As the autumn/winter collections in Paris draw to a close this week, the modern female silhouette has been defined in many different ways.Designers have mined the past, played around with volume and plied the catwalks with fur, but one woman with a firm grip on the metropolitan pulse is Phoebe Philo at Chloe.
Her collection with its mix of masculine tailoring and ultra-feminine dressing expressed a playful spirit in tune with the times and the house's history.
Cuffed windowpane check trousers à la Katherine Hepburn were counterbalanced with dainty pleated satin tops and diamante belts.
There were big shapes like oversized Norfolk jackets, bold brown and blue striped ponchos, black coats with enormous buttons and sweeping camel capes.
But the real success story here were the dresses, the tailored skirts, the little puff-sleeved blouses and a wonderful white cotton cape stencilled like a doily. There was a sweetness to this collection that was all about demure femininity and a relief from blatant sexiness.
Little blackberry-stitch crop knits with elbow-length sleeves, gilets of slithery gold lamé and chiffon dresses anchored with bows or outlined with sparkling grosgrain ribbon were dreamy and pretty.
Statue of Liberty ruched goddess dresses that harked back to the 50s came in jade green, pale dusky pink or baby blue.
A big black coat cuddled a delicate chiffon dress.
The Chloe girl may dress like a boy from time to time, but she's a real girl at heart and a summery one at that.
Another female designer with serious clout is Rosemary Rodriguez, artistic director at Paco Rabanne whose collection combined glamorous evening wear with trim daywear suits enlivened with angled black patent belts and black plastic cloche hats.
The refracted light from silver mesh skirts, crystal studded mohairs, sequined bibs and jewelled epaulettes gave the collection serious shine and sparkle.
But shapely black or grey suits neatly waisted with high feather collars and slim trousers cut as much of a dash as the gold shifts and languorous red fox fur wraps.
Even her version of the little black dress looked new with its full skirt and bodice of sculpted black Perspex.
The question everybody in Paris is asking is how long the tweed story is going to last, but Cacharel's neat tweeds had the enduring look of colours that improve with age. Trimmed with fur, sharpened with tight crop trousers, high heels, black socks and brightened with multicoloured wooden beads, the effect was modern, zany and chic.
But then Clements Ribeiro, the team behind Cacharel, know about colour and pattern better than most.
Even black rabbit fur bomber jackets, fur tippets and pleated skirts had insets of Liberty prints while in a play of solid colour, a trench coat appeared in petrol blue. Recurring themes were gentle puff sleeves and capes while tent coats came in broad stripes of claret, slate grey and aubergine.
There are changes in the air, but the winds are blowing slowly.
Tom Ford, the 42-year-old US designer who transformed Gucci from an ailing, virtually bankrupt, Florentine leather goods company into an international clothing and accessories brand, made an emotional farewell to the fashion industry in Paris last night, ending a glittering 10-year career.
The garden of the Rodin Museum, lit in infrared light, was the setting for his eighth and final collection for YSL Rive Gauche (also owned by Gucci). Chinoiserie was the theme: a parade of jackets were cut and sculpted like carved jade, with hunched pagoda shoulders and high Mandarin collars. The collection had a "Suzy Wong gets sexy" theme.
Chinese dragon prints and silk brocades refashioned afresh for a modern age gave a new twist to a familiar theme. To a standing ovation, the designer strode down the runway dressed in a red jacket.
Ford's success at Gucci made him an industry superstar. Part of the giant French PPR (Pinault Printemps Redoute) conglomerate, Gucci, under his 10-year reign, with Italian-born chief executive Dominico de Sole, increased revenue by 32 per cent a year between 1994 and 2002, with group sales in 1996 reaching a high of $880 million.
As well as YSL, the Gucci group also own top-notch labels like Boucheron, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen. As his successors were announced this week, Ford said he intended to pursue other directions in his life, like making a movie. At the heart of Ford and De Sole's departure from Gucci lies a fundamental disagreement about the future strategy of the company. Ford is adamantly against the proliferation of the licensed use of the brand name, which he believes sullies an upmarket image. PPR chief executive Serge Weinberg thinks otherwise. "A fashion brand has to have a single focused point of view," Ford told Womenswear Daily. Many would say that Gucci's slick panache has been exhausted.
China, meanwhile, is the next big market to capture, which may explain why this collection carries not just an aesthetic but a commercial message for the business of fashion.
