**Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

PARIS–It was almost two years ago to the day that Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli took over as designers for Valentino and presented their first couture show in the sumptuous hall at the Sorbonne with the full support of its founder. In their past couture collections, the duo has tried to insert their own ideas while still maintaining the essentials of the Roman house, often resulting in confused collections. How much tradition to respect and how much to let go?

But the haute couture collection Chiuri and Piccioli presented Wednesday evening at the Rothschild Hotel proved that they have now started to speak on their own terms and showed just how far they have come since their debut couture collection for Valentino. The collection begged the question: who is the women who wears Valentino couture? I keep thinking that the woman who would wear that sheer dress with the butterfly bow is one that would pose nude with just the bow for a Helmut Newton portrait. And these confident and sexual women have plenty to choose from in a collection comprised of soft, light clothes in longer silhouettes–a layered organza dress in camel with a ruffled neck, a double crepe dress in ivory, or a sheer black organza dress with embroidered organza flowers.

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

PARIS–If London’s punk scene serves as the point of departure for Jean Paul Gaultier‘s spring couture collection, his heart remains in Paris. Even if there were elements that recalled Brit Punk–namely spiked mohawk hair and studded cropped leather jackets–it was only a disguise for a masterfully executed collection featuring Gaultier’s sharp couture skills. Of course, there was also that extra touch of humor that only Gaultier is capable of.

Without any music, an announcer (a recording made by Catherine Deneuve) called out each outfit and the girls carried small number cards simulating the couture shows in the post WWII days. Each look was a punk song reference: ‘London Calling’ was a strapless smoking skirt suit with a thigh high split skirt and black fishnets; ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ was a multicolor smoking suit embroidered with metallic sequins and leather lapels; the last look, a beaded corseted column dress was ‘Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die.’ But no Gaultier couture show is complete without the requisite nautical outfit. This time it took the form of a long-sleeved off-the shoulder dress done in strands of white and dark navy.