Fashion Week: Paris Styles

The collection was so Valentino, he could have designed it himself. And the new designer Alessandra Facchinetti (left) seems right at home with the mingling that the job requires.

Valentino's closest friend and former business partner was front row (left) at the debut of the collection by Alessandra Facchinetti. Did he like what he saw? Hard to say. And he's far too diplomatic to ever tell anyone anything negative. But maybe it is harder to watch a good collection by a successor than a bad one?

It wasn't an instant success, but this season showed that there might still be life left in the label.

Viktor & Rolf, like many of us in fashion--and indeed the world--are feeling overworked. The designers took a stand against "fast fashion" with clothes that said "No!"--literally. As far as protests go, it probably would be better to put their work where their mouths are and give us more clothes that we'd really say "Wow" about.

Jean Paul Gaultier is fed up with PETA coming to his shows. Hello PETA: He's not going to stop doing fur! To make his point he used all the fur and exotic animal skins he could get his hands on. I think it was a far better protest when he dragged PETA's show crashers off the runway covered in giant mink coats a few years back.

Feeling arty? Christian Lacroix's paint-splattered coats and Dries Van Noten's dress with frame print were just the things for fashionistas with an arty side.

These simulated hand-knit sweaters at Dries Van Noten made me and others in the audience of the same era remember a time when the best sweaters came from Granny. I've got to dig out those knitting needles.