Taking a Pass

The Paris shows started in earnest today and it was busy, busy, busy. The only break came in the evening when the American designer Derek Lam invaded Paris, with a few frocks from the collection he showed last month in New York, to host a cocktail party. He didn't put on a runway show but he had his models sit, sphinx-like, in a living tableau. They smiled generously at the crowd and looked lovely in their Derek Lam frocks. Champagne, of course, was passed.

The big entertainment of the day was the singer Rufus Wainwright who performed at the Viktor & Rolf show. He did a rendition of "Over the Rainbow" that would have made Judy Garland proud. The designers also launched their new fragrance, called Antidote, with a cloud of stage smoke and a cadre of male dancers waltzing across the floor. We took a sniff of the cologne and it's rather nice. It's musky in that manly sort of way. (It's a men's fragrance.) But it also has some pleasant fruity notes. We'd be perfectly happy sitting next to a gentleman wearing Antidote.

So far the shows here have already been more interesting than those in Milan. Still, we couldn't help but talk about the relentless nature of the industry with several of our colleagues. Create! Create! Create! One of them wondered if it would be so terrible if a designer simply sent out a note to editors and retailers announcing: I'm taking a pass this season. The collection just didn't work out as planned. Some of them could just continue to reap the benefits of fragrances and other licenses and then come back six months later after the muse had visited.

By Robin Givhan |  October 3, 2006; 10:15 AM ET Paris
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