Spring 2012 Paris

Valentino designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli sure know how to make the prettiest dresses.

As if the prints, prints, and more prints trend wasn't enough this season, Paris fashion week has shown us how it can be taken even further... putti

It's hard to generalize about the beauty looks across the major fashion capitals, but we're going to go ahead and do it anyway. New York is either easy-breezy or loud and brash. London makeup artists usually go crazy with their palettes, while Milan is generally sophisticated and strong. Paris, much like many of the runway collections, is pretty with a theatrical streak. Check out our favorite looks (which, as usual, are the ones that are the most fun to look at.) Though this season we may have to try a few of these out in real life. Photos: Imaxtree

Paris was unseasonably hot this past week--so hot we heard reports that people fainted inside the tent at Lanvin. Luckily, the clothes were hot, too. Click through to see our 10 favorite collections from the week (in no particular order).

PARIS--15-year-old Miu Miu campaign face Hailee Steinfeld looked perfectly adorable (and age appropriate) at yesterday's Miu Miu show in a flouncy beige party frock with a pink bodice and oversized bow at the back. It's been a whirlwind year for the actress since she burst onto the scene after her standout performance in True Grit, and endeared herself to the fashion set wearing well-chosen Prada, Miu Miu and Stella McCartney looks on the red carpet. She sealed the deal with Miu Miu and landed their stellar Bruce Weber-shot fall campaign. We checked in with the preternaturally poised starlet about her past year in fashion, Tavi, and blogging about fashion.

If Kanye West thought that he was done reading embarrassing things about his debut collection, he unfortunately has one more to get through. In the New York Times, Eric Wilson explored some of the hurdles Kanye is facing and also analyzes whether or not the rapper really understands what he needs to do to improve. Plus Wilson got some absolutely golden quotes from fashion industry people about the collection. The piece starts off with this gem, after describing that f-bomb heavy speech Kanye gave at his after party: “I gave you everything that I had,” [Kanye] said, one of his few printable remarks. If that is true, Mr. West faces bigger obstacles in life than credit-card debt. His show was described by those who attended as, at best, a disappointment, and yet the rapper could be found almost everywhere during Paris Fashion Week defending himself. Other salient points:

OK, so maybe we were a bit too enthusiastic in our last post about the Chanel polishes you'll be wearing next spring. Turns out that the pearly whit

PARIS--"I think it was a good match when they chose me," Manish Arora said after his first show at the helm of Paco Rabanne, which has not shown ready to wear since 2006. A good match, indeed. Arora, whose own line is known for campy showmanship, a yen for the sci-fi, and the use of vivid colors, was well suited to take on the label started by Rabanne in 1966. Rabanne's first revolutionary collection in 1966 was called "12 unwearable dresses"--dresses made of unconventional materials like metal and plastic. Arora's debut collection for the line paid homage to that first Rabanne collection with paneled chain mail dresses that fit like gloves. "The workmanship is similar [between my own line and Paco Rabanne's]," Arora said. "We like to work hard, we like to make dresses that take 25 people and 20 days to make and that's the value of Paco Rabanne that I appreciate and that's the common factor." Light was paramount to the collection, Rabanne said, and futuristic mini dresses with exaggerated hips and strong shoulders were done in shiny high gloss materials that reflected the neon lights of the entrance space of the Centre Pompidou museum, the appropriate modern setting for show.

You might want to invest in some really nice bras and panties come spring--you know, the kind you won't mind everyone seeing. That is unless you want to wear these looks directly off the Paris runways--in which case, just throw them out. There's always a bit of nudity on the runways, especially in Paris where they just don't care as much, but from completely sheer frocks, to hip-high slits (and Karlie Kloss' bare bum closing Dior), we've seen more of models than usual. While we don't mind a little nudity on the runway, let's just hope this trend doesn't catch on with the red carpet crowd (Lindsay Lohan, we're looking at you). And now, without further ado, our favorite peek-a-boo moments from the collections.

