I began with a very simple idea: a man's jacket on a woman," muses Giorgio Armani, looking back on the 1975 collection that launched the last real change of direction in women's fashion. It was a simple idea, but maybe not all that simple. What the Milan master did was remove the structure--the shoulder pads, defining seams and skirting--from the garment and just let it fall gently from the shoulders.

How complex are the consequences of that little reduction! Pursuing his idea, Armani came up with the first chic style for the burgeoning numbers of working women: a softly tailored suit that was mercifully minus the power shoulders and the man's tie. Born were the careers of Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and numerous others. (At the opposite end of the scale, grunge came along--no construction at all, and often no grooming either.) Armani, 61, can also take some credit for such influential younger designers as Miuccia Prada, Helmut Lang and Jil Sander, who have their own subtly different takes on these high-tech times.

But fashion craves change, and variety has reasserted itself on the Continent. Armani is not happy about some of what he sees. "Even some very young actresses are falling back into old ways, even things from the '50s," he complains. Decoration has reappeared. Construction is back. Even Armani is putting some structure into his work, fitting the torso rather than hanging the garment from the shoulders. He is also doing more outright dressy clothes. "I want to meet all a woman's desires," he says. "The day I'm just a tailleur, I'm through."

That is the '90s spirit: no uniforms, no caveats, but a refreshing emphasis on meticulous styling. You can knock on Christian Lacroix's door and glimpse luxe worthy of the court at Versailles, knock on Gianni Versace's and see a laboratory for the future, on Jean-Paul Gaultier's and discover a true paradox--fastidiously tailored punk. Amid the baroque diversity, the greatest irony of all: the very clothes that caused Armani to rebel against constraint in the first place are back in force: the classic suits and jacket dresses, the immaculate shifts Audrey and Jackie set '60s style with. Says Armani: "I began to create because those styles put a woman in a box. To wear them, you had to be Hepburn and have her important face."

Though Hepburn is gone, the boxes are back, nowhere more prominently than at Chanel, where Karl Lagerfeld did dozens for both his fall couture and ready-to-wear. Astonishingly prolific and versatile--he is fashion's chameleon--Lagerfeld only a year ago was pushing every extreme he could think of, which is quite a lot. But responding to a dolorous market, he has reversed himself. Now if a woman has $3,600 for ready-to-wear, or about $25,000 for a couture version, this is the year to buy a classic Chanel suit. He is also showing the prototype for what may be the new uniform for the successful woman: a wool dress in which the squared lines and classic trim of a Chanel suit have been streamlined. (Never one to resist a jape, Lagerfeld sent five models out wearing them in white as a wedding dress to the tune of I Want Money. Joke: the five millionaire mannequins are residents of Monaco, the well-known tax haven.)

Versace began his year showing suits and shifts in the same formal spirit. This was a turnabout just as abrupt as Lagerfeld's. But this restless Milanese spirit cannot stay still for long. For his fall couture, it was as if Versace had just heard the ancient clicha about couture being "the laboratory of fashion" and had taken it seriously. At the outset, every outfit was white and severe, bearing a strong resemblance to the toiles, or muslin patterns, that designers use in the early stages of a costume. The effect was underscored by the designer's brash use of plastic--hardly a couture fabric. It seems that Professor Versace set out to give instruction on the art of the seam. Like roads on a map, they were everywhere--bordered, reinforced, turned into zippers--defining the body. It was a serious but not very buoyant approach. At the end of the show, all the models came out in the very same dresses, only in scarlet, underscoring the test-tube atmosphere of the earlier exercise. It also underscored Versace's debt to the arrowy, tidy chic of Andre Courreges, another '60s revenant.

