ quilted handbags, camellias and pearls.

Lagerfeld, who sent models down the catwalk in a sleek, modern variation of Chanel's traditional suit, said he decided to put the house's historical motifs on to the carousel so he could play more freely with the clothes.

"The basis of Chanel is still very French, we had all the symbols typical of Chanel: the camellia, the buttons, the pearls, the handbag, everything. But in the show there was almost nothing, just one small handbag, because fashion has to change," Lagerfeld said after the show.

Like his own name collection shown earlier this week, Lagerfeld chose a restrained, largely monochrome palette for this autumn, but played with length and texture.

Slimline long skirts ‒ emerging as a trend for next season after making appearances in New York and Milan ‒ also played a part, in Chanel's signature woven weave set off with dress coats that were short in the front but fell long in the back.

The back-to-front contrast was a theme down the model's two-tone hosiery which was white at the front and black behind.

Overall, it was savvily commercial. Accessories played a big part with belts on almost every skirt suit and clunky-heeled shoes so high some models had difficulty walking.

Alessandra Facchinetti debuted in what is arguably the toughest job in fashion, presenting her first collection for Valentino since the maestro couturier retired in January after 45 years.

And, perhaps wisely, the 35-year-old former Gucci designer did not stray far from the path that made Valentino the red-carpet favourite for generations of glamorous women from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts.

Ruffles, bows and flaming red dresses ‒ the signature touches Valentino made his own over decades ‒ all made their appearance, together with modern twists of volume skirts and sleek black suiting.

Held on an all-white runway at the Palais de Chaillot near the Eiffel Tower, Facchinetti also stayed true to Valentino's legendary love of spectacle, although overall opted for a more muted palette of blacks, navy and beige.

Succeeding Valentino is a daunting task because of the designer's iconic status and the appointment is seen as a test during a period when many fashion houses are burning through designers in only a clutch of seasons.