Elie Saab went back to the garden for Spring. "A Lace Garden," he called it. There were scads of the stuff in his pretty collection today, all in the colors of flowers: camellia white, rosy pink, bright bougainvillea, and a vivid green. To see this show was to be reminded of how commonplace sheer fabrics and views of the bare skin underneath have become on the runways, even while they're still scandalously off-limits on the red carpets. Points to Saab's stylist for finding ways to make the see-through lace look discreet; lingerie could become a growth market for the designer. Saab gave his filigreed dresses a graphic edge this season with the grosgrain ribbon he used to trim seams. Also new: not one, but two prints. It's rare to see anything but monochrome on Saab's runway, but here, colorful roses appeared on the hem of a white party dress and the neckline of a white jumpsuit. There was also a black and white chiaroscuro lace dotted with more flowers that decorated gowns from bust to hem. The chiaroscuro came out ahead. Even if the color black doesn't have much place in a rose garden, the black lace dresses at the end of Saab's collection stole the show. A halter style that alternated horizontal bands of silk crepe and lace was gorgeous, but getting back to that attractive sense of discretion, the best-looking dress was opaque everywhere except for its lace sleeves.

BRAND: ELIE SAAB  |  ELIE SAAB OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Chloe has become the go-to place for a certain girl’s wardrobe, for something polished with punch. An English, boyish discipline added to the French finesse of the house has been in the ascendant. But today the concentration moved more toward the French side, and the more overtly feminine feel of a certain kind of French style. The music might have been loud drum and bass, with all of its hard, mid-nineties London connotations, but this collection felt decidedly rooted in Paris.

“A girl more sensual than before” is how Clare Waight Keller, the creative director of Chloé, defined the muse of her new collection. Softening the boyish toughness she has introduced at the house while not completely eliminating it had been the goal, and she largely succeeded.

Waight Keller seemed primarily concerned with making her point through fabric choices: “A sense of sensuality through transparency,” she said before her show. And there were indeed great fabrics in the collection: super-matte georgette; a patchwork jacquard; light quilting; a rough, more geometric lace. They all added to a certain sense of tough sensuality for the season, as did the more angular silhouettes.

Yes, tight accordion pleats were in evidence in this collection, too. This is the season of the Pleats, Please revival—after it had been Pleats, No Thanks for years. But the Chloé pleated garments were some of the best around. Among the strongest pieces were the tapered-leg khaki trousers with ankle ties, the khaki dress defined by Waight Keller as “flag shaped” with a deep V, and the inset pleats featured in a blue patterned dress, giving a dynamic effect. And the most sensual garment of the collection was pleated, too—a white dress with arm ties, split high at the sides, worn with silk cami-knicker-style shorts. Clare Waight Keller has not produced anything quite that sexy before.

If this collection didn’t quite reach the heights of last season, it really shined in its more boyish and playful moments, such as in the final inset-chain pieces. Overall, it was another accomplished offering at the house, and Chloe’s consistency is no mean feat.

BRAND: CHLOE  |  CHLOE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Back to the Tennis Club de Paris today to see what Phoebe Philo's Celine woman has been up to. And, according to the mood book on each brightly colored, blocky seat, she has been looking at graffiti—not just any graffiti, but graffiti through the medium of Brassaï's photographs, obviously. In the primal black and white images of street art found in the city of Paris there was a distinct clue to the mood of the collection.

As the first vividly hued silhouettes emerged, the models walking at a brisk clip to the underlying beat of George Michael's "Freedom," the feeling was bold, bold as Brassaï, if you will. But this wasn't to be a retread of a famous Versace moment. The overlocking song was that Soul II Soul staple "Back to Life," put through something of the wringer, with all its lazy, hazy connotations of summer in the late eighties. And the collection, too, had the immediacy of that song—and perhaps a bit of a debt to the band's former shop in Camden, where leather Africa pendants were sold in large quantities.

The color palette had that late-eighties feel of something primary, urgent, graphic. Giant strokes and squiggles dominated in tailored T-shirt shapes over striped sunray pleats. At first, the Céline woman was like a Tony Viramontes illustration sprung to life. But what gave the clothes a real third dimension was the fabric experimentation; here, woven jacquards and knits dominated over prints and were beautifully done. The Céline woman became more intriguing, though, in her embrace of a certain ragga style in the elongated string vest looks, especially when these were layered with a yellow jumper tied around the waist just so. Then she was out of the dance hall and on. Like we said: brisk clip. Yet, the last eight looks were the best of the collection. They didn't feel as if they were in the sway of any history or reference point. Utilizing the large T-shirt silhouette, with a cutout in an abstract, metal-rimmed shape revealing the contrasting tunics layered underneath, then ending in a burst of cheesecloth skirt, these particular looks were outstanding.

Perhaps the undercurrent of sensual perversity of the last two seasons has dissipated from the Céline woman this time. But it seems she will never be that uptight or controlled again; this show was free, easy, and fun. This mood might be familiar, having already been set in motion by Dior's Couture collection earlier this year (fashion's tribes are clearly in the ascendant this season), but it also felt like a collection sprung from real life, from real experiences with a teenage immediacy. Philo defined it as being about "power to women. It was inspired by lots and lots of feelings. It felt like the right time to move on. I never really analyze; it is just what is there inside." And perhaps that's the real power of the Celine woman now: She comes from the heart, not the head.

