—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

**sent in by a reader - good looking out!

Chanel starts at 10:30 am.

Cross the Pont Alexandre III to the Grand Palais. Graciously accept my pre-show goodie bag of Chanel No.5, though wish I had coffee to go with it.

Realize how serious it is that I’m at Chanel, especially when Lauren Santo Domingo graciously accepts her not-front-row seat. Notice that she positions herself right behind Emma Watson, guaranteed picture placement that way. Zoe Kravitz, Mario Testino, Claudia Schiffer and Clemence Poesy squeeze into same row.

Stare at the giant 31 Rue de Cambon facade. Our House blares. Everyone giggles. Karl sends tweed suits, black stockings and frothy gowns down the runway. A lot of it is, all together now, SHEER.

Coco is here! She’s hiding underneath a black veiled hat. Between the girls and Karl’s bow, boys emerge. Five, including Sebastian, wearing tight suits and beacoup des bijoux.

Our House plays again, Karl prolongs his bow and the glass ceiling shakes with the roar of the audience.

A perfect conclusion, for me at least, of Paris Fashion Week.

Haider Ackermann showed a very sexy spring collection yesterday.

There’s been a noticeable lack of celeb presence in Paris, aside from Dior, and in a stranger moment of front row “glamour”, Michael Pitt, of both The Dreamers and Dawson’s Creek, attended Ackerman’s show and managed to look thoroughly bored with the array of model bottoms.

We, however, were fascinated. First, you know how we love Tanya D. Second, the cut-out, sheer, draped dresses and mini-suits made you wish it was ok to show up to work half-dressed. Like Stella, Ackermann showed what looked like a lawyer’s suit on top and a bathing suit on the bottom.

If only corporate dress codes weren’t so strict about the whole pants thing.

Meanwhile, the shoes were phenomenal - wooden soled booties with overlapping suede that laced up the leg. Models had to be strapped in hours before the show started.

But at least no one fell.

Stella McCartney’s show is in the same venue as Yohji’s, and the similarities stop there.

We walk in, greeted by a table stacked with “so sorry you’re seriously here at 10am” peace offerings, including heart-shaped champagne truffles and double espressos.

I watch Stella’s darling daughter hide between her impossibly gorgeous father’s legs, since everyone’s paying more attention to the four year old than to L’Wren Scott.

I sit down and open my travel felt kit. It’s too hard to explain, but fun.

The only thing that distracts me from the neon cartoon mural on the back wall, is Sir Paul McCartney sitting twenty feet away. And the only thing that distracts me from the Beatle, is the sometimes sparkly, always sexy, slouchy collection his daughter sends down her runway.

I remember back when Stella first showed jumpsuits and everyone laughed. I realize that the one-piece tuxedo Raquel Zimmerman wears to close the show might be the hottest thing I’ve seen all season. And I realize that for the first time in a long time, despite their constant appearances this past Fashion Month, sequins actually look appealing.

I mentally block the out of place Leger-inspired bandage dresses that pop up for a split second, and instead enjoy my Tootsie pop, the Paul/Alasdhair/Twiggy view, and my fantasy wardrobe come to life.

Since we’ve been on this side of the Atlantic for what feels like years, we’re not so up to date on the world of TV.

(Except for Gossip Girl of course, which we dutifully download ASAP).

But if re-makes are still in vogue and somebody out there has plans to re-produce Dynasty, may we suggest Andrew Gn for costumes?

We promise you’ll be thrilled with the bejeweled, sequined, structured, wildy colorful dresses. Sure, they might be missing shoulder pads, but that’s what makes them perfect for Dynasty 2.0.

And we’d definitely recommend snagging the matching shoes, too. After all, nothing screams soap star like a head to toe, shoe to necklace matchy-matchy outfit.

My exhaustion has reached new lows.

I walked into a pole on the bank of the Seine and a cute French boy laughed, “At least you did not fall in!”

So comforting.

Then yesterday, I tripped and fell not into the arms of another Frenchman, but backwards into two very important Vogue editors on our way into the Akris show.

Mon dieu.

When we finally shoved into the wide open space, I wanted to go hide among the trees on stage. Instead, I snuck into the photographer’s pit and snapped pictures of what turned out to be even more sheer clothes, which I naively thought was not possible.

