Until this week I never really understood why Rodgers and Hart's musicals did especially well in tough times. Where's the gratification in watching others have more fun than you're having? But gosh, amid the profit warnings from retailers, estate agents and one's bank manager, it has been mightily enjoyable following the models as they glide, sway and sometimes hobble down the catwalk in dresses that take days to hand-stitch and shoes that are the work of not one but three collaborating artists.

It wasn't even a vintage set of couture shows, although Christian Lacroix again showed his genius as a colourist. Anyone who thinks that cutting up bits of fabric is a second-rate skill compared with surgery hasn't appreciated the way he makes chiffon stand to attention or takes the silhouettes of a James Tissot portrait and makes them look almost as comfortable as pyjamas - almost, for couture is not meant to be about comfort or practicality. It is fashion in its purest sense.

At £20,000 upwards I am unlikely ever to own a piece of Paris couture - and oh, what a relief. This is a spectator sport in which the only bottom line is a dress's length, and the only ethical dilemma is which fantasy outfit you jot down in your notebook. Catwalk-side at least, the world sure looks pretty.

RM by Roland Mouret

This isn't actually couture at all but, like many ready-to-wear designers who are muscling in on couture week with their pre-collections (or, as Americans call them, resort and cruise lines), Mouret has established a foothold in Paris. This is also reassuringly pricey, at about £1,200 for a day dress. And what lovely dresses they are - what we have come to expect from him but softer round the edges, with some of the beautiful draping with which he first made his name. The endless parade of high-waisted satin leggings were a little tiresome unless you happen to be an Eastern European model, but I am assured that these were just for the catwalk.

Givenchy

The first few models looked like the grim reaper on a particularly gloomy day, swaddled from crown to toenail in floor-length twisted and draped jersey dresses the colour of parched mud, with the occasional swampy loden coat heaped on top. Then, just when you thought about succumbing to a bout of depression, came bullets of purple or fuchsia that were as uplifting as electric shock treatment. Afghanistan, French strikes (this week, taxis) - something is getting Tisci down, and he turned to the military for inspiration. This sometimes proved fertile, with his usual precision-cut jackets that combined leather and boiled wools (far left, below). The baggy chaps-cum-boots will also be a hit - in French Vogue. But the real winner was his Peruvian-inspired cocoon-shaped knits. Watch out for a panpipes revival on the high street.

Valentino

What could be more daunting than following in the steps of a master who has been riding a crest for 40 years? OK, yes, brain surgery. War. Starvation. But 34-year-old Alessandra Facchinetti's first couture collection for the label was a triumph of talent over nerves all the same. It is pleasing - and rare - to see a designer steep herself in the spirit of a house without tipping into slavish imitation or caricature. Facchinetti took all the Valentino talismans - the bell-skirted suits, lace cocktail dresses and flowing evening columns - and exaggerated them in keeping with today's more extreme sensibilities. A curved shoulder here, a futuristic padded skirt or jacket there: this was a clever synthesis of the familiar and the modern.

Elie Saab

This may be the closest the Beirut-based designer has ever come to casual - but what the heck, this is couture. If Madame would like to order it as a lilac shorts romper suit, that is Madame's prerogative. Let us be clear, Saab's couture is to Lacroix what Waitrose's sparkling wine is to French champagne. But sometimes sparkling wine is what you need, and Saab goes down a storm with the home crowd and Hollywood celebs who like a lot of bang for their buck - which explains why he is probably the world's most commercially successful couturier.

Christian Lacroix

Please overlook the crazy tights and instead study the colours in a camel chiffon pleated column dress that ran into coral at the hem like a melting knickerbocker glory; contemplate the talent of a designer who can transform a Victorian corset and bustle into something so soft that you could almost wear it to bed; imagine the sheer single-mindedness of creating all this beauty while knowing deep down that half the world wants to live in a one-size-fits-all tracksuit and of the rest, 49.999 per cent would be unable to afford your frocks in 97 lifetimes ... and you can detect a kind of noble suffering in the life of a couturier.

Roger Vivier

One shoe took three days to make, and a shoe-boot smothered with rosettes was a collaboration between three artists. Which made me think that, if I were to stump up the cash, I'd have to display these on a shelf and never wear them for fear of getting a heel stuck in a grate. But then, as someone much more glamorously hedonistic than I am pointed out, everything has to die eventually. Poetic footwear: irresistible, I'd say.

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