Despite the retrospection, there is hardly a designer these days who does not profess to be leading fashion into the 21st century. Except Christian Lacroix: with ever increasing poise, he continues his painterly ruminations on the past. Lacroix's business is expected to turn its first profit next year, a result of the success of his less expensive secondary lines. But in his soul he is a couturier. His imagination is stocked with myriad details from costume history, and unlike some others who ransack the past, Lacroix makes the connections that work in contemporary dress. His latest show presented fantasy on the grandest scale, as well as some surprises. Known as a colorist, he opted for lots of black. In one astounding creation, he managed six shades of it by the masterly use of six materials: grain de poudre, moire, velvet, duchesse satin, leather and Chantilly lace. A bravura performance.

In Lacroix, and perhaps Galliano as well, the old grandeur of couture--whether defined strictly as handmade garments or more loosely as high style--will probably find a future. But the clock stopped last July when Hubert de Givenchy showed his final couture collection. Everyone, from his couture competitors to people who have never worn even a scarf of his, felt that fashion had been diminished. He says that the time has come to go, that the only colleague for whose work he has real feeling is Yves Saint Laurent. Lucky Yves will doubtless add many of Givenchy's private clientele to his own lengthy list. While the industry enters its third decade of rumors about his failing health, Saint Laurent soldiers on, producing wave after wave of beautiful clothes. At Dior, the story is much the same: not since 1962, when Saint Laurent left the house at age 26, has it grabbed many headlines, but designer Gianfranco Ferra's latest collection is a good example of how a veteran keeps challenging himself. Ferre turned to the art of Cezanne, who is the subject of a major retrospective in Paris. This master has little to say to fashion; social situations rarely interested him. Ferra's best inspiration came in cocktail and evening clothes in rich, bottomless colors, especially an exhilarating range of blues.

Most of the fashion story in recent years has been of retrenchment, overproduction and a demanding, value-driven customer. This finally should have killed off couture, but it has not--far from it. As women become more interested in shaped, detailed clothing, they are more interested in the ultimate in fine workmanship: couture. The market is not expanding. Most estimates indicate that there are about 1,500 customers worldwide who buy it with any regularity. But two factors are contributing to its new prominence. One involves its very unattainability, which has led to inventive compromise. Many houses are now producing luxurious, partly handmade outfits, especially for cocktails and evening, priced between $3,000 and $26,000, according to the amount of beading. Valentino, Lacroix, Armani (whose "dressy" output now rivals Paris') and others are finding that these bonbons bring in new customers. When the job is done right, it takes a trained eye to tell the difference.

The other reason is more elusive. Couture has become desirable to a younger group of wealthy people, including a new generation of royalty, and the "royalty'' of show biz. It began with the Princess of Wales, who can make any rag look like couture. Viscountess Linley, 25, Princess Margaret's pretty daughter-in-law, is fashion mad, and mad to be photographed. This year has seen two huge, elaborate weddings--a boon to couturiers. Infanta Elena of Spain's and Prince Pavlos of Greece's to a rich American, Marie-Chantal Miller, both brought young royals clad in couture before the camera. For the latter wedding, Valentino alone made 62 costumes, including the bride's. Whatever the sociology behind the new craze for grand weddings that are not publicity stunts, it is good for fashion.

Show-biz royalty has always spent heavily on adornment, but little of that strutting-around money went to couture. Many a Croesus-rich star would be terrified to knock on Yves Saint Laurent's door. But things are lightening up. It probably began when Armani invaded Hollywood. But the real loosening occurred with the rise of supermodels. Here was a kind of celebrity show biz that millionaires could relate to: gorgeous women, soaking up publicity and looking like a million dollars in splendiferous, nontarty costumes. Actresses Marisa Tomei, Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Hurley and Ellen Barkin are among those who dress up in couture.

Couture will probably be a major beneficiary of the diversity ruling fashion today. A heightening of interest in fine crafting and creative originality, rather than mass-produced inspiration, should direct to couture the audience it needs. Lagerfeld is selling to wealthy young people in a huge price range, from purses and shades to bejeweled ball gowns. Givenchy hired Galliano to work the same entrepreneurial magic. What the fashion industry hopes is that the freedom these customers feel in buying couture here, Gap there, will spread. Never has there been so much to choose from.

--With reporting by Dorie Denbigh/Paris