AT the recent menswear collections, Parisian designers unveiled a vision of anaemic, effete men wearing what amounted to women’s clothes. In sharp contrast, the just-concluded Fall 2010 Haute Couture showed powerful, aggressive looks, boldly shaped and heavily ornamented for women.

The message here? One can only speculate that this is fashion’s commentary on the new balance of power between the sexes. Indeed, it was the only clear message to be gleaned from the haute couture show, heralded as the summit of fashion.

While once couturiers were fashion gods who bade hemlines rise and fall with a stroke of the marker pen, now they seem less like dictators, and more like service providers. Namely, giving the pampered couture customer exactly what they want.
Blame it partly on the Internet or social media – but influential haute couture has ceased to be a top-down engine of ideas.

Where trends used to trickle down from their rarefied salons, they now proliferate from the keyboards of many a self-styled online fashion star. Haute couture has lost its divine edge, and it shows in this year’s uninspiring collections.

Armani Privé

Giorgio Armani’s beige-to-bronze collection hews narrowly to the polished, conservative clothes that made him a fashion legend – in the late 1980s. There were precious few innovations in this collection with 44 exits, and little fashion excitement.

On the plus side, there is little to fault with Armani’s classics. The incisive cut and drape of the daywear is neat and perfectly finished. The impeccable skirts- and pants-suits seemed in tune to the anachronistic idea of the grim, high-powered lady executive (one does wonder if power-dressing in the age of twitter still involves quite the same elements as those Armani pioneered in the ’80s).

It’s pretty no-nonsense stuff, despite the odd peplum here and a frill there. It’s not flirty or sensuous. The skirts, easy and practical (for stomping down corridors of power, no doubt) have a prim below-the-knee flare.

The evening wear draped to perfection, if reduced to a formula, is something Jodie Foster would no doubt choose to wear to the Oscars in (but where is Ms Foster now?). The embroidery glitters like studs on a gladiator’s shield and gold mesh gowns look forbidding, not come-hither.

The fabrics are luxurious wools, supple leather and heavy satin that put up a solid, moulded front. It’s heavy going, and not calculated to interest a man.

Chanel

Another collection that referenced the 1980s was this thought-provoking and challenging offering from Karl Lagerfeld. Obviously meant as a huge tribute to Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld and her windswept chic, this collection is a redux of all things 1980s, a favourite reference period of Ms Roitfeld’s.

Again, there was little that was seductive. The bolero tops were cropped high and sprouted substantial Ivana Trump sleeves – not a sexy look. The pencil skirts have elongated Rifat Ozbek waists, and the entire thing is smothered in rococo gold ornamentation and floral friezes that suggest the word “encrusted” – and 18th century furniture.

It’s been a while since this much gold piping was employed.

Contributing to the heavy feeling of the looks were jewel toned velvets and elaborately embroidered traditional florals, sheer layers floated over sequined and metallic shifts.

Day suits were suitably powerful and coats with sable bands looked smotheringly heavy. The dresses, mostly just skimming the knees, and coats, swinging at mid-calf, are not attractive proportions, especially paired with mid-calf boots, however elaborately embroidered or artfully crumpled.

But if this isn’t one of those immediately attractive, eager-to-please collections from Lagerfeld, it still showcased the many wizard ways of couture; And at more than 60 looks, there’s a refined little black dress or a familiar Chanel suit in there for everyone.

Givenchy

Also overly reliant on decoration was Ricardo Tisci’s slim offering of just 10 looks.

Based on the skeleton (the cuts and colouring which were the neutrals of bone and flesh), and inspired by Catholic icons (the capes and the gilt), the clothes also referenced Frida Kahlo, the iconic wheelchair-bound Mexican artist.

Tisci’s looks seemed modern because of his combination of a sleek narrow fit combined with a Latin sensuality – and the loose undone hair. But it only seemed modern. There was nothing innovative there – the forms were usual and the shapes ordinary.

Even the highlight – the overdose of atelier embellishment – merely recalled the Bob Mackie dresses Cher used to wear on the Sonny and Cher Show. Remember Cher? Remember Bob Mackie?

Yes, he made narrow, fluid stocking-sheer gowns decorated with rhinestones, sequins, fringes and feathers. And yes, Cher had centre-parted hair just like that.

Jean Paul Gaultier

There’s more than a little dose of masculinity this time around at Jean Paul Gaultier. His theme has always been androgyny and this time, the ideas were more subversive than usual.

On the surface, the dresses and gowns innocently evoked 1940s Hollywood, with Lauren Bacall jackets, Myrna Loy dresses and Joan Crawford gowns. But on closer study, the wild exaggeration of this hard-edged glamour was more drag queen.

The extreme shoulders and sleeves were outlined with a pie crust of fins. Armorial leather bodices looked like the carapaces of beetles, and looked combative, not appealing. The menacing bat-winged coats looked like a predatory manta ray.

The bride wore a trench coat. Even Dita Von Teese, who took a turn on the catwalk, stripping down to an hourglass corset, had the look of a cartoon-y female impersonator, despite her famous hand-span waist.

All this was made dazzling, and saved from looking frankly ridiculous, by the amazing cuts and innovative draping of this couture master.

Gaultier once again restated all his design classics, from the rigorously tailored pants suits to the lingerie as outerwear, to the pin-striped trench, the lace and leathers, the African references and the odes to Paris, with superb skill and craftsmanship which is what haute couture is all about.

Dior

Possibly the best collection this season, John Galliano, at Dior, sent out a hot house of gorgeous blooms in a flower-themed collection. At last this outing sees Mr Galliano, seemingly subdued of late, bursting into full bloom once again.

Literally, in this case. This has the charm, vibrant colour and prettiness of spring. Couture should be like this, buoyant and poetic, using the best techniques to imaginatively capture the utmost in beauty. The colours and forms, the poppies, crocuses, tulips, orchids and violets, came from both Christian Dior’s 1953 collection and Irving Penn’s photographs of flowers.

This translated into fluttering coats and puffball skirts for day; cocktail dresses featured bared shoulders and wasp waists – cinched with a raffia string belt, as if the waist was the gathered stems of a posy.

The evening wear was a conflagration of ball gowns that looked like an explosion of peonies. And all the looks came out with headpieces that looked like the crackling plastic cones beloved of florists.

This was feminine and romantic collection with the retro feel of a vintage Vogue picture, not made for the admiration of men. These were woman’s fantasy clothes made for the appreciation of other women.

Valentino

In the same undiluted girlish mode was the Valentino collection sent out by designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli. But in comparison with Dior, this collection was more prosaic.

The designing duo seemed to have concentrated on one of the couture house’s signatures, the pussycat bow, and built the entire collection around it.

They sometimes managed to transform the models into human bows with brief trapeze dresses and billowing coats in organza, gazar and wool crepe – gathered at the girlishly high waist with – a bow. Bows and ruffles embellished everything (even the kitten heels sprouted floating bows), giving a feeling of marzipan sweetness.

The palette was straight out of a French confectionery. Some of the exits looked like communion dresses, and some like prom dresses; Many of the looks were challenging for those customers who did not look like prepubescent models.

If haute couture is to last, and recent reports optimistically claim that orders are up by as much as 30 per cent at some houses, it must prove its worth by being a powerhouse of ideas, and not just as a very expensive made-to-measure business.

With dresses that can cost as much as a four-room HDB flat, couture needs to inspire and generate ideas, and drive fashion forward. It has to take the design lead and not succumb to the masses. For that, we already have high street fashion.

This article was first published in The Business Times.