BRAND: CELINE  |  CELINE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Like many designers, Carven's Guillaume Henry was preoccupied with the nineties this season. And he found an appealing angle into the era, conjuring not its sneering riot grrrls but its sweethearts. "I was thinking about the girls I went to college with, first of all," Henry explained after the show, "but then also about women like Drew Barrymore and Liv Tyler. There was something tough about them, but they also seemed upbeat and approachable." Henry certainly got at the upbeat-ness, what with his bright florals, gingham check, and frisson of rodeo chic. And certain of his pieces, like the buttoned, waistband-free skirts, had a real cool-girl authority. But this collection wasn't entirely convincing. For one thing, the inflated volumes of the jackets came off forced, especially alongside so many trimmer looks that felt fresher. Another quibble was with Henry's emphasis on curvilinear matte-crystal embroidery that read as a bit carbuncular (though the way it had been worked into the garments was impressive when seen up close). More generally, though, Henry just succeeded too well at reanimating the hip mall-rat chick of the late nineties, and fell a touch too short at elevating the reference for the runway. That said, there were plenty of items here that ought to sell like hotcakes, starting with those buttoned skirts and ending with the bow-tied slingback platforms.

BRAND: CARVEN  |  CARVEN OFFICIAL WEBSITE

After a Fall collection that spectacularly starred a Frenchwoman on a rendezvous with romance, Christophe Lemaire took Hermes into the jungle for Spring. He's not the first designer to inject steam heat into his show this week, but given last season's scenario, it was hard to resist the notion that Lemaire's woman was on the run now, hiding in Brazil or Vietnam from her love gone wrong.

Lemaire's big influence was Henri Rousseau, the Frenchman who painted jungles without ever having seen them. The pendulous flora of Rousseau's work were duplicated in the print that opened the show, with boots to match. The artist's dark jungle green colored tops, shifts, crocodile culottes, and a wrapped leather coat. It was, in fact, color that marched this collection on: mulberry, teal, sky blue, sunset orange—intense shades that were new to Lemaire's formerly neutral world. He applied them to long fluid shapes, ideal for a woman who values anonymity above all else. The mulberry jumpsuit paired with flip-flops? No chance anyone on the run will attract attention in that.

Still, as Lemaire pointed out, the Hermès woman is a traveler, an adventuress. In that spirit, the easiness of this collection made sense. Nothing more complicated than a voluminous shirt over a suede skirt, a generously cut linen suit, a blanket-weave wrap skirt. But this is, after all, Hermès, so there was also a pencil skirt in mustard croc, as casually tied as if someone had whipped a man's tie around its waist, or a petrol blue leather blazer draped over a teal blouse and a purple skirt in a symphony of Ackermann-like color. They seemed like the very essence of hiding in plain sight, like Malgosia Bela's appearance at the end of the show—white shirt, high-waisted pleated white pants, and a sense of chic malevolence. Lemaire can sure spin a story.

BRAND: HERMES  |  HERMES OFFICIAL WEBSITE

On the final day of a week of Paris shows that saw designers asserting their identities, yet at the same time pushing themselves and going against the grain, we come to the one who is always doing this: Miuccia Prada.

In the Miu Miu collection she showed today, she did not disappoint. It was the companion piece to her Prada presentation, in its rebellious view of femininity, yet here, it was the clichés and classics of the feminine that were explored and presented as perverse. "Anything that is classic, a repeat in history, a genre of woman or clothes that always comes about," defined the designer after her show. "Classics, classics of trash, classics of chic, classics of the good girl, classics of the bad girl."

These classics ran from the children's coat scaled for the grown woman to the bugle-beaded bustier of the showgirl. "There is the showgirl, Cher. The use of something so trendy now, like that classic cut of a sixties coat, the eighties balloon dress, mixing them all at once," Prada said. Pretty and perverse happened simultaneously, with immaculate wool coats and thick vinyl skirts in off-pastel shades against vivid thick wool tights, the kind that children wear, and boiled sweet Mary Janes. Mischievously sick. A bit like Courtney Love's "kinder whore" period but pristine, taken to the nth degree, with none of the grunge nostalgia. Of course, Love's femininity is yet another classic archetype on repeat.

In the spectacularly transformed Palais d'Iéna—altered again by Rem Koolhaas' OMA—different kinds of interior worlds stood for these versions of femininity all at once. They ranged from the children's room, with its pussycat wallpaper—a design to be found on jacquards, prints, and embroideries on both clothes and boots—to the classic Milanese parquet flooring, Perspex seating, and shelving—echoed in the chokers worn by the models—to the gigantic Panton chandelier.

"I asked myself, What is classic? Why does it become classic?" explained Prada. "People think that it is romance, but that's not it—it is something instinctive. Why do women like pink and bows? I am always very intrigued by what attracts people so much."

Prada enjoys presenting something slightly off. Underneath a candy coating there is often a lurking sense of something wrong. She is frequently hailed as the intellectual fashion designer—but this is almost damning and marginalizing for someone who enjoys slipping infectious ideas into the mainstream and ultimately works so brilliantly on instinct. Her aim is always to connect to her audience on an immediate level. That's why what she presents registers with people so readily, not only in the mind but in the gut as well, with a slight current of sickness and misapprehension underneath. That attraction and repulsion makes her output even more seductive, of course. Prada anticipates, giving people what they want—but not what they think they want.

BRAND: MIU MIU  |  MIU MIU OFFICIAL WEBSITE