Paris Fashion Week: Ghosts of Fashion Past and Future

With all the buying and selling, merging and acquiring, it's easy to forget that most of these luxury goods companies were started by families. Families that still exist. Easy to forget, that is until the jaw-dropping moment when you meet someone named Guccio Gucci, as I did several years ago at Roberto Cavalli's house or, as I did yesterday at the Ines de la Fressange viewing. No, it wasn't de la Fressange. She's gone over to work at Roger Vivier. But her company was bought by Francois-Louis Vuitton and although she's no longer there -- something about a pillbox and a couple of lawsuits -- the Vuitton decendent still is, hoping to revive the label with new designers and a mid-range collection of casual dresses and sportswear influenced by the 1950s.

Also in Paris is Vittorio Moltedo, who founded Bottega Veneta with his wife in 1966 and sold it to Gucci Group in 2001. He's helping his son, Gabriellecorto, run his handbag company, Corto Moltedo.

Corto is not the only member of fashion's next generation showing. Francesca Versace, who just finished her degree at Central Saint Martins, is debuting her collection, Francesca V, for the Singapore label All Dressed Up this week. As is Limi Feu, Yohji Yamamoto's daughter, who will show her collection on Saturday.

Is it possible for these new names ever to have as much cultural resonance as the old? I kind of doubt it.