innovative techniques.

The lady is back, and she doesn’t shout, she whispers. But she does so in a beautifully cut jacket that’s sculpted, woven, embroidered, painted, belted, embossed, laser-cut, quilted or a combination of all the above.

At Chanel, longer tweed jackets forgive the hips; woven details crafted with a couturier’s technique draw the eye on jackets (and other pieces) by Andrew Gn and Ralph Rucci, while hand painted fabrics and quilting raise jackets to high art at Balenciaga, Christian Lacroix and Alexander McQueen. For a more aggressive sexuality (as in an razor-sharp asymmetrical black leather bomber), Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent is the go-to guy.

Capes promise drama and easy dressing – in deconstructed, sophisticated eco-chic knits and felted wools at Stella McCartney (“It’s important to design for women with curves, most of us have them,” the designer said backstage), spidery black ones at Chanel or short in beige cashmere at Martin Grant [yes Australian but based in Paris]. All good news when 40 is yesterday’s news and your closet has never met a size 2, let alone that oddity called a double-0.

Pants are back in force, since they are an excellent foil for all that detail going on up top; even better they fall straight but loose (was there ever a more ill-advised trend than skinny jeans?). For those who can, or dare, some skirts are still short, but most are reaching for the knee and mid-calf (a ready-made excuse to alternate the season’s spindly stilettos with flats). Tops are either minimalist (like a neutral turtleneck) or high-neck blouses that are frothy, frilly or satiny (white or black).

The little black dress is due for a renaissance, and two designers stood out on that count for different reasons. At Balenciaga, Nicolas Ghesquière gave them a hard-edged, slightly intimidating glamour in sculpted pieces slit right up the thigh. For his all-black show at Lanvin, Alber Elbaz created a modern Parisienne in one-shouldered draped numbers, whorls of ribbon or veils of transparency cascading with gold, crystal and pearl necklaces. Who wouldn’t want to be that woman?

Evening dresses were nothing short of operatic at Alexander McQueen — who traveled from the Highlands to India under the British Empire and back again. The designer would have done Empress Josephine proud in his one-shouldered white draped gown, or another one that wrapped a crimson sari over wispy layers of white chiffon, and his gold and silver embroidered bolero was a stand-alone piece. Crinolined, befeathered and bejeweled dresses were the stuff that dreams are made of — and back in the real world everyone is sure to want a piece of that dream even if they only get as close as a maharajah-inspired jeweled slipper

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