But at least the sheer was different this time - Albert Kriemler used it in panels divided by opaque fabrics in the same color palette, like on Ali Michael and Ikeleine.

Incidentally, the wide-knit dress Lily Donaldson wore to close the show was, basically, awesome. Can’t wait to see it on someone with curves.

We had little expectations for Emmanuel Ungaro.

The only thing we could’ve told you about the brand before yesterday, was that they paint the bottom of their shoes hot pink and recently appointed a young Colombian designer.

But when we saw Anna sitting front and center, our interest was piqued.

In a Spring season full of Fall clothes, Esteban Cortazar showed an almost shocking amount of color. There were sexy teal mini dresses, sheer magenta blouses and bright orange flouncy skirts - and we mean this in the nicest way possible.

We’d never wear any of it, mostly because we don’t buy new wardrobes for Caribbean vacations, but all of it would look amazing on Tinsley Mortimer, who made her second front row appearance of the week.

And we’re guessing that’s whom Cortazar designed it for anyway.

Karl Lagerfeld sent a bevy of blonds down his runway yesterday morning.

Very, very skinny blonds wearing what we think Karl would wear if he woke up a woman one day.

The tent went pitch black for at least one minute - (I wanted to yell something outrageous) - before the lights came up on a cone of smoke obscuring a model in the middle of the runway.

Dramatic, sometimes humorous, effects continued. One model swung a tote screen printed with Karl’s face, until she reached the pit and held it in front of her own face for photographers.

At the end, but before the finale, Karl emerged from backstage to greet his uber-chic fans. He led the model procession, which was in turn led by Lily Donaldson, half way down the runway before pivoting on his fancy boots and descending back into a cloud of smoke.

Kind of made us wish we loved ourselves as much as Karl does.

Good evening, east of the Atlantic-siders. We have some news concerning tomorrow’s Stella show at 10am Paris time.

You’ll be dragging yourself out of bed not just for pretty layers of blush-tone separates, but for some proper morning cartoons, too. The brother-artists Dinos and Jake Chapman (should we note they’re personal friends of Kate?) have designed the back wall of the show, titled “untitled”, a work that’s inspired by “children’s coloring books, cutting out characters and mixing stories” and constructed of only colorful felt.

If you’re unfamiliar with their work, their 1994 piece, F*** Face, is at left.

Have fun.

What is up with the funky runways?

Models are tired, shoes are too high, and zig-zag walking formations are not the best idea.

Yesterday alone featured a double up and down walk at Tsumori. Then at Marithé et François Girbaud, there were benches full of editors and buyers woven throughout the floor and the models walked up the runway, then down the middle before swinging left, then right, then back up to the pit and down again.

At Issey Miyake the girls covered a giant space three times, walking in between fringed curtains that made us, inappropriately we’re sure, think of Boogie Nights. And then at Ann Demeulemeester, which was held in a half dungeon / half church space in St. Germain, the models again wove in and out of audience members.

The problem? The models can’t remember where to go, which in most cases means photographers throw a temper tantrum over the music, the audience laughs and when it’s really bad there’s a model traffic jam on the runway where three end up in the same corner at once or turn and walk into each other head on.

We’re tired, we’re cranky, let’s stick to straightforward runways.

We’ve taken to walking from show to show. Nothing in Paris starts more than an hour after the time on the invitation and everything’s relatively close - but our general lack of direction means we never know when we’ll arrive at our destination.

Which means we got to Ann Demeulemeester a bit early. We talked to Scott Schuman about how amazing the fall weather is, while standing in the rain admiring the women who actually wear all of Ann’s clothes.

We’ve never seen so many people wear head to toe looks from the designer whose show they’re attending as we have in Paris. Devoted fans turn out in droves for a glimpse of their favorite runways in outfits that answer the question my parents always ask when confronted with editorial looks, “Who actually wears this stuff?”

Maybe it’s the crazy Paris fashions talking, but we’d actually wear everything on Ann’s Spring runway. The fluffy, tied-up dresses will work on someone not-model sized, us, and those chained, rhinestone decorated minis manage to walk cooler than expected. Even the lace up shoes looked do-able.

Though not on our show-to-show treks, of course.