Pursuit of Happiness

Gallery

Pursuit of Happiness

Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, John Galliano at Dior and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel give women what they want -- beautiful, wearable clothes.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton offered a mishmash collection of wide-shoulder jackets in a collision of color swatches and textures, paired with miniskirts that glittered with jewels and teased the eye with peekaboo cutouts.

His references careened from one continent to another, one decade to another. It was as if Jacobs had spent an afternoon Googling whatever notion popped into his head and there on the Vuitton runway Sunday was the result: sometimes dynamic and inspiring, sometimes absurd.

All the while, Edith Piaf wailed on his soundtrack; the models' hair was tied up with the kind of wraps used on a horse's tail; Lenny Kravitz snapped pictures from the front row; and Paris's top luxury magnate, Bernard Arnault, of the house's parent company LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, wore an inscrutable smile. The collision of ideas on the runway reflected the collision of history, artistry, hype and money in the audience.

Designer Hannah MacGibbon, who showed her first collection for Chloe -- where McCartney made her name -- dressed models in scallop-edged jackets and shirts that made them look like a prehistoric centaur: half woman and half brontosaurus.

But the most egregious garment on the runway, perhaps on all the runways this season, was a pair of metallic, high-waisted, copper balloon pants. They prompted one editor to note that the answer to that paranoid question -- Do these make my bum look big? -- would be: No, they make it look enormous.

Valentino, Miu Miu

Designer Alessandra Facchinetti committed a few misdemeanors on the Valentino runway Friday. And she was punished harshly. She was fired. What was so heinous? Her tendency to over-design. Simple silk dresses with an elegant silhouette were weighed down with spangled braiding at the shoulders or along the neckline, plus beaded fingerless gloves, more beading, more braids, more ugh.

The end came after only two seasons. The company said Facchinetti's dismissal resulted from a "misaligned vision with the company." In her place, executives promoted the accessory designers: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, who had worked with the company founder, now retired. (Deja vu: While at Gucci, Facchinetti was fired and replaced by accessory designer Frida Giannini in 2005.) Facchinetti accused the company of being unprofessional for announcing her departure in the press before bothering to mention it to her.

The shows here ended with Miuccia Prada's Miu Miu presentation Sunday night in the rooms of a gilded mansion on Avenue Foch. Prada may be the closest thing that the Paris shows have to a feminist. Her collections always seem to be a political reprimand -- even if it is merely a reaction against the constraints of a pencil skirt.

Her spring collection blended the silky elegance of satin with fabric that had all of the humility and simplicity of a potato sack. She graffitied the sad, brown fabric with slashes of red or black. She paired her skirts with tattered satin bodices in shades such as fuchsia. Then she wrapped it all with a pleated apron -- in navy crepe, perhaps -- and called it a dress.

Sometimes it was unflattering and bulky around a model's body. At other times it was daring and pleasing to the eye and made one rethink the juxtaposition of high style with low, of expensive fabrics with throwaway materials.

She completed the collection with a series of mosaic prints on sheaths that were repeated on wedge heels. It was the right kind of collection for Paris -- intriguing, even startling. But it also managed to do right by women.