From Paris Couture Fashion Week, the Shape in Things to Come

Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

I LOVE THE DEBATE here on the blog about the Dior show and whether Raf Simons's haute couture collection broke contemporary ground. The comments range from 'bo-ring' and 'failed experiment' to accolades from longtime blog regulars Marko, E. Frantz and Augustuzs Neto, who said of Mr. Simons's efforts: 'This is the apex of fashion designing, true designing. The man should get a statue on the Ave. Montaigne in recognition for such extraordinary and massive achievements.'

Obviously I agree that Mr. Simons did something bold, even though the format of the show (projecting images of the clothes by four different photographers on the walls of the venue) distracted from his point of individual choice and a more realistic view of couture. And as the couture shows progressed, I kept hearing more grumblings in the ranks. Which made me think: What do people want? The same old shapes hauled out of archives and dusted off with expensive embroidery?

If you base couture solely on visual brilliance and the notion that a woman should be able to get her money's worth, because the razzle-dazzle is all there for people to see, then you're missing the point. Couture is fundamentally what you don't see: the way a garment is constructed, the reason it's done by hand, and how that literally gives shape to fashion. Half the battle for a modern couturier, I suspect, is to give weight to the unseen, and to persuade others to do so as well.

At the end of the shows, my mind kept coming back to Dior and Mariacarla Boscono in a knee-length skirt and a creamy scarf-tied blouse, and on top a roomy coat in sheared dark mink with deep armholes. That outfit said it all: comfort, ease, self-assurance and chic indifference to the winds of fashion. And, whatever your opinion of fur, nobody else in Paris thought to cut a modern-looking coat like that.

I suspect that attitudes will gradually change.

In a way, the enigmatic Viktor & Rolf presentation addressed the problem. On an open platform, the designers had a bunch of models in free-form black dresses sit or lie down in groups, so that their forms resembled rocks, even boulders. The idea was simple and clever.

'Shape!' said a well-known art director on his way out, citing a foundation of couture, and adding with a laugh. 'I can't take any more flowers.' Indeed.