The Shape of the Future? Behold the Birthday Suit!

Pilati's suits, in their big bold checks, are for a particular taste. They seem fussy and awkwardly proper and destined to make a woman look as wide as a house. But Pilati cut delightful swing coats, as well as a beautiful white evening gown with a ruffled bodice and a train blossoming with floral applique.

His decision to include flouncy peasant dresses with floral aprons and droopy genie pants, in which a woman couldn't even cross her legs, seemed as silly and indulgent a notion as asking models in spike heels to tramp through a flower bed. Were there no flat sandals? Box heels?

Jean Paul Gaultier

While Pilati was turning for inspiration to the YSL archives and possibly old episodes of "I Dream of Jeannie," other designers looked to the streets. They have been inspired by sportswear and gym clothes: the sort of attire that a real woman -- not the always well-groomed creature of designers' imaginations -- might wear to run errands on a Saturday afternoon. Jean Paul Gaultier, who is celebrating his 30th anniversary this year, showed a collection Tuesday afternoon that was inspired by a sports club.

To mark the anniversary, Gaultier opened the show with a reminder of his history: cone bras, transgender pants/skirts, tattoo dresses, Hasidic-inspired overcoats. His spring collection exemplified what Gaultier has always done best. He transforms what he sees on the street into polished, luxurious fashion. He may inflame tempers along the way, but Gaultier remains a keen observer. He sees secular beauty in religious adornment. He sees mainstream elegance in the fetishes of the fringe element.

And for spring, he sees glamour -- not just ease and comfort -- in sweat clothes. He cuts slinky and colorful baseball jackets and embroiders the backs with "30," as well as ornate flora and fauna. Basketball jerseys are elongated into cocktail dresses, and sweat pants have the fluidity of silk jersey.

Branquinho, Vionnet, Demeulemeester

All too often, the collections in Paris that focus on accessible, wearable clothes -- really, there are a few -- get lost in the hubbub surrounding this city's mad scientists, P.T. Barnums and Goliath corporations.

Designers such as Sophia Kokosalaki, Ann Demeulemeester and Veronique Branquinho don't run huge companies with enormous advertising budgets. (The promise of a few ad dollars is always a lure for magazine editors to attend a show.) They are not famous scions. They don't have a flamboyant celebrity or socialite clientele. All they have going for them are their clothes.

Branquinho was in the unfortunate position on Wednesday of presenting her quiet collection of layered white dresses, feminine skirts and slouchy white trousers just before the Givenchy presentation. Givenchy is part of the enormous LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton conglomerate. It is a globally recognized brand that demands attention. And the show was on the opposite side of Paris from Branquinho's. She barely stood a chance.

Her audience arrived already antsy about whether the show would cause them to miss Givenchy. People glared at their watches and consulted colleagues by cellphone. They sighed heavily each time another model appeared on the catwalks. How many mannequins are back there? Would Givenchy wait for this tiny little show to end?

The last model had barely turned her back to the cameras -- and the designer had certainly not even taken her bows -- when the audience stampeded toward the door, crashing its way through the crystal beaded curtains that had created an atmosphere of soulful romance. Had anyone seen the poetic collection? Or had folks simply been ticking off the minutes?

Kokosalaki, who was recently appointed creative director of the French fashion house Vionnet, showed audiences a collection that highlighted her signature use of draping, ruching and pleating. Her clothes swirl around the body in the manner of a cloak in classical Greek and Roman statuary. Kokosalaki works with her fabric like a sculptor molding clay.

Demeulemeester's melancholy clothes -- rumpled, long and ascetic -- were perfectly suited to the dark mood of fall and its emphasis on layers. But it was hard to imagine how Demeulemeester might give her clothes the airiness that defines so many of the spring collections without losing the essence of her aesthetic. How does a designer who is inspired by singer Patti Smith -- grumpy and dark -- create lighthearted fashion?

In the collection she showed Tuesday, Demeulemeester chose white eyelet as a tool for leavening the sobriety in her work. She created languid, almost genderless jackets that were rendered less mournful by the sweet fabric. And the usually saccharine eyelet benefited from Demeulemeester's weighty and emotional point of view.