PARIS — The sweet, soaring music filled the hall as Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons orchestrated an ode to women. In the vast space, the models, with tiny heads of rose-entwined hair, hefty mannish bomber jackets and long, light, translucent gypsy skirts, brought the Givenchy show to feminist life.
The collection that the designer Riccardo Tisci unveiled was as surprising as it was tough and tender — surprising because the cliché of Carmen and the feverish intensity of the wild gypsy was the opposite of these purposeful, pensive women walking the giant circle of a catwalk.
First out was a fawn: a Bambi figure rearing on the front of one of Mr. Tisci’s famous sweatshirts, worn with a slim, transparent beaded skirt. Then came zippered biker jackets with black chiffon skirts. Only flowered bangles at this stage suggested the breakout to come: the smothering of roses, as dense and florid as a summer garden, printed on jackets, mixed with plaid and in full bloom on a chiffon skirt frilled and flounced with Carmen red satin.
“It was about roses and gypsies and big skirts. I have been looking in the Givenchy archives and mine and I found a lot of things,” said Mr. Tisci backstage, receiving applause from his hip music supporters, including Kanye West and his partner Kim Kardashian.
If you looked into this cauldron of color and pattern, there were classic pieces, from a fur bomber jacket to a tiered black dress with its gypsy flounces contradicted by the pants beneath — that masculine/feminine thing again.
Mr. Tisci crammed in many things, from paisley prints in flame colors for a straight skirt with just a kick of a frill above the snaky patchwork calf-high boots. Or just a sweater and a long chiffon skirt.
But each piece had a message that the designer has reiterated since being named the house designer in 2005: a dual male/female sexuality with a hard undercurrent. But this time the collection was an homage not to the tough but to the tender.
Stella McCartney has grown up in the shadow of her famous father, receiving barbs and oblique comments that she would not be where she is without being who she is.
So how splendid that the rock royalty for her show on Monday included Paul McCartney, sitting next to Bono, while the youngest of her four children peeked out from the back. For this show was a triumph for Ms. McCartney, taking her to that magical fashion place where she has a distinct personality, vision and message. It could be summed up as a dynamic woman of today with a sporty energy who expects her clothes to work as hard as she does.
“I could wear everything on the runway,” said the designer backstage with her brood. But that might not always have been the case, for recently Ms. McCartney has chosen to divide her collections into different sections: business, Olympic influence, red carpet for Hollywood friends.
This time the collection was united in its approach. It started with pinstripes, that most mannish of materials, but the big, generous touch of the 1980s coats and dresses had a smart way of covering the body yet letting it undulate beneath. That male/female thing was perfectly expressed by plain jersey dresses inlaid with lace. The boyish, even child-like side of Ms. McCartney came through in a sporty outfit with cartoon writing spelling out “SKATE.”
The evening wear was perhaps a little weak, given that there wasn’t much except a violet dress gathered at the bust and a white tunic and pants. But with the red carpet turning into a yawn, even that approach was smart, showing a designer who is on the go and on the fashion mark.
As Giambattista Valli had the cream of the young European socialites front row at his show on Monday, and as his other day job is to create designs for the snow brand Moncler, it is not surprising that those two colors — cream and white — were at the fore in his winter collection.
Both the opening outfits of white sporty jackets with draped cream chiffon skirts and the beautiful ending of the same shades in a long gown showed a fresh sporty side to Mr. Valli, who said backstage that he wanted to think about boys and girls walking together — referring both to a duo on the subway and to mixed masculine and feminine fabrics.
The designer’s show on Monday was the semiofficial start of couturiers showing ready-to-wear in this second Paris fashion week. And with this collection, Mr. Valli proved that he has a divide-and-rule policy about his different lines that is working very well.
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