The ultimate fashion fantasies come alive at Paris´s couture extravaganza - the magic of fashion begins here. Stop dreaming and start believing.
It's immediately clear that Paris is hosting the haute couture shows from the exceptional amount of porter action at London's Eurostar terminal. Usually porters are noticeable by their complete absence, but during the haute couture they flock around St Pancras, pushing trolleys of Louis Vuitton trunks and Hermès handbags along the platforms and escorting fur-clad shoppers to queue jump at passport control.
In this age, couture houses travel the world taking their designs to the clients, or they reach them digitally, but there are still a number of women who like the experience of spending a few days in Paris looking at the most exquisite clothes in the world, and holing up in the city's palatial hotels Le Meurice, the Plaza Athénée, Le Bristol and their favourite, the Ritz, currently closed for refurbishment.
Paris is a city made for the night-time - its beautiful turn-of-the-century street lamps offering a far more attractive glow than London's brutal lighting and illuminating the gilded statues of the many impressive historical buildings that line the boulevards and the Seine. Yet, on couture Sunday, the streets were empty of traffic and pedestrians. "Where is everybody?" I asked my driver. "In Paris? In January?" he shrugged. "They sleep."
No sleeping at Donatella Versace's high-voltage show, though, which kicked off a season staged in the high-ceilinged enfilade that seem to be a dime a dozen in Paris and which were perfect settings for the splendid spectacle that is Haute Couture.
Versace's girls are always fast. Their legs longer, their hair straighter, their lips larger than at any other house. And what a pack of them strutted the white catwalk to the staccato beats of Lady Gaga's "Donatella":I'm Blonde, I'm Skinny, I'm rich and I'm a little bit of a bitch
At which other house might you see a crystal-embroidered, hooded, white silk-jersey romper suit? Or full-length fur stoles? Or a skin of a white suede trouser suit? Or Karlie Kloss, high stepping like a thoroughbred pony in purple fur? The show was designed as a tribute to "the fluidity and provocation of Grace Jones", and made manifest in a number of cowl head-coverings that might come in handy for the Middle Eastern customer - so important nowadays to couture business. The cowls were integrated into Versace's legendary eveningwear, famous for its miraculous cut and way with invisible tulle, and allowing as much of the body to be exposed as to be covered.
At the celebratory after-show dinner, Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, Mario Testino and Azzedine Alaïa joined Donatella and Gaga - the latter arriving, like a tiny Versace hamster, in belted white fur and a jewelled cowl straight off the catwalk, before throwing off the cowl and changing into a black bustier to pose throughout the meal for pictures with her host. Sisters under the skin, or at least under the blonde hair.
Another Italian, Tod's owner Diego della Valle, rode into couture town this season on the back of his ownership of Schiaparelli. Last summer he commissioned Christian Lacroix to design a small number of gowns, but for this season, with new designer Marco Zanini in place, the Schiaparelli show was the whole shebang before an audience that included Carla Bruni, Elle Macpherson and Farida Khelfa.
The scene was set by Stella Tennant, who marched down the runway in a long printed crepe dress like a member of the French Revolution - her crazed tricorn hat giving her a Republican touch. Elsa Schiaparelli was known for her extravagant surrealist touch, and it would have been tempting to try and emulate her style, but Zanini cleverly managed to avoid the too direct referencing which could have resulted in parody. He offered instead some of the most wearable outfits of the couture season, pairing feather-lined reversible jackets with evening gowns and flat feathered sandals, along with a bride in a trouser suit. Backstage, where the models lined up against a wall for the clothes to be examined in closer detail, milliner Stephen Jones (who had worked on the dramatic hats) said: "Everybody has always said I should be doing Schiap. It's only taken 30 years!"
But Schiap was not the only old kid in town: the house was joined also by Hussein Chalayan's debut demi-couture show for Vionnet. Unsurprisingly, given the choice of designer, this was not couture for the Texan fundraising circuit, relying as it did on seamless dresses of floor-length pleating, belts of industrial rubber and a palette of acid yellow and white. Setting it all against a backdrop of street detritus in a covered cobbled courtyard, Hussein established Vionnet as a house to watch under the excited gaze of its new owner, Goga Ashkenazi.
Reinvention has long been the name of fashion's game and, at Christian Dior, Raf Simons continues his determination to make the house his own. To this end, a huge bronze box positioned in the Musée de Rodin (where previously Tom Ford had positioned his YSL), reflected back the beautiful proportions of the museum as the audience walked though the gardens to reach it. Once inside, conventional architecture and proportions were thrown to the wind: for the show space, Simons installed a white Flintstone-style cave, housing rough plaster walls and erratically shaped skylights.
Although mindful of the established house codes, this season Simons took Dior girl clubbing, focusing on mini dresses with asymmetric trains, floating layers that slipped from the shoulder, perforated fabric at every turn (even in the case of the famous Bar jacket) and always the slimmest trousers in town. Matched with sequin- and crystal-embellished skate shoes, and you got the picture of a couture house in youthful transition.
