Take a bow: Haute gets hotter

Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld dazzled the fashion world on Tuesday with a rare night-time presentation of his autumn-winter haute couture collection that conjured up all the magic of a walk through starlit Paris.

With his usual sense for high drama, the white-haired designer transformed the Grand Palais, a stately exhibition hall by the River Seine, into a fairy-tale version of Place Vendome — a square known as the seat of Parisian luxury. A silver statue of Coco Chanel, the brand's founder, stood perched atop a mock-up of the obelisk at the square's centre, taking the place of Napoleon Bonaparte in a wink to Chanel's dominance of high fashion couture.

The clothes on display also paid homage to Parisian chic, heavy on glamour and chintz but confined to a narrow colour palette of blacks, whites, purples and mauves.

"I liked it, it's very Coco, very 1930s but with the Karl touch to it, that kind of gothic touch," Italian model Eliza Sednaoui. "I'm here because I like the man behind the line and the people who put it together."

Lagerfeld kicked off the show with a procession of classic Chanel suits declined in silver and grey wool, or starkly pairing white structured jackets with heavy black skirts. Tailoring was close to the body, with pencil skirts hugging the knees and lower legs covered in trouser-like transparent stockings bissected with a stripe of black felt.

Tight and pinched like lampshades, full-length skirts trailed the paillette-strewn runway, and all-black evening dresses bristled with beetle-like clusters of jewels that twinkled in the glare of stage prop street lamps.

"There is such a strong Paris feel to the whole collection, it's really magical," said Diane Kruger, the German-born Hollywood actress.

After reaching for a younger feel in recent collections, Chanel's latest display struck a distinctly more dressed-up note with delicate face veils, hats and some formal gowns that might have emerged from a Victorian dressmaker. The traditional wedding dress was shimmering satin and tight-fitting with a 10-foot train, marked along its entire length with zebra-patterned silver leaf decals.

When the overhead lights came back on, Lagerfeld toured his imaginary Place Vendome to salute the crowd of fashionistas, many of whom stood throughout the packed show.

GIVENCHY

Givenchy continued to probe the beating heart of couture with Albino Angels, a pared-down collection of exquisite, feather-light concoctions of ivory tulle, chiffon and shimmering pearls.

Each of the 10 looks was a miracle of inventiveness and painstaking labour.

Somehow, designer Riccardo Tisci and his atelier of seamstresses and embroiderers turned thousands of tiny little iridescent beads into sculptural birds of paradise, the tropical flowers blooming across the midriff of a tank dress. Hundreds of long strands made from the same luminous white beads formed the dress' skirt and hung like a waterfall from an assorted clutch.

Clocking in at 2,000 hours of work, that look was, astoundingly, among the least labour-intensive of the 10.

More than 3,500 hours were poured into hand-cutting tiny circles out of tulle, which were then stacked sometimes 32-deep, on a turtleneck gown in champagne coloured tulle, creating scales that enveloped the delicate mermaid dress.

Brilliantly inventive and exquisitely executed, the collection showcased the endless possibilities of couture — and Tisci's enormous talent.

GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVE

Giorgio Armani dedicated his Prive collection of wildly expensive made-to-measure skintight column dresses and painted-on pantsuits to the victims of Japan's earthquake and tsunami.

Homage to Japan incorporated Japanese silks and shapes culled from kimonos into the Italian designer's trademark lean, clean-lined shapes.

Strips of printed silks peeked out from slits on the back of peak-shouldered cropped jackets in black velvet. A pencil skirt and bandeau tops fitted with stiff architectural panels bloomed with oversized cherry blossoms. The head wear — always inventive at Armani — was made from what appeared to be Japanese wrapping paper or an explosion of folding fans.

As usual, the looks were so tight it was hard to imagine anyone besides a teenage model — or Cate Blanchett, who graced the front row, along with Katie Holmes — managing to wiggle into them.

RABIH KAYROUZ

Kayrouz is a breath of fresh air. The Lebanese designer manifests no apparent desire to fetter, hinder or hobble women with binding clothes or painful shoes — instead churning out wearable knit dresses that flatter just about every figure and dispensing with the footwear altogether.

His barefoot models splashed over a catwalk covered in several inches of water in tank dresses with flippy skirts and Bermuda shorts paired with a leather jacket — a symbolic nod to the fall-winter season at hand.

It was a simple, ravishing collection from a designer who has understood that no women — ultra-wealthy couture clients included — really want to suffer to be beautiful.

STEPHANE ROLLAND

Rolland looked to Japan for his autumn-winter collection, but where Armani silhouettes were constricted, the French designer's were all air and flowing movement.

Satin catsuits with dramatic slits up the thighs had built-in capes that billowed as the models strode boldly down the catwalk, and waterfalls of silky chiffon cascaded down the back of the column gowns.

The collection's oversized accessories and sculptural accents blurred the fine line between couture and art.

Mermaid dresses were cinched at the waist with oversized metal belts that glinted with chunks of fool's gold. Gold tubes stacked in an hourglass shape embellished the front of long-sleeved sheath dresses.

"That belongs in a museum," whispered one of the droves of chic couture-buying ladies from her front-row perch as a mermaid gown with an oversized metal and satin bow on the back swept by.

But it was the wedding gown — a kimono knit out of thick white yarn into intricate mosaic patterns — that took the audience's breath away and best showcased Rolland's impressive technical know-how. The dress was so heavy, so monumental, that the model sporting it got stuck at the end of the runway, her stick-thin thighs not strong enough to make a U-turn. An usher and Rolland's chic ivory-haired mother scurried over to help her manoeuvre the train.

ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER

It's official. The devil no longer wears Prada.

Any she-devil worth her horns and forked tail will soon be sporting Vauthier, the emerging French talent who served up a red-soaked collection so sexy it could surely persuade just about any man to sign over his soul.

A bustier fit around the midriff of a cherry-coloured fur coat to give it a form-fitting hourglass shape and more than a hint of naughtiness, while the saucy, second-skin pantsuits in fire-engine neoprene left precious little to the imagination.

As if the weather were conspiring to lend Vauthier's inferno added credibility, Paris temperatures soared on Tuesday to 32° Celsius, turning the cramped show venue — a historic high school library illuminated by red spotlights — into a hellish sauna.

But while the elaborately costumed audience of fashion glitterati sat streaming with sweat, Vauthier's she-devils dripped only diabolical sensuality.