PARIS--We always look forward to Miu Miu as our final show of Paris Fashion Week. The front row is reliably stacked with their darling devotees--campaign girl Hailee Steinfeld was there looking lovelier than ever in a Miu Miu party frock with a giant pink bow on the back; so was actress Juno Temple, and too many It-girls to count (Alexa Chung, Elettra Wiedemann, Poppy Delevigne, Caroline Sieber, and the Courtin Clarins girls to name just a few). Come spring, those It-girls will be clamoring for pointy toed mules that looked part Wicked Witch of the East (after Dorothy's house has landed on her) and part Louis XIV. The knee-high boot version with cowgirl-esque leather floral appliques up the side will be in-demand too, no doubt. As will their matching lady-like purses. The more daring trendsetters (and street style stars) will go for the little garden pail bags in bright satins. While the accessories were cheery, the show opened on a rather moody note.

Carine Roitfeld threw a launch party for her new book Irreverent in Paris last night. The theme was bal des vampires, meaning it was basically this season's answer to last year's French Vogue masquerade ball. The fashion crowd went with the theme--some full on (Olivier Theyskens), some only slightly more vampiric than usual (Julia Restoin Roitfeld), some just dressed in black (Kanye West) and one guest wore a giant red Giles Deacon X Stephen Jones swan on her head (guess who!). It's hard to tell whether or not Karl Lagerfeld dressed up and Karlie Kloss let us know that her recent penchant for near-nudity is not relegated to magazines and runways. She wore a risqué black Anthony Vaccarello gown (which she also wore on the runway) that revealed most of her torso and had a slit that went all the way to the hip. If anything, this was a pretty awesome party idea--and just in time for Halloween. Who do you think did vampire chic best?

PARIS--There was a lot to love about Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli's spring collection for Valentino: 1) gorgeous red-carpet-worthy lace and sheer gowns, in the usual palette of Valentino-red, black and beige, livened up with floral embroidery done in Jil Sander spring 2011-esque fluorescents; 2) the signature ruffles were there but there was also a fresh new strapless tent silhouette that fell straight away from the body; 3) they made eveningwear look good with flats; 4) there was air conditioning (wha happened, Lanvin?).

The Telegraph got a quickie interview backstage with Marc Jacobs, and while everyone was admonished to not speak of, you know, that little Dior rumo

Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt. PARIS--You never know what to expect when entering a Chanel show. Chanel is the last fashion house in Paris that consistently stages shows on the grandest of scales--one season it was a giant golden lion, another a farmhouse done to scale, another time an actual iceberg imported from Sweden, and last season, a volcanic eruption. This time the Grand Palais (that massive exhibition hall built for the 1900 World's Fair), was done all in white, the floor covered in sparkling white sand, the seating curved like ocean waves. An aquatic scene was set: there was a whale's tail, seaweed in various states of submersion, giant clams, coral reef, a giant stingray, snails and shells scattered throughout. Oftentimes, décor and spectacle can overwhelm the fashion, but that was not the case here. On the contrary, the tranquility of the aquatic scene, the feeling of being under water, only served to enhance the collection. Models walked out from what appeared to be the mouth of a giant octopus while Florence Welch sang a la Botticelli, on the half shell. The clothes seemed to flow on the body like the movement of water.

Last season for Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs sent his models to the runway in caged elevators complete with uniformed operators to open the doors. Kate

The shows may be almost over, but that doesn't mean we're tired of looking at outfits. And since everyone knows the real fashion show takes place outside the tents, we scoured the street style shots to find our faves. From style icon editors like Taylor Tomasi Hill and Anna Dello Russo to models Hanne Gaby Odiele and Iekeliene Stange, check out our favorite street style looks from Paris Fashion Week.

The summer of skinny belts is over. The big houses in Paris are showing wide statement belts with pants, dresses, skirts, and just about everything

PARIS--Vanessa Bruno's girl for spring is a bit boho, a bit mod, a bit DIY, and always cool. Mod minis looked like they were made of hipster quilts--nostalgic floral prints I had as my bedspread when I was five sewn together with squares of shimmering silver. Bruno amped up the mod-factor with open-toe knee-high boots. Shagadellic. Images of trucks then wove their way onto patchwork tops and dresses for a literal boy-meets-girl vibe.

