There's life in couture yet

Fashion, like nature, abhors a vacuum. But ever since Yves Saint Laurent retired, there has been a hole the size of the Channel Tunnel in the Paris haute-couture schedule. And with Balmain also gone this season, it was the perfect opportunity for Yohji Yamamoto, Ritu Beri and Rick Owens (newly installed at ancient Parisian fur house Revillon) to take advantage of a sparse schedule to show their non-couture lines.

Confusing, but most advantageous for the designers, who managed to capitalise on the cream of the world's press and buyers being in town.

What is couture anyway? Is it an inexperienced Julien Macdonald at Givenchy, trying to come to terms with his atelier's skills? Is it Versace presenting a static collection on models of the plastic variety, in a salon in the Ritz? Great for seeing the intricate workmanship close up, but not so great for the house's image as a robust and wealthy player.

Is the couture industry in trouble? How long is a piece of string?

With the luxury goods sector forever publishing profit warnings, it's a fair bet that if demand for a £500 handbag is down, then demand for a £10,000 dress won't exactly be at its peak. Couture houses never reveal sales figures, so use your imagination.

Of course, 99.9 per cent of the population wouldn't care if the couture industry went down the drain: at best it is an irrelevance, at worst a tactless, tasteless waste of money in these war-torn times. But so long as there is wealth and vanity in the world, there will be demand for beautiful, unique items of clothing for the wealthy and the vain.

Emannuel Ungaro gave his presentation a relevance to the outside world by working an Art Deco theme. Here is a man who has clocked the huge success of the V&A exhibition and tapped into the current Deco mania sweeping London, sending out Thirties day suits with hourglass jackets the colour of clotted cream.

On eveningwear, bold Deco prints came beaded in black, white and rainbow colours, embellishing tight bodices and fantail sleeves.

Only a true couturier could meld such painterly colours and disparate fabrics with such apparent ease, and it was much the same story at Lacroix. His favourite colours - fuchsia, yellow and peach - were in abundance, festooned with beading, trimmed with fur and topped off with a tonne of lace for good measure.

At Chanel, Lagerfeld offered deliciously restrained, elegant creations that will have Kylie clamouring to get her legs stretched, the better to do them justice.

Valentino left the audience in no doubt as to couture's prime relevance today: it's dresses to wear to the Oscars! And so to the accompaniment of an ultra-tacky video featuring past Valentino Oscar night triumphs, he sent out eveningwear in pale blue, candy pink, virginal white, dramatic black and the blood red that is his trademark. Hmm - a gown to suit every skin tone from La Kidman to La Lopez.

Jean Paul Gaultier had an outstanding show. Despite "technical difficulties" that made it run more than an hour late (half the models' shoes fell off, leading Gaultier to remove his own sturdy sandal as a joke when he took his bows), this was the cleverest show of the week, a triumphant example of the couturier's art and of Gaultier's vaunting imagination.

Lord knows how the models managed not to faint in their snakeskin, leather or woollen bodysuits, worn to convey the impression of metamorphosis which was the show's theme.

For their final exits, they shed their luxuriant ballgowns like skin, stalking down the catwalk in their bodysuits alone - which themselves were embellished with lace as fine as a henna tattoo, or delicate embroidery.

Once it was all about Yves: last night it was all about Jean.