The young Dior customer will also have taken notes at Giambattista Valli, now established as one of the most desirable up-town designers in Paris. Valli girls are Euro elegant, with long bronzed legs, and a readiness to go dancing after a late dinner. This season he swapped some of his more rigorous couture shapes for a sassier feel, giving his girls a slouchy insouciance as they strolled - hands in deep couture pockets. Draped mini hems, jewelled and beaded flowers on thick duchesse silk, and bouquets of crystals on quilted silk, dominated the show.
Valli's show ended just before dinner but, at the Chanel Atelier, it was all work. Unlike most couturiers, Karl Lagerfeld creates a Sun King-like court around his fittings: black-jean-and-leather-jacket-clad models tumbled out of taxis at the front door of the Rue Cambon studio, all followed by assorted press and friends. Meanwhile, on the fourth floor, activities were in full flow as outfits were adjusted and accessorised. The Chanel couture studio is a privileged opportunity to see how the art of couture lies in the extremes of detail - where the hem of a dress might be altered by less than a millimetre, and the proportions between the end of a sleeve and the waist are subject to forensic discussion. Amanda Harlech, Lagerfeld's long-time aide and creative sounding board, dressed in fin-de-siècle-style black Commes des Garçons, entertained the guests while Karl explained his vision for the next day of Club Cambon.
"Cara," he said from behind his desk, as Cara Delevigne appeared in the opening outfit of tightly waisted tweed, "Show them how you run." Ever game, she demonstrated the dainty trot that would be on show the next day, like a child in a ballet class.
The "run" was instrumental in creating the young, relaxed Chanel mood the next morning. In a show filled with light and movement, guests were invited to Club Cambon, which emerged under the dome of the Grand Palais. Seated within walls of iridescent panels, the odd anticipatory silence only gave way as the panels slid open to reveal a full orchestra, two curved staircases and a cascade of girls in Chanel's specially woven tweed speeding down the stairs in the now famous Chanel trainers - each hand-made to go with its outfit - in lace, beads, sequins and tulle. Beat that, Dr Martens.
The trainers dominated the show, lending the evening dresses, embellished with exotic feathers and waterfalls of sequins, a casual ease and allowing the more usual Chanel suiting (this season with full drop-waist skirts and crop jackets, and all sporting a tight corseted waistband) a more relaxed approach
Later in the day Giorgio Armani dominated proceedings, hosting not only his Privé show, but also a travelling exhibition of his couture pieces - and a dinner. The show veered heavily into the exotic territory of the East that so often informs his designs: there were beaded headscarves with every gown, low Cuban heels and a long and often voluminous silhouette that all contributed to a show that lived up to its nomad theme. Afterwards guests descended to /The Eccentrico/, an exhibition designed to demonstrate not only the breadth of Armani's vision but to dispel forever any thought that he might only be about a beige trouser suit, and displaying everything from the superheroes-themed dress he created for (yes again) Lady Gaga to the vivid checked prom-style dresses and sheaths of Japanese-inspired silk. He made his point most elegantly.
Lebanese couturier Elie Saab has a thriving couture house and is an example of a designer who finds it worth his while to move from Beirut to Paris to show. As the go-to designer for a beautiful wedding gown his couture was a riot of colour showing off his renowned evening wear.
His show was followed by that of Jean Paul Gaultier who is now the only major French couturier showing. This April, London's Barbican hosts an exhibition of Gaultier style and we can only hope that it includes the same high spirits that Gaultier brings to his shows. Butterflies of all kinds were the theme of this couture, wings of silk floating down the catwalk - the waist of the butterfly making a strangely effective silhouette, if rather overworked when worn by Dita von Teese. Gaultier flies the flag for the often neglected Crazy Horse kitsch-side of Parisian style, but when you get past the glam and visual noise, he still cuts an immaculate tuxedo.
It is currently left to the new team of Valentino to produce the final show of the season, and my preview in their Place Vendome headquarters was a masterclass in creative passion and intensity. This season, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli used an operatic woman as the starting point for their collection, drawing, they explained, on the emotion of that art. But they took her journey the long way. By the time of my visit, the team of seamstresses brought in from Valentino's Roman atelier were putting the finishing touches to a collection that encompassed appliqué gorillas, antique lace, a cloak of feathered butterflies and simple yet immaculate pillars of crepe. The finale dress of grey tulle embroidered with the inhabitants of a satin jungle had been started three months ago. Showing on a catwalk hand-painted by a team from the Rome Opera House, the duo showed an understanding of the dream of haute couture, an art where clothes are individually designed, stitched, woven and constructed as once-in-a-lifetime pieces, a world away from the fast fashion universe most of us inhabit.
