Trend alert: haute couture might exclude the majority of us who simply can't afford it, but it does hint at the next big things in fashion. This week there are several concurrent themes emerging. First off, roses. Christian Lacroix embroidered them on white taffeta jackets as well as taffeta and organza boleros, as well as supersized ruffled corsages on collars and derrières. Alexis Mabille attached silk rose petals to the straps of the espadrilles he wound around the legs of his models (he even had rose embroidery on men's shirts, too).
Georges Chakra's tiny, exquisite flowers made from paper-fine malleable plastic adorned canary yellow and baby doll pink Courreges-style evening gowns. Despite its monochrome palette, Chanel used rose (rather than signature camellias) on everything from headbands to hems. And at Givenchy on Tuesday evening, the show location, an austere 13th-century abbey in Paris's trendy Left Bank, was strewn with several thousand silk rose petals. Even the air was scented with heady eau du rose. Riccardo Tisci's collection was inspired by the romantic Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who hailed from Holland (his real name was Laurens). At the height of his fame, he made it the fashion for many wealthy Victorians to have one of his paintings of sylph-like ladies in a version of the toga.
Many of the parchment-toned draped robes also featured featherweight veils that entirely covered the face and fell to the waist and below. I think he is slightly ahead of the game in terms of all the draping and straps. Flashes of same-toned sequins hidden beneath sheer panels were also spot-on credit crunch glamour. Backstage, when I queued up to ask Riccardo Tisci to elaborate on his veils, Glenda Bailey of Harpers Bazaar, the photographer/director Jean-Paul Goude and a posse from Vogue were congratulating him. Carine Roitfeld and Lou Doillon who sat front row also clearly loved it.
John Galliano's show, which was also inspired by art, in his case Flemish painters, was considered too literal. Too many tulips for a start. The palette he used - gold, bluebell, vermillion, shell pink and ivory - was spot on, however. Apart from occasional violent bolts of tangerine, yellow, purple, vivid pinks and sky blues, it's been a very black and white season indeed. Hemlines are long. Mabille, considered one of the "experimentalists", had them consistently touching the ground. There's also been a lot of shoulder interest. Shoulders are not so much wide as attention-seeking. On boleros and military jackets they are neat but with nips, tucks and pleats and all sorts of clever tailoring.
Giorgio Armani worked a neat, glamorous line that looked a bit Hollywood mid-Thirties in his Far East-themed show. The jackets on his fitted skirt suits and opulent dresses could have stepped straight off a Busby Berkeley movie set or at least something post-1929. Now, why is that date so familiar? Ah yes, the Wall Street crash. Funny that. One haute couture trend that might have difficulty being transformed into ready-to-wear, certainly into fast, high-street fashion, is back interest. The past 48 hours have seen an incredible amount of bustles, giant godets on flared-out jackets (at Dior), fussy capes and billowing trains.
Lacroix and Zuhair Murad took inspiration from the ocean and shoreline. Lacroix's romantic dresses and shrunken buccaneer jackets reminded me of Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean. Talking of which, Knightley was guest of honour at Chanel as the "face" of their Coco perfume. The other celebrity who kept on popping up front row was singer and producer, Kanye West. He stood out because he was the only person at the shows wearing jeans, trainers and dark sunglasses. Surely he's cool enough to know shades are so last season?