Dark Delights

Maybe the answer lies in the simple glasses of tea with flecks of floating gold offered to guests at Van Noten's show Wednesday. The great falsehood perpetuated by the fashion industry during runway season is the alleged sense of intimacy and glamour. One sees so many novices and friends-of-the-house arrive at the shows full of anticipation and dressed in their finery who then are stunned to find themselves waiting in a cold warehouse, wondering how much longer they will have to stand around in their brand-new four-inch heels. An invitation that had sounded so personal now has the sound of a cattle call at a convention center. Only occasionally does it feel as though the sensibility of the designer -- and not some set dresser, publicist, financier -- permeates every aspect of the experience, from the clothes to the way in which the audience is greeted at the door. Van Noten excels at making everything seem personal -- even though he was not back in the kitchen brewing the tea.

So when a model comes walking down his golden runway -- squares of gold leaf flickering in her wake -- it reads like a sonnet written by the designer himself. For fall, Van Noten is more restrained, focusing on tailored trousers with high waists, and trim jackets rather than billowing skirts. His prints are kept to a minimum, his lavish embroidery reserved for the occasional coat. But the telltale signs of his aesthetic are all present. The clothes are layered in unexpected ways, as with an embroidered jumper worn over a chalk-striped jacket and trousers. There are metallic gold pumps with stacked heels, and jackets that wrap across the body and are secured with a ribbon.

His single most enticing print is of a red crescent against an ivory backdrop. It recalls the signature prints seen in the collection of Ottoman textiles that were on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery earlier this year. East merges with West when he pairs the crescent prints with menswear jackets or uses them on a gown cut with a daringly bare back.

Galliano did not offer his audience tea, but the folks at Dior did provide steaming coffee, hot spiced wine and lap blankets, since their presentation was set inside the vast unheated expanse of the Grand Palais on a cold Tuesday night.

Galliano sent his models down the runway in black sunglasses, long black coats trimmed in fur, and chunky motorcycle boots that would serve one well in a bar brawl. The models had bandannas wrapped around their heads, and '80s rock blared from the speakers.

Last month, designers in Milan tried to inject the rebellious fervor of rock-and-roll into their collections. But only Galliano succeeded in exploiting the antiestablishment sensibility of rock while chuckling at the silliness of the idea that anything with a Dior label could be construed as subversive. With models in black lace and motorcycle boots or billowing blood-red silk gowns with the silhouette of a menacing black bird, Galliano teases and winks at the idea of the Dior lady as a biker chick with heavy boots and a concierge at the Ritz to keep them shined.

Rochas

For all the drama and strutting on the Dior runway, the calm at the Rochas show was almost startling. Wednesday night, with the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the distance, guests walked through the dark Tuilerie gardens to a large white tent. There were no throbbing crowds. No crush of the ambitious and the uninvited at the gates. Rochas is not a scene. Theyskens has quietly rebuilt it into a label known for its austerity, reserve and sensuality. Theyskens has led the movement toward clothes in which much is left to the imagination. And he has raised the profile of the house without the aid of starlets. The clothes alone speak.

Theyskens's fall collection was less focused on the inner life of a woman -- her daydreams, her private reveries -- and more on the way in which she engages the world. With his focus on dark trousers and close-fitting jackets, there is the sense that he is preparing her for movement, not the pleasure of swanning about for others to admire. He seems to have simplified the collection, taking the spirit of his elaborate evening gowns and using that as the starting point for his day suits. And there was a handbag on the runway! The sight of an accessory is a sure sign that a house is expanding from a notion of creative purity into the practical realm of making money.

Theyskens's gowns still reveal him to be a romantic -- particularly those with tiny black birds flitting across smoky gray silk or with a hemline of tulle and silk that seems to be in perpetual motion, like a swirling cloud of smoke. But his beautifully executed suits suggest that he knows there doesn't have to be anything ugly about practicality.