PARIS--Thank goodness Giambattista Valli is doing a collection for Macy's that we can all afford because if his Impulse line for the mass retailer is even remotely like what he just showed for spring 2012 (or any of his latest collections for that matter), you're gonna want a piece of it. At the Couvent des Cordeliers yesterday, Valli showed a festive collection true to his '60s mod-couture style. Where last spring he ran strips of leopard at the bottom of his shift dresses, this season he's hemmed his white minis in feathers and shimmering silver brocade. More is more with Valli, and he took it even further by adding strips of light pink, lemon yellow, and hot pink florals around dresses and day coats. Wavy little gills were attached at the sides of tops and wrapped around dresses, and when looks weren't a mash up of cotton candy prints, they were loudly zebra striped. And for some more splashes of color, the designer offered up a fringed coat in a bubble gum pink Ikat print. If that wasn't enough, models' arms were stacked past their elbows with serpent cuffs.

The Chanel spring 2012 show walked a few hours ago, and the theme was "under the sea." No surprise then that pearls--already a classic Chanel motif-

PARIS--Some fashion labels, a few French ones among them, have been slow to embrace the digital world as a legitimate and influential voice in the industry. "Online" and "blog" are sometimes dirty, cringe-inducing words around here (though fortunately, that's less and less the case). But, still, how refreshing, that Chloe's new creative director Clare Waight Keller, not only looks at blogs, but says she was inspired by the real girls on street style blogs for her debut collection for the storied French house. "For me Chloe is about what's real, what's now and it was about really capturing the spirit of how women dress today," she told us after the show. "Actually, I looked at a lot of blogs [because] those are cool girls, out there, right now, wearing clothes. It's really inspiring to see how women put things together--it gave me a sense of what I should try to achieve in this show." To that end she showed easy breezy dresses and separates in lighter than air pleated chiffons done in vertical stripes in a palette of cream, camel, brown, dusty rose and aqua. Pants and skirts sat boyishly low on the hips with wide belts, while blouses were a bit loose and boxy. That sexy, Chloe femininity was inserted by way of thigh high slits on dresses. Girly touches were added in floral prints on white button downs and shorts. Alexa Chung was a perfect poster-girl for the collection in the front row (though you might need her body to pull some of this stuff off).

PARIS--Every fashion season a few things are guaranteed: a model will fall, Anna Dello Russo will change outfits approximately 647,329 times, and a rumor will circulate that Stefano Pilati is out at YSL. This season was no exception. After the IHT's Suzy Menkes implied in an article that Jil Sander designer Raf Simons might someday be headed for YSL, Twitter and then the blogosphere (yep, that's us) buzzed with news that Simons was taking Pilati's place at YSL. YSL subsequently (this is old hat to them now) issued a statement disclaiming the the report. Last night, Pilati presented his spring 2012 collection for YSL through several ornate salons at the lavish Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild. It was a strong, confident, collection--firmly grounded in YSL's DNA, particularly in the jewel-toned color palette--and one that didn't hint at a designer shaken by rumors, or worse, on his way out. These were clothes for a lady of means, one who is maybe a little bored with her fancy life and who might be nasty to her waiter. She keeps her hair in a tight, low bun, cradled by a gold clip, and never lets her hair down. Her clothes are structured, especially in the shoulders, and voluminous; her pants are unforgivingly straight and skinny; and her skirts are stiff and flared, except, of course, when they're to the floor, paisley printed, and paired with a simple white blouse.

Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt. PARIS--On a divided stage--one side covered in red fabrics and the other in black--a model emerged from backstage onto a raised runway inside the Marcel Cerdan at Bercy. The model was in a purple tank dress with a long train that fell to the side and a massive circular top hat with bow. As she came towards the end of the platform, she pulled on the long train that fell to the side, posed, and turned and walked back. These gestures and her long flowing dress recalled memories of past Yohji Yamamoto shows, particularly those held at the Sorbonne in the late 1990’s.

Long Nguyen is the Co-Founder/Style Director of Flaunt. PARIS--Over the sounds of Argentinian music evoking the atmosphere of a morning in the Gaucho plains, Junya Watanabe sent out a stunning collection of romantic and emotional clothes early Saturday morning. The show started with deep colored lace transparent dresses with black spaghetti strap slips and ended with the most elegant transformation of the trench coat seen on any runway. But if there were any references to Argentina and its southern mythical plains so romanticized in literature, it was just the coming and going of the Spanish vocals on the soundtrack throughout the show, rather than any literal translation in the clothes.