Living: When Paris Is Not Burning

It is quite possible that (plap) the fashion season of fall-winter 1988-89 (again, plap), still being presented this week in Paris, will be remembered less for design and more for sound effects: the dull, liquid thud (plap) made by the chins of dozens of the international fashion elite slumbering forward (plap) onto soft silk and welcoming cashmere (plap, plap) as models mosey down the runways in yet another sanguine incarnation of the new look. Ah, short skirts (plap), ah, mid-length skirts (plap), ah, pants are back (plap), ah, sleep.

Until Paris, went the chat among trade and press, the shows in Milan and London were a cumulative snooze-a-thon. Only Armani, in Italy, showed strength. The designers of England were, as ever, erratic and eccentric. There were signs of disappointment in retail reactions to the shows. Skirmishes over skirt length were blown, in the absence of any heavier action, into epic battles in a generally desperate attempt to bring heat to the placid proceedings. The short-skirt wrangle was a sure sign that the season was falling into something worse than a crisis. At least a critical condition can mean fever and ferment. This was looking more like fashion stasis. Paris was crucial. And Paris was not burning.

< It was up to Christian Lacroix, currently carrying the torch as the mainstream's brightest hope, to kindle some heat. Lacroix, who turned couture upside down and shook out its hand-stitched pockets as no one else has since Saint Laurent, made his ready-to-wear debut, and expectations were high. Lacroix had suggested, while the clothes were still being made, that the giddy shapes and botanical palate of his couture work were going to be a bit muted. But when the lights went up on the first passage, there was a mini-mob of models swarming together at the back of the runway wearing splendiferous coats and short dresses and hats all colored like condiments: mustard yellow, catsup red, hot dog-relish green and purple that looked as if it had come from an eggplant that had suffered a fatal injection of food dye. No plaps from the audience now. There were exclamations of glee and applause as the models swanked and swanned. If Lacroix wasn't staging a feast, it was clear he was laying on a nifty picnic.

Probably too much was expected of Lacroix. He propelled all manner of blinding prints down the runway and showed some inventive accessories, like the kind of mirrored purses backpackers bring back from Third World suqs. But the strain showed too. Some outfits, like a short ballerina-style skirt with a removable poofy apron, suggested that Lacroix was already feeling the weight of his considerable reputation and that it had already got too heavy just to shrug off. He was meeting his own standard, but not besting himself. He was, in a sense, just like every other designer this year: struggling with the challenge that his own success had set down.