Beautiful dark twisted fantasy

Before Britain's royal wedding, when the identity of the designer behind the dress Kate Middleton would wear to the altar was still the best-kept secret in the kingdom, some in the fashion world cast doubt on the rumours pointing toward Alexander McQueen, saying the label's aesthetic was too dark for a princess-to-be known for her demure style.

Though McQueen creative director Sarah Burton did end up scoring the plum commission, the label's spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear collection on Tuesday served as a reminder of just how sombre the house's look really is. Nip-waisted skirt suits borrowed elements from bondage gear, while stunning pearl and mother-of-pearl covered gowns felt like beautiful straitjackets.

There was nothing constricting about the Valentino collection, where the airy concoctions of organza and lace were as light as a whisper.

Karl Lagerfeld said that with everyone and their mother churning out knock-off Chanel skirt suits in heavy-duty tweed, he'd decided to send out the label's iconic suits in the lightest of high-tech materials.

Lagerfeld bragged that his iridescent sheath dresses, made from Space Age polyester shot with fibreglass and paper — "not that horrible polyester from the seventies" — "weigh literally 3 grams".

 VALENTINO

Valentino's concoctions of lace and tulle had all the delicate transparency of exotic jellyfish, their luminous membranes pulsating gently in deep-sea depths.

The design duo that has remade the Italian label in its feather-light image following the retirement of founder Valentino Garavani continued to refine their now-signature airy looks, sending out see-through dresses in lace, tulle and organza.

Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli delivered chemisier dresses embellished with flame-shaped panels of lace, A-line bustier dresses like frothy mille-feuilles of chiffon and organza and the simplest of ankle-length gowns, with a slight '70s vibe.

Besides a couple of the long dresses in "Valentino red", the rest of the looks were in the kind of make-up shades Piccioli and Chiuri have favoured in recent seasons — buff, ivory, seashell and salmon pinks, with a sprinkling of gold.

While these looks are not for everyone they have a very distinct and delicate beauty all of their own.

CHANEL

There was nothing literal in uber-designer Lagerfeld's take on the ocean theme. The collection was more about play of sunlight on the surface of the ocean — shine, reflection, radiance.

"I absolutely wanted to avoid mermaids and things like that," Lagerfeld said. "I was inspired by the movement of seaweed, its lightness, and by certain fish that have very modern shapes, like sting rays."

Frothy puffs of chiffon clung like sea foam to the hemlines of some of the narrow skirts, and shiny aqua ribbons zigzagged down the white shift dresses like angry waves. A cocktail dress had puffs of slick ribbon embroidery at the sleeves and the hips, like clumps of black seaweed.

Everything was covered with pearls: They stood in for buttons and replaced chain belts, punctuated the models' slick, wet-looking hairdos and were stuck onto their ears and backs — in neat rows down their prominent vertebrae.

ALEXANDER McQUEEN

The ivory silk wedding dress that Middleton chose for her date with history was, of course, Alexander McQueen, but it was hard to imagine the demure now-Duchess of Cambridge sporting the S&M-infused black teddy, the head-enveloping lace-and-leather face masks or any of the other extreme looks that came down the label's runway.

The Duchess of Cambridge has notoriously low-key style, and trying to imagine her in anything from this collection was absurd. After all, what would she do with her luscious locks — not to mention her face — in one of those lacy pantyhose head masks that topped off all the looks?

Suits with flippy skirts and shrunken jackets were cinched at the waist with oversized belts with kinky lace-up detailing. Evening gowns entirely covered in pearls or mother-or pearl scales were ravishing, but looked about as conformable as straitjackets.

The show elicited among the most positive reactions of any of the